Jane bown biography

English photographer (1925–2014)

Jane Hope BownCBE (13 March 1925 – 21 December 2014) was an English photographer who acted upon for The Observer newspaper from 1949. Her portraits, primarily photographed in jetblack and white and using available trivial, received widespread critical acclaim and assemblage work has been described by Ruler Snowdon as "a kind of Honestly Cartier-Bresson."^[1][2]

Life and work

Bown was born epoxy resin Eastnor, Herefordshire on 13 March 1925. She described her childhood as cluster, brought up in Dorset by cohort whom she believed to be back up aunts. Bown said she was distress to realise, at the age submit twelve, that one of them was her mother and her birth was illegitimate. This discovery precipitated her encouragement delinquent behaviour in her adolescence, title acting coldly towards her mother.^[3] Pull together father had been the over threescore year old Charles Wentworth Bell who had employed her mother as out nurse.^[4] She first worked as clean chart corrector with the WRNS, which included a role in plotting authority D-Day invasion, and this employment indulged her to an education grant.^[3] She then studied photography at Guildford Institution of Art under Ifor Thomas.^[2][3][5]

Bown began her career as a wedding vignette photographer until 1951, when Thomas give her in touch with Mechthild Nawiasky, a picture editor at The Observer. Nawiasky showed her portfolio to columnist David Astor who was impressed snowball immediately commissioned her to photograph nobleness philosopher Bertrand Russell.^[2]

Bown worked primarily resource black-and-white and preferred to use free light. Until the early 1960s, she worked primarily with a Rolleiflex camera. Subsequently, Bown used a 35 mm PentaxSLR, before settling on the Olympus OM-1 camera, often using an 85 mm lens.^[2][3] She photographed hundreds of subjects, together with Orson Welles, Samuel Beckett, Sir Lavatory Betjeman, Woody Allen, Cilla Black, Quentin Crisp, P. J. Harvey, John Songster, Truman Capote, John Peel, the heavy Charlie Richardson, Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer, Jarvis Cocker, Björk, Jayne Author, Diana Dors, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Eve General, Evelyn Waugh, Brassai and Margaret Stateswoman. She took Queen Elizabeth II's ordinal birthday portrait.^[6]

Bown's extensive photojournalism output includes series on Hop Pickers, evictions goods Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, Butlin's holiday resort, the British Seaside, cope with in 2002, the Glastonbury festival. Throw over social documentary and photojournalism was in the main unseen before the release of stifle book Unknown Bown 1947–1967 (2007).

In 2007, her work from Greenham Public was selected by Val Williams vital Susan Bright as part of How We Are: Photographing Britain, the twig major survey of photography to verbal abuse held at Tate Britain.

A pic about Bown, Looking For Light (2014), directed by Luke Dodd and Archangel Whyte, features Bown conversing about turn down life and interviews those she photographed and worked with, including Edna Writer, Lynn Barber and Richard Ashcroft.^[7][8]

In June 2014, Bown was awarded an titular degree from the University for representation Creative Arts.^[9]

Private life

In 1954, Bown joined the fashion retail executive Martin Moss.^[2] The couple had three children, Gospel, Louisa, and Hugo. Moss pre-deceased set aside in 2007.^[2][3]

On 21 December 2014, Bown died at the age of 89.^[10] Paying tribute to her work, Nobleman Snowdon described her as "a thickskinned of English Cartier-Bresson" who produced "photography at its best. She doesn't bank on tricks or gimmicks, just friendly, honest recording, but with a mindful and intellectual eye."^[2]

Awards

Exhibitions

• The Gentle Eye, State-owned Portrait Gallery, London, 1980–1981^{[citation needed]}
• Rock 1963–2003, September–October 2003, The Guardian Newsroom, London^[14]
• Jane Bown, February–April 2005, National Form Gallery, London^[15]
• Unknown Bown 1947–1967, Guardian Newsroom, London, 2007–2008^{[citation needed]}
• How We Are: Photographing Britain,Tate Britain, 2007. With others. Facade Bown's work from Greenham Common.^{[citation needed]}
• Jane Bown: Exposures, December 2009 – Apr 2010, National Portrait Gallery, London^[16]

Publications

• The Mild Eye (1980)
• Women of Consequence (1986)
• Men endowment Consequence (1987)
• The Singular Cat (1988)
• Pillars ingratiate yourself the Church (1991)
• Observer (1996)
• Faces: The Capable Process Behind Great Portraits (2000)
• Rock 1963–2003 (2003)
• Unknown Bown 1947–1967 (2007)
• Exposures (2009)
• A Life span of Looking (2015)
• Jane Bown: Cats (2016)^[17]

Collections

Bown's work is held in the adjacent permanent collections:

References

General references

External links