May 2, 2014

JOHN DEAKIN PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION

There’s a photography exhibition well worth a visit at the Photographer’s Gallery: Under the Influence: John Deakin and the Lure of Soho. Here are the people and pubs of bohemian Soho of the 50s and 60s, and portraits of critics and artists of the time. Dylan Thomas, Jeffrey Bernard, Lucien Freud and perhaps most famously Francis Bacon are among the portraits, and many of them like Deakin himself, frequented the French House and the Colony Room.

His portraits are mostly unflattering, often seeming too close, the poses awkward. His portrait of the poet George Barker reproduced on The Chameleon Poet by Robert Fraser (Jonathan Cape 2002) is typical of his oeuvre: the poet stands in an ungainly pose against the rough wall of a lavatory in London. 

A difficult alcoholic who was disliked by many, John Deakin is now recognized as one of the great post-war photographers but he set little value on the medium and wanted instead to be a painter. When he died his negatives were rescued from under his bed, and his surviving prints are creased and torn. What’s left is highly recommended viewing. The show is on until 13 July 2014.

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