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Fans of rock’n’roll star Tommy Steele outside St Patrick’s Church in Soho Square during the singer’s wedding to Ann Donoghue on June 18, 1960 |
A celluloid trip through Soho of old
TRILBY-hatted gangsters quaffed champagne with politicians, pop careers were launched in smoke-filled clubs and with the heady mix of sex and loose talk, the whiff of scandal was never far away.
The location is Soho in the 1950s, the wellspring of swinging London, which thanks to an archive of photos – some of which have never before been shown in public – has brought the era back to life.
The curators of exhibition, which opens at the Photographers’ Gallery next month have sought out long retired photographers, rummaged through dusty archives and left no stone unturned in finding the pictures to tell the story of a Soho emerging from the shackles of post-war austerity.
Among the gems include the former Magnum photographer David Hurn’s pictures of strippers as they ready themselves for work.
Hurn, a bona fide legend in photography circles, infiltrated the sex industry by gaining the trust of the women – a laborious process and a minefield of morals, according to curator Bob Pullen.
Hurn’s pictures question many of our deep seated prejudices about Soho, revealing a rarely portrayed private side of a profession that leaves little to the imagination and never garners much in the way of sympathy.
There are also pictures from the now folded Daily Herald newspaper. From the scarred face of Britain’s first celebrity gangster and mentor to the Krays, Billy ‘The Fish’ Hill, to the wedding of teen idol Tommy Steele, the pictures give an insight into the hold Soho had on the press at the time.
For many, that Soho is long gone – an urban Arcadia now replaced by a less edgy parody of itself, where haunts once frequented by Francis Bacon and Dylan Thomas are now soulless bars full of bespoke-suit wearing advertising execs.
Some will no doubt interpret the 50 or so pictures as a photographic obituary. But the joint curator of the exhibition says the photos are not a misty eyed ode to “another country”, instead contending that they reveal a subtle continuity with today’s Soho.
Mr Pullen, a research assistant in the Photography and Archive Research Centre at the University of the Arts, said: “The photos capture the social shifts that took place in Soho after the war. It exploded. I remember as a boy growing up in Bristol, Soho was the place everyone wanted to go – it has always been associated with freedom, loose morals and exotica, and these photos are a piece of that.
“Personally I don’t view them that nostalgically, although undoubtedly some people will. I see some of the similarities.
“The spirit of Soho is still alive.”
Fittingly the archive will be displayed around the corner from Soho in Great Newport Street. It runs from September 26. |
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