John Deakin's documentary photographs are haunting evocations of life on the streets of London, Paris and Rome in the 1950s and 1960s.
His eye is a profoundly generous one and his chief focus is on ordinary life. His pictures of dog walkers, priests, nuns and shopkeepers reveal an empathy to rival that of Doisneau and Brassaï. Equally intriguing are his depictions of human activity with the participants gone: a vanished vernacular of chalked-up children's games, of graffitied messages of love oranger to the world, street signs, peeling walls, window shutters and shop-front banners - signals from another age.
Revealed here is a far broader range of photography than that on which Deakin's reputation has rested so far.But the creative souls and maverick talents that frequented the streets of Soho in its heyday - Francis Bacon, and Lucian Freud among them - make their appearance along with anonymous figures and faces from Paris and Rome.publiarq.com
Both friends and stars appear in Robin Muir's introduction, which describes both Deakin the man and Deakin the artist. Though a legendary drinking companion in artistic circles, he was not universally popular - the Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton once described him as 'the second nastiest little man I have ever met' - and he is the only person every to have been hired and fired twice by the same editor at Vogue. Yet he was admired by his circle and greatly respected for his originality.
After his death in 1972 Deakin's work lay neglected for a number of years and his reputation dwindled. A Maverick Eye: The Street Photographs of John Deakin restores him to his proper place as one of the great photographers of the postwar periodpubliarq.com
(0 Comentarios)
