Herbert Richard Lambert

Place: London

Born: 1882

Death: 1936

Biography:

Herbert Richard Lambert, FRPS, (1882 – 7 March 1936) was a British portrait photographer known for his portrayals of professional musicians and composers including Gustav Holst. In 1923 he published Modern British Composers: Seventeen Portraits in collaboration with Sir Eugene Goossens, and in 1926, he became managing director of the Elliott & Fry portrait studio. In 1930, he published Studio portrait lighting, a technical guidebook. He is also responsible for salvaging much of the 19th-century photography of Henry Fox Talbot, by re-photographing the remains of Talbot's photographs. In addition to photography, Lambert was also an amateur maker of musical instruments, specialising in harpsichords and clavichords. In 1927, he lent a clavichord which he had built to Herbert Howells; Howells used it to compose a 12-piece collection, which he named 'Lambert's Clavichord'. Howells also introduced Lambert to Gerald Finzi, whose 1936 Interlude for oboe & string quartet, Op. 21 was inspired by Lambert. A Quaker, Lambert was imprisoned as a conscientious objector during the First World War. He lived in Combe Down, Bath, Somerset.