Cathy's Art Diary

Lovely exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery of photographs by Roger Mayne. The show focused on pictures of young people starting with Mayne’s street photography in Southam Street and Kensal Rise in the 1950s where he recording children playing in the streets and on bomb sites. There was an interesting commentary explaining they were playing outside partly due to overcrowded housing. The show then went on to look at pictures he took on his honeymoon in Spain and of the 1950s phenomenon of teenagers including his commission for the cover of the first edition of the book “Absolute Beginners”. The show finished with his touching later work which focused on his family recording the development of his own children taken for a series of albums for them. They included some amazing photos of his wife giving birth. Closed 1 September 2024 Reviews Times Guardian  

Interesting exhibition at the Photographers’ Gallery of work by Roger Mayne. Mayne was a documentary photographer who recorded the changing face of inner city life in the 1950s and 60s. The pictures where like moments in closely observed time. I loved a picture of women in the street in their slippers and pictures of children playing on bomb sites and demolished buildings. I liked the fact the works were displayed alongside the magazines they had appeared in and the sense the show gave of his career. They had also restaged his 1964 exhibition “The British at Leisure” which had been a pioneering slide installation. I loved the fact that had used old style projectors so you still got the wonderful noise of the slides clicking into place as the carousels went round.   Closes on 11 June 2017. Review Evening Standard