A bestselling book of her pictures, THE VISITORS, is published by Dewi Lewis Publishing, and is available - as are magnificently framed prints of her latest work - from the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, 28 Charlotte Street, London W1T 6BA (tel: 0207 255 2828) near Tottenham Court Road or Goodge Street tube stations.  Or the book can be obtained at Waterstones, on Amazon etc  Her Artists' Playing cards are available from the Barbican Art Gallery and various design shops - see www.charlottecory.com

'Cartes-de-visite' photographic calling cards were a Victorian craze.  It was called 'cartomania'.  Millions were made and are now so commonplace discarded in junk shops that they are almost worthless but can there be anything more touching than a person got up in their best bib and tucker, preserved for a posterity that is no longer interested?  The fading sepia invariably made sorrier, and more sepia by the magniloquent claims of the photographer printed on the back - often in French to enhance the aura of artistry:  "Les cliches sont conserves";  "Negatives always kept";  "Copies can always be had".  So, Iask sarcastically as i peer into the picture - (who were they?  why did they choose this hat, that brooch?  look at the carpet, the drapery, the exuberantly painted backdrop) - where are the cliches now?  How, exactly, may copies always be had?

And yet there is something sadder:  stuffed animals in museums, shot long ago not on glass plates but with guns, their very bodies likewise preserved for posterity to gawk at.  where did this moth-eaten tiger sniff his last antelope, over what distant verdure did that dusty parrot flap tremulous emerald wings?  One day it came to me:  why not RECYCLE the dispossessed pictures and the long dead creatures.  Grant them all a new lease of life.  Better, more colourful, more deserving than before. ...