Grace Robertson

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Grace Robertson

postwar Britain
.

Robertson's work is held in the collections of the

National Galleries of Scotland,[4] Science Museum Group,[5] Tate[6] and Victoria and Albert Museum.[7]

Early life

Robertson was born in Manchester, England, in 1930, to the journalist Fyfe Robertson and his wife Elizabeth (Betty; née Muir).[8][9] Both her parents were born in Scotland, and Robertson described herself as Scottish in a 2010 interview with The Scotsman.[10] After leaving school at 16 she looked after her mother, who had rheumatoid arthritis.[10][11] She became interested in photography in 1948 and, in 1949, her father gave her a Leica camera.[8][10][11]

Career

In 1951 Robertson had a photo-essay about her younger sister doing her homework published in Picture Post,[8][11] where her father worked.[9] Another early success was on Chinese artists.[10] Some of her early submissions used the masculine pseudonym "Dick Muir", to avoid using her father's name.[8] Her first commission for Picture Post was in Snowdonia, which resulted in "Sheep Shearing in Wales" (1951).[12] In 1952, she photographed the Bluebell Girls in Italy,[12] and also published "Tate Gallery" (1952).[8]

At the date she was working, most photojournalists were men, and she was often assigned more feminine stories.[13] Working as a freelancer throughout her career, her best-known series, "Mother's Day Off", documented working-class women from Bermondsey in London, enjoying a day out in Margate, and was published in Picture Post in 1954. The middle-aged to elderly subjects are depicted dancing, drinking and on a fairground ride. She was commissioned to shoot a similar series featuring women from Clapham for Life magazine in 1956.[8][10][12] The Scotsman describes both these sets of photographs as "perfectly composed, artifice-free examples of classic reportage".[10] Her series "Childbirth", published in Picture Post in 1955, included photographs of a woman in labour and delivery, considered explicit at the time, and were among the earliest such images to appear in a magazine.[8][12]

Around this time, Life offered her a staff job in the United States, but Robertson refused.

National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in Bradford; several other exhibitions in the UK and the United States followed. In 1989, she published an autobiographical monograph, entitled Grace Robertson – Photojournalist of the 50s. In 1992, the BBC commissioned a programme from her about ninety year olds.[12][14] She also gave lectures on women photographers.[12][15]

Sean O'Hagan, writing in The Guardian, characterises Robertson's work as recording ordinary women in postwar Britain, and describes her as a "proto-feminist".[8] Tirza Latimer and Harriet Riches consider her work to be "limited to a focus on women's interests."[16]

Awards and honours

Robertson was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the

Brunel University (2007).[14]

Personal life

Robertson who stood 6 ft 2in in her bare feet[18][19] married in 1955 the Picture Post photographer Thurston Hopkins.[8][11] They had two children.[20] In the 1980s, on Hopkins' retirement, the couple moved to Seaford in East Sussex, where they remained until his death in 2014 at age 101.[20]

Robertson died on 11 January 2021, aged 90.[8]

Publications

Books of work by Robertson

  • Robertson, Grace (1989). Grace Robertson: Photojournalist of the 50s. London: Virago.
    ISBN 1-85381-089-4
    .
  • Robertson, Grace (2002). Grace Robertson: A Sympathetic Eye. University of Brighton.
    ISBN 978-1-901177-62-6
    .

Books of work with contributions by Robertson

Collections

Robertson's work is held in the following public collections:

A portrait of Robertson by Rena Pearl is held in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London.[22]

References

  1. ^ a b Ms Grace Robertson, OBE, Debretts. Retrieved 16 June 2013.
  2. ^ Matthew Bannister on record producer Phil Spector, photographer Grace Robertson and race walker Paul Nihill., bbc.co.uk, 22 January 2021
  3. ^ Andrew Farrell. "IN PICTURES: Grace Robertson, a trailblazer for female photography". The Courier (Dundee). Retrieved 15 January 2021.
  4. ^ a b "Grace Robertson". www.nationalgalleries.org. Retrieved 14 January 2021.
  5. ^ a b "Grace Robertson". sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk. Retrieved 14 January 2021.
  6. ^ a b "Grace Robertson". Tate. Retrieved 14 January 2021.
  7. ^ a b "Search the Collections". collections.vam.ac.uk. Retrieved 14 January 2021.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j O'Hagan, Sean (13 January 2021). "Grace Robertson, pioneering photographer with a gentle eye, dies at 90". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
  9. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/49502
    .
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h "Interview: Grace Robertson, photojournalist". The Scotsman. 11 May 2010. Retrieved 14 January 2021.
  11. ^ a b c d Murphy, Anna (9 August 2010). "Grace Robertson, interview with the 1950s photojournalist". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 17 March 2016.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g "Grace Robertson: Artist Profile". Hyman Collection. Retrieved 14 January 2021.
  13. ^
    ISBN 978-0-19-172756-6
    .
  14. ^ a b c d "Grace Robertson: Biography". Hyman Collection. Retrieved 14 January 2021.
  15. ^ "Grace Robertson". National Galleries Scotland. Retrieved 14 January 2021.
  16. doi:10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T2022250
    .
  17. ^ "Honorary Fellowship". Royal Photographic Society. Retrieved 13 January 2021.
  18. ^ "Grace Robertson obituary".
  19. ^ "Grace Robertson, a pioneer of women's documentary photography".
  20. ^ a b Amanda Hopkinson; David Mitchell (30 October 2014). "Thurston Hopkins obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 January 2021.
  21. ^ "Grace Robertson". arts.brighton.ac.uk. Retrieved 14 January 2021.
  22. ^ "Grace Robertson – National Portrait Gallery". www.npg.org.uk. Retrieved 14 January 2021.

Further reading

  • Rosenblum, Naomi (2014). A History of Women Photographers. New York: Abbeville.
  • Robertson, Grace; Williams, Val; Graham, Beryl; Wells, Liz; Friend, Melanie (1994). Signals: Festival of Women Photographers. London: Interchange Studios.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Grace_Robertson&oldid=1220514357"