Background
Keene was the son of Richard Keene and Priscilla Kimpton, born in London on 15 May 1825. At the age of three, Keene moved with his family to Derby when his father became the manager of Frost"s Silk Mill.
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Richard Keene
Edit ProfileEducation
He was educated at Thomas Swanwick"s Academy and then at Matthew Spencer"s Academy in Derby before becoming an apprentice to Thomas Richardson & Sons, printers in Ashbourne, Derbyshire.
Career
He subsequently went to work in their London offices before working for Simpkin Marshall & Company publishers and booksellers. He died at his home in Derby in December 1894. In 1851 Keene returned to Derby from London to set up as a printer, publisher and bookseller in Irongate under the name Richard Keene and Company
He had an early interest in photography and began taking and selling photographs of Derby and Derbyshire and before long photography became the mainstay of his business.
Keene established a portrait studio and "Repository of Arts" selling photographs prints and stereoscopic viewers. These are usually credited as ‘By John Warwick, Published by Richard Keene’.
Keene gave an account of his early photographic work with Warwick in a later lecture, which is reprinted in Maxwell Craven"s biography of Keene. In this he makes clear that this early stereoscopic work was a joint enterprise between the two mentor
Fellow members included Henry Peach Robinson, Frank Sutcliffe and Alfred Stieglitz.
Through this organisation and the Photographic Convention he had regular contact with some of the most prominent and successful photographers of the day.
Achievements
Membership
He was a founding member of The Derby Photographic Society in 1884 and the Photographic Convention of the United Kingdom in 1886 as well as being an early member of The Linked Ring. He was also a founding member of the Photographic Convention of the United Kingdom which held its inaugural convention in Derby in 1886. He was invited to become a member of The Linked Ring, an exclusive group of photographers committed to promoting artistic principles in photography.
