Under the Influence: John Deakin, Photography and the Lure of Soho - Hardcover

Robin Muir

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1908970154 ISBN 13: 9781908970152

Publisher: Art/Books, 2014

Synopsis

John Deakin was one of the great postwar photographers, renowned for his penetrating portraits, haunting street scenes and inventive fashion work. Though he flourished briefly at Vogue, it was the lure of nearby Soho with its pubs, clubs and subterranean watering holes that led him away from regular employment. Loved and loathed in equal measure by friends and drinking companions, Deakin was a legendary member of the quarters maverick crowd of artists and misfits, enjoying a certain louche glamour as an ex-Vogue photographer. As its most famous chronicler with the camera, he is inextricably linked to Sohos bohemian heyday in the two decades following the war. Accompanying an exhibition at The Photographers Gallery, Under the Influence: John Deakin, Photography and the Lure of Soho explores the hidden corners and colourful characters of this notorious part of London as seen through Deakins eyes. His circle included the painters Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Frank Auerbach, the writers Dylan Thomas, Daniel Farson and Jeffrey Bernard, and the socialites Henrietta Moraes and Muriel Belcher, proprietress of fabled drinking den The Colony Room. Deakin photographed these and other celebrated personalities alongside lesser-known Soho figures of the day. Artisans and tradesmen, from the ice-seller to the under-chef, newspaper vendor, street sweeper, vagrants and outsiders all were captured by his democratic, equitable lens. With dozens of reproductions of Deakins most compelling images, letters, contact sheets and other ephemera, and a text by acclaimed photographic historian Robin Muir charting his troubled Soho existence, this book is an evocative record of life in and around the four parallels of Wardour, Dean, Frith and Greek streets in the 1950s and early 1960s.

About this title

Review:

This beautifully produced book testifies to a talent that still astonishes. Clapping it shut you will be struck by a powerful sense that when the glory days of Soho are remembered it will be largely through the dark-adapted eye of John Deakin. --Guardian

The images are a marvellous record of the Soho of the 50s and 60s a time when the area enjoyed a wealth of bohemianism and dissolution, its bars stuffed with dipsomaniac writers and artists like Dylan Thomas, Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud and Bacon himself, all of whom Deakin photographed, along with the general riff-raff of Soho. --AnOther Magazine

If you ever want to know what the 1950s looked like, seek out his images. Deakin shot the bohemians of Soho the artists, the writers, the chancers and the drunks. He pinned them all to the page in images so sharp you could cut your eye on them. --Herald

The images are a marvellous record of the Soho of the 50s and 60s a time when the area enjoyed a wealth of bohemianism and dissolution, its bars stuffed with dipsomaniac writers and artists like Dylan Thomas, Frank Auerbach, Lucian Freud and Bacon himself, all of whom Deakin photographed, along with the general riff-raff of Soho. --AnOther Magazine

If you ever want to know what the 1950s looked like, seek out his images. Deakin shot the bohemians of Soho the artists, the writers, the chancers and the drunks. He pinned them all to the page in images so sharp you could cut your eye on them. --Herald

About the Author:

Robin Muir is a photographic curator and historian. A former picture editor for British Vogue, he is contributing editor to both the British and Russian editions of the magazine. He is author of numerous books on the history of photography, including David Bailey: Chasing Rainbows (2001), A Maverick Eye: The Street Photography of John Deakin (2002), Norman Parkinson: Portraits in Fashion (2004), Unseen Vogue: The Secret History of Fashion Photography (2004) and Terence Donovan Fashion (2012).

About this edition

• Publisher: Art/Books
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1908970154
• ISBN 13: 9781908970152
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176