{"id":194552,"date":"2025-10-12T08:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T08:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/194552\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T08:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T08:36:10","slug":"review-picture-post-a-twentieth-century-icon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/194552\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Picture Post: A Twentieth Century Icon"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The iconic photograph of Richard Burton walking with his father, Dic Jenkins, across the Pontypridd aqueduct in Pontrhydyfen in 1953 from The Picture Post exhibition.<\/p>\n

Julie Brominicks<\/p>\n

I approached this exhibition with excitement and left it enriched and reflective; in short I\u2019d had an education.<\/p>\n

You know the magazine \u2013 black and white photography and a snappy red masthead. Yet shamefully, the only image I could muster in advance to have appeared in Picture Post was one by photojournalist Bert Hardy (1913-1995) of two white women in frocks on Blackpool Promenade, published in 1951.<\/p>\n

Although it does deliver on a vintage middleclass British aesthetic, this exhibition is about more than nostalgia. Leisure activities and celebrities were included in Picture Post and appear in the exhibition, but the magazine was far from parochial, being international in scope.<\/p>\n

Like its overseas counterparts such as Paris Match in France and Life in the US, Picture Post owed its existence to the largely left-wing Jewish photographic innovators escaping Germany in the 1930s.<\/p>\n

Co-curator Tom Allbeson, who is available for guided tours of the exhibition on request, explains that the photographers were European \u00e9migr\u00e9s steeped in avant-garde radical politics and that Picture Post was founded by Stefan Lorant from Hungary who fled Germany having been imprisoned by Nazis.<\/p>\n

Coinciding with developments in 35mm camera technology, these pioneers developed photojournalism; writing essays with photographs.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Radical change<\/p>\n

Reporting on Britain at home and abroad at a time of radical change, Picture Post both documented and influenced its readers. The magazine ran stories about the Second World War, postwar reconstruction, conflicts in Korea, Vietnam and Cyprus, and the disintegrating British empire. It explored racism, multiculturalism, poverty and gender roles, and reflected working-class lives.<\/p>\n

Allbeson\u2019s co-curator is Bronwen Colquhorn, senior curator of photography at Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Caerdydd \u2013 National Museum Cardiff.<\/p>\n

\"\"A portrait of Dylan Thomas from the Picture Post Exhibition<\/p>\n

Three-dozen stories about Welsh issues and places were published in the magazine, and Wales is well represented in the exhibition, demonstrating that what Picture Post did brilliantly, was use local stories to illustrate wider social issues.<\/p>\n

Butetown, (which along with Cardiff Docks formed part of the area known as Tiger Bay; Wales\u2019s first multicultural community), appeared in a 1952 issue with photos by Hardy. Allbeson, who is a reader at the School of Culture, Media and Journalism in Cardiff, invited Butetown residents to select photographs for the exhibition. Delightfully, the accompanying film of this process features a woman called Gaynor Legall, who is seen dancing in one of the photographs.<\/p>\n

Documenting a Welsh multi-cultural community well represented among the exhibition visitors, these images serve to make negativity about migrants from contemporary far-right commentators particularly abhorrent.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the Welsh story I found most stirring is \u201cThe valley that waits for drowning or reprieve\u201d, which was published in 1957, eight years before the village of Capel Celyn was flooded to become a reservoir. \u201cLiverpool\u2019s plans would end his\u201d reads the text accompanying Alex Dellow\u2019s photographs of Cadwalader Jones who \u201chas bred a pedigree dairy herd, improved land, remodelled his house (and) built a new shed and barn\u201d.<\/p>\n

As an English immigrant to Wales very aware of the political and emotional legacy of the valley flooded to provide Liverpool with water, I am somewhat comforted to discover that Picture Post, a London-based magazine, took a concerned interest.<\/p>\n

Ephemera including Hardy\u2019s Leica camera and daybooks, negatives and contact sheets, offer a fascinating insight into how skills such as splicing photographs were undertaken manually in a pre-digital world. I\u2019m intrigued by the ledgers in which photographers kept sometimes very brief notes, and by the chipper tone used in the magazine text, which as a writer, I\u2019d have liked to see a little more of.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Opportunities<\/p>\n

Indeed, one of the challenges for the curators was how to represent the magazine in a gallery environment. Whereas a magazine is something to be thumbed in private by the reader, framed photographs on public view become art that is not to be touched.<\/p>\n

But the challenge came with opportunities, such as featuring \u201cunused\u201d images. While the magazine\u2019s editors chose images that worked together on the page, the exhibition curators selected photographs that stood alone.<\/p>\n

With the concise introductory text panels providing just the right amount of context, the curation follows an effective \u2018show don\u2019t tell\u2019 approach. The role of women for example does not have its own section or commentary but is a powerful sub-theme throughout, ranging from the photo-story \u201cShould Women Wear Trousers\u201d from 1941, to \u201cTeenage civilian girls are instructed in handling a rifle by an Egyptian soldier\u201d in a Hardy image from 1956.<\/p>\n

\"\"A Welsh sheep farmer from the Picture Post Exhibition<\/p>\n

Today, our visual environment is so dizzy with moving images, we are reminded how powerful a single still photograph can be. The viewer has to imagine the motion around it.<\/p>\n

Particularly startling is how these twentieth-century images highlight and give context to contemporary events. \u2018A meeting of the British Union of Fascists, at Earl\u2019s Court, London\u2019 by Humphrey Spender in 1939, seems at first to be a Nuremburg rally, until closer inspection reveals the Union Jack suspended above a huge audience. A chilling image given subsequent events, and the current popularity of Reform UK. This exhibition is one that everyone can learn from.<\/p>\n

Protest<\/p>\n

Post exhibition, the iconic Blackpool image is eclipsed by others filling my mind. One photograph in the \u2018Beginnings\u2019 section (title unknown), taken circa 1935 by Austrian \u00e9migr\u00e9 Edith Tudor-Hart (1908-1973) piqued my curiosity. It shows Rhondda Valley women on the street with umbrellas and placards.<\/p>\n

A little digging, revealed the women were protesting against unemployment and poor living conditions, and that Tudor-Hart was later exposed as a Russian spy. In the Picture Post era, both female roles and the political environment had complexity and depth that resonate today.<\/p>\n

Far from being something I saw, enjoyed and forgot, this exhibition has stayed with me long after my visit, inspiring further research and contemplation.<\/p>\n

First published in Museums Journal, Vol 125, No 5<\/p>\n

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\n the people of Wales.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The iconic photograph of Richard Burton walking with his father, Dic Jenkins, across the Pontypridd aqueduct in Pontrhydyfen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-194552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}