DEAKIN, John - A Maverick Eye. The Street Photography of John Deakin

Backgroundinformation, content

"The extraordinary documentary photographs by John DEAKIN are haunting evocations of life on the streets of London, Paris and Rome in the 1950s and 1960s. His eye is a profoundly generous one and his chief focus is on ordinary life. His pictures of dog walkers, priests, nuns and shopkeepers reveal and empathy to tival that of Robert DOISNEAU and BRASSAI. Equally intriguing are his depictions of human activity with the participants gone: a vanished vernacular of chalked-up children's games, of graffitied messages of love or anger to the world, street signs, peeling wills, window shutters and shop-front banners - signals from another age. Revealed here is a far broader range of photography than that on which his reputation has rested so far. But the creative souls and maverick talents that frequented the streets of Soho in its heyday - Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud among them - make their appearance along with anonymous figures and strong faces from Paris and Rome. Both friends and stars appear in Robin Muir's introduction, which describes both John DEAKIN the man and the artist. Following his death in 1972 his work lay neglected for a number of years and his reputation dwindled. The out-of-print photographic volume 'A Maverick Eye. The Street Photography of John Deakin' restores him to his proper place and one of the great photographers of the postwar period." (© Thames & Hudson, 2002)

About British photographer John DEAKIN (1912-1972) 

Photo books by as well with works by John DEAKIN