In 1963, a mop-topped, 38 year-old woman entered the Beatles’ dressing room. She took a few photographs and was about to be thrown out when Ringo Starr intervened: “Oh no! We like her here!” When the woman, Jane Bown from “The Observer”, arrived John Lennon was strumming a guitar, Ringo was sat at a table playing with a pack of cards while McCartney and Harrison talked and remained close to the warmth of the Ascot water heater. By the 1960s Jane Bown had developed a style of approach to her subjects that was non-intrusive and friendly, especially after the customary “Observer” lunch. Study most of her portraits and only a few look her straight in the eye. A very young, smooth-face Boy George looks out of the frame, coyly. Not so Becket! Arriving at the Royal Court Theatre, Jane Bown waited and waited. Becket eventually sent her a message saying he was going and the photo-shoot was cancelled. Somewhat angry, Jane Bown raced to the stage door. When Becket emerged from the dark tunnel into the daylight Jane forced him to stop and managed to make 5 frames before he stomped off.
Born in 1925, after war service Jane Bown studied photography at Guildford College. Using a second-hand Rolleiflex she went to photograph Bertrand Russell for her first paid-for and commissioned photograph for the “Observer” Newspaper. This was in 1949 and without a break she has been photographing at the behest of the picture editors of “The Observer” ever since. For the past 40 years she has relied on her Olympus OM-1 and black and white film. Carrying all her equipment (the camera!) in a shopping bag she arrives often at the subject’s home or place of work and manoeuvres them to a position near a window. Using only natural light (though occasionally “borrowing” the editor’s Angle-poise for highlights) Jane eschews even a reflector.
The selection of 40 portraits on display at the DLI includes a rear-view of the late Labour leader Hugh Gateskell walking along the sea front during a Labour Party Conference. His companion is the tall Aneurin Bevan. The image is reminiscent of a monochrome Morecambe and Wise (or an Austerity-suited “Little and Large”). There are well-known actors and politicians, authors and artists. Both Lucien Freud and Francis Bacon stare out at you, angered, perhaps, by the intrusion. Orson Wells adopts a similar, challenging pose that he tried out on Robert Doisneau back in the late 1940s, the luminous Lauren Bacall is caught full of joy and that inner beauty she exudes while Eartha Kitt lets slip the outer shell and reveals a truer self. Some of the images are painful in their honesty and the humanity they capture while others are just full of humour and common sense.
In past exhibitions these photographs have been placed side-by-side and on top of each other: a veritable wall of faces. Thankfully, the staff at the DLI has placed a space for thought and reflection between each image. The low-ceilinged rooms with their starkness are the perfect ambience for time spent with Jane’s work. Well-lit and of a good size you are seduced into the sittings. However, whether deliberate or not the arrangement does mean you can see the reflection of one next to the face of another. Margaret Thatcher is opposite Her Majesty and the one intrudes upon the other:
There are other strange combinations, such as Anthony Burgess and Lord Longford:
Of all the images the one that haunts me the most and I find the most revealing is the capture of the Welsh poet RS Thomas as he stands, looking lost, at the base of a mountain of slate slag. The look in Thomas’s face explains the lilt and shape of so many of his poems.
For any ardent photographer or anyone interested in human nature this is an exhibition not to be missed. If, however, attending is impossible then why not buy the book: “Exposure” by Jane Bown and celebrate the work of an eccentric but a master of her craft who has one guiding philosophy: keep it simple and stick to what you know!
John Cogan
Jane Bown “Exposures” is on at the DLI Museum Art Gallery until Sunday 19th February
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