Alexander Bassano

Alexander Bassano
Self portrait, c. 1890s
Born	Alessandro Bassano (1829-05-01)1 May 1829 London, England
Died	21 October 1913(1913-10-21) (aged 84) West Acton, London
Occupation	Photographer

Alexander Bassano (10 May 1829 – 21 October 1913) was an English photographer who was a leading royal and high society portrait photographer in Victorian London. His most famous photo was the one of Earl Kitchener in the Lord Kitchener Wants You army recruitment poster during the First World War.

Alessandro Bassano was the second youngest child of Italian Clemente Bassano, originally a fishmonger of Cranbourne Street, later an oilman and warehouseman of Jermyn Street, London, and his English wife, Elizabeth Browne. He later anglicised his first name to Alexander.

Bassano received early artistic training with artists Augustus Egg and William Beverley. He opened his first studio in 1850 in Regent Street. The studio then moved to Piccadilly 1859-1863, to Pall Mall and then to 25 Old Bond Street in 1877. There was also a Bassano branch studio at 132 King's Road, Brighton from 1893 to 1899.

The Old Bond Street studio was decorated with carbon photographic prints and plaster busts, and was large enough to accommodate an 80-foot panoramic background scene mounted on rollers, which provided a variety of outdoor scenes or court backgrounds. He had taken portraits of William Ewart Gladstone and even Queen Victoria. Bassano's head of Lord Kitchener formed the basis of the First World war recruiting poster Your Country Needs You. Bassano retired from work at the studio around 1903, when the premises were extensively refurbished and relaunched as "Bassano Ltd, Royal Photographers".