I began my involvement with holography at the end of the 1970s but started collecting seriously around 1990. The works in the collection cover a period of over 30 years and it is particularly strong in holograms from the UK and United States.

By the time I first encountered the medium, there were already a few well-established holographic artists: Margaret Benyon, Harriet Casdin-Silver, Sam Moree, Dan Schweitzer, Rudie Berkhout, Anaït. All, apart from Margaret, who was in Australia, working in the United States. Gradually I got to hear of others: John Kaufman, Bill Molteni, Randy James, Rick Silberman, Ana Maria Nicholson, Doris Vila, Lon Moore, Larry Lieberman. And over the years I would get to meet them all, either by making what I got to think of as Holo Safaris, tracking down the artists in their studios on the East and West Coasts, or, eventually, at conferences like the International Symposium for Display Holography at Lake Forest.

During the 1980s, the holographic art scene in the UK, where I live, began to develop, fostered by the workshops run by Michael Wenyon and Susan Gamble at Goldsmiths College, Edwina Orr and David Trayner’s Richmond Holographic Studios and, by the mid ‘80s, the Royal College of Art Holography Unit. Andrew Pepper, Martin Richardson, Patrick Boyd, Jon Mitton, Caroline Palmer, Susan Cowles and Jeffrey Robb were amongst those who made holography their medium of choice and, when I began to collect in earnest during the 1990s, it was their work on which I first focussed, along with that of Margaret Benyon who was, by now, living back in England.

Since then I have widened my remit considerably and my intention with this website is to have a database illustrating some of the best holographic art & design, available as a source of reference for those interested in making, collecting or just looking at holograms. I know from exhibiting the collection the delight that holography can deliver and I want to share that with as wide an audience as possible.  Looking at a picture of a hologram on your computer monitor will not communicate a fraction of the actual experience but I hope it might encourage you to seek out the real thing, wherever it is to be found.

Jonathan Ross
London 2013

Illustration: Interference Box 1969, Margaret Benyon 7" x 5" laser transmission hologram. The earliest work in the collection.