Gods and Monsters Exhibition

07/01/11

As a starting point in gaining a broader understanding of the different genres within photography, I went to this exhibition at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. (These are brief notes as background information, regardless of the direct relevance to the current course work)

Deakin died at the age of 60 in 1972. In WW2 he was a war photographer and subsequently spent two periods working for Vogue in the 40s and 50s. He was sacked twice. His  "blistering personality, bad behaviour and total disregard for others" has contributed to his notorious reputation.

An aspiring painter, Deakin did not seem to care about what happened to his photographs, many of which are lost and those that remain are in poor condition. The larger prints in the exhibition are creased and torn and many of  the portraits are frames of contact prints of the sessions. My overall impression of the portraits was how contempory they looked bearing in mind they were taken nearly sixty years ago. I always think of the 50s as a time of formality in portraiture but there was realistic "warts and all" quality about them. This is what Deakin wanted when he took photographs, he is quoted as saying "........what I want to do when I take a photograph is make a revelation about it. So my sitters turn into my victims."
Quotes and biography: WikipediaMy main interest was obviously the photographs, I had only ever heard of three of the painters, Freud, Sutherland and Bacon and at present, know little about them.