If you’ve ever wondered what the perfect version of an everyday object looks like, you can see it in person at Robert Young Antiques in London this October. A collaboration and passion project between the gallery’s namesake, Robert Young, a leading specialist in vernacular antiques and folk art, and renowned photographer known for his works in tintype, Tif Hunter, OBJECT STORIES is a showcase of eight photographs of quotidian objects selected by Hunter from Young’s London home.
Young and Hunter’s friendship goes back forty years, and their work on this exhibition began about a decade ago when Hunter expressed a desire to photograph the everyday objects from Young’s home. Recontextualizing these objects was the next step. Hunter paired Young’s objects with found items around his own home in Herefordshire, bringing to fruition a collaboration that speaks about both life journeys.
For Young, his goal is to always highlight the evocative nature of antiques. He speaks of them as timeless and versatile, able to take on many stories and live many lives. The exhibition is comprised of eight pieces, 27 by 20 inches in dimension, each in a custom-made frame that is meant to complement the composition perfectly. For each image, three limited prints have been issued for sale.
Hunter’s inspiration is self-taught artists of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century still lives. Eschewing his background in the commercial, high-octane world of advertising where perfection is prioritized, the focus of this project was to embrace the beauty in imperfection. Hunter was moved to create these images by works like Francisco de Zurbarán’s A Cup of Water and a Rose in a Plate of Silver. Keeping the process organic, none of the compositions are meant to look contrived. They are to bestow narratives that borrow from times gone by.
Each photograph is a composite of about fifty different images of the object. They are all photographed in natural light (with the presence of the north light being a reliable source in Hunter’s studio every day) and assembled by Hunter to create an impossible image that would never exist in real life. It truly evokes a different way of seeing. Expressing frustration with the limitations of depth of focus in archaic photographic methods, this project has been a way to bring to the forefront every aspect of an object, presenting it in a way a painter of still lives would.
At their core, these images aim to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. Objects we might recognize as everyday on a smaller scale are magnified beyond their actual physical dimensions. Young speaks of these compositions as concentrated versions of the objects that they represent. “A perfume smells more like the thing it’s supposed to smell like” and Hunter’s compositions are delicious enough to bottle for posterity.
“OBJECT STORIES.” Exhibition of photography by Tif Hunter Robert Young Antiques. October 17 – November 1, 2025. https://www.robertyoungantiques.com/
