Notebook Reliefs - Bread

These twelve anonymous photographs are drawn from a collection of around forty black-and-white and color images depicting British and Irish loaves and slices of bread. They illustrate The Book of Bread by Owen Simmons, published in 1903 - a pioneering work in the chemistry of bread-making and, arguably, an early precursor to molecular gastronomy. Across more than 400 pages and seven chapters, Simmons presents the findings of over 360 experiments of his own. The book’s illustrations have been praised by Martin Parr and other photographers as remarkably prescient, anticipating the conceptual art photography of the 1980s.