Although this may seem a somewhat arbitrary period to choose as the basis for an exhibition, it does in fact cover a great many changes in photography, both technically and in context with the wider social changes that were taking place during that time.
The coronation in 1953, ushered in the New Elizabethan Age and there was a general feeling that a time of peace and increasing prosperity was really possible. By the early sixties enough people believed Macmillan when he told us 'You've never had it so good' to secure another term for the Tories. It was a time when the young began to have real earning power and this was reflected in the fashions of the times and in the changing face of the magazines. Picture Post finally closed but Hulton's nephew Jocelyn Stephens bought the formerly staid Queen magazine and with the inestimable help of Mark Boxer as Art Editor turned it into the liveliest of the new glossies, using photography and type in a quite revolutionary manner. Man About Town went through several changes to emerge as Town where Tom Wolsey weaved a similar if different magic and together with other magazines such as Go and Topic which came and went during this period, there were an increasing number of places where both news and fashion photographers could find an outlet for their work.
At the other end of the market changes also took place, Titbits, Reveille; and the fan magazines, Valentine and Mirabelle changed and appeared, and the music press also became more of an outlet for different approaches with first a jazz revival and then the coming of The Beatles, Stones and Rock & Roll.
By the end of the period, The Sunday Times, Observer and Telegraph had all launched their colour magazines which in the early days really did give space to four and six page spreads of photographs as the rule rather than the exception. Commercial television had started in 1955, and it was some time before the advertising photographs in these magazines began to take the lead away from editorial but, from quite early on, it was another outlet for both the art directors and photographers working in this field.
Installation Shots
The technical advance in cameras, and in printing techniques and also the introduction of Letraset made the processes both easier and more varied, and although when the Sunday magazines began some of the established photographers had problems with colour, those who came to terms with it found an increasing market both here and on the continent. There were of course outside influences both from America and Europe, British Photography did not exist in a vacuum. Twen and Elle from the Continent and Life, Look and Holiday from the United States were certainly seen and absorbed by the art directors, and there were a number of foreign photographers used in all the magazines. For the purpose of the exhibition, however, we are showing these simply in magazine format because although we are using all the Gallery spaces it is still not possible to cover even all the British photographers working successfully during the period.
The way people came into photography also expanded during this time. The traditional way of starting as a lab boy or an apprentice in a studio certainly continued, and some of the best photographers, Bailey, Duffy and Donovan all began their working lives as assistants to established photographers; while Terry Fincher had started at the Keystone Agency and went from there to the Daily Herald, and the Daily Express in 1961.
At the same time, there was an influx of people who had been through National Service and then to University but once graduated did not go into the Civil Service or the accepted professions, but instead tried immediately to work in Fleet Street, Philip Jones Griffiths, David Hurn, Bryn Campbell and John Bulmer were among these, and I don't think their reasoning was that it was 'more fun' or more exciting. It is really only the children born and brought up in the sixties and seventies who feel that all jobs must be 'interesting' before everything else. If there was any consistency in their approach it seems more likely to have been a feeling that through photography you could really show things as they were and possibly change the world. An idealistic idea certainly, but not particularly self-centred and certainly confirmed in several cases by visits to the Family of Man exhibition which was brought to England by Picture Post and the U.S. Information Service in 1957 and which almost a whole generation of photographers saw and were inspired by.
Established photographers such as Bert Hardy and Norman Parkinson were of course continuing to work. Bert in fact decided to turn his talents to advertising after Picture Post closed and for five years worked on many famous campaigns. It was a time when the reportage approach to advertising was very popular and Bert hardly ever used professional models, preferring to involve friends and neighbours - and the occasional art director
While all this newspaper and magazine photography was going on, and was probably the most generally visible to all, there was a continuing base of personal work which occasionally resulted in books, though to nothing like the extent it does today. For that very reason the publishing of Bill Brandt's book, Perspective of Nudes made with his wide angle camera was a major event, even though it sold very badly in England at the time. Roger Mayne produced some of the best street pictures of children ever made and Tony Armstrong Jones published his book on London pushing the film to achieve the grainy texture that he made so much his own with his exciting photographs of the theatre and dance.
At the beginning of the period most photographers were craftsmen, workers who were proud to be able to take all kinds of pictures, news or advertising, fashion or portraits; it was a result of the changing social scene that turned some of them into heroes, household names, by the end of the sixties. It did not only happen to them, there is a parallel in the music business also. Most people didn't bother about the names of the fifties big band as long as they played in time. If a small group of Victor Sylvester's musicians played after hours jazz, few people knew about it! Once Rock & Roll took over, its heroes emerged from among the 'three chord merchants' and made enough money to splash about in the social whirl and get written up in the diary pages as well as the music press.
In photography there was certainly more money, but also an increasing specialisation - people like their heroes to be the greatest fashion, advertising or war photographer and of course it made it easier for the buyers, be they art directors or art editors to know who to commission for any given assignment. For photographers it is a two-edged sword, and boredom with being type-cast is possibly one reason for several of them undertaking an increasing amount of 'personal work'. It followed that by the end of the sixties the idea of photographers as artists began to take hold.
Most of the photographers in this exhibition have a healthy suspicion of being labelled 'artists', some of them regard it with a and some simply deny it. I would not dream of arguing with them, but only hope that they will agree with me that the ten years from 1955-65 was a great period for The Master Craftsmen.
The exhibition has been arranged in both galleries. In the Bill Brandt Room at No 8 the scene will be set with a Coffee Bar - meeting place for all the young of the fifties and will show spreads from newspapers and magazines, some important books and prints from a wide variety of photographers covering most kinds of photography. It will close with a mock-up of a Woollands Window, used as an archetype of the kind of fashion we all aspired to in the mid- sixties. The Portfolio Room in No 5 will contain magazines showing those which were the most influential at the time and the Tom Hopkinson Room will have a show of prints by five of the photographers in slightly more depth than is possible with the spreads. Snowdon, Roger Mayne, Duffy, John Bulmer and Don McCullin. All these photographers are of course working today, but the pictures here will all be from their very early years.
Written by Sue Davies
List of Photographers
Eric Auerbach, David Bailey, Cecil Beaton, Ian Berry, Jane Bown, Brian Brake, Bill Brandt, John Bulmer, Larry Burrows, Bryn Campbell, John Chillingworth, Eric de Mare, Terence Donovan, Brian Duffy, Norman Eales, Terry Fincher, Graham Finlayson, John French, Len Fulford, Zoltan Glass, Bert Hardy, Thurston Hopkins, David Hurn, Philip Jones-Griffiths, Ida Karr, Peter Keen, Tom Kublin, Terry le Goubin, Sandra Lousada, Roger Mayne, Angus McBean, Don McCullin, David Moore, Raymond Moore, Lewis Morley, Walter Nurnberg, Norman Parkinson, John Rawlings, George Rodger, Houston Rogers, John Sadovy, Edwin Smith, Lord Snowdon, Terry Spencer, Ron Traeger, Patrick Ward, Ian Yeomans & Baron Robert Freeman.
View the exhibition catalogue (pdf)
For further information on this and past exhibitions, visit our Archive and Study Room.