Picture Post

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Picture Post
Bert Lloyd
CategoriesCurrent affairs; photojournalism
Frequencyweekly
Circulation1,950,000 copies a week in 1943
PublisherSir Edward G Hulton
First issue1938
Final issue1957
CountryUnited Kingdom
Based inLondon
LanguageEnglish

Picture Post was a photojournalistic magazine published in the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1957.[1] It is considered a pioneering example of photojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,700,000 copies a week after only two months. It has been called the UK's equivalent of Life magazine.[2]

The magazine’s editorial stance was liberal, anti-fascist, and populist,[3] and from its inception, Picture Post campaigned against the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. In the 26 November 1938 issue, a picture story was run entitled "Back to the Middle Ages": photographs of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Göring were contrasted with the faces of those scientists, writers and actors they were persecuting.

History

In January 1941 Picture Post published their "Plan for Britain". This included minimum wages throughout industry, full employment, child allowances, a national health service, the planned use of land and a complete overhaul of education. This document led to discussions about post-war Britain and was a populist forerunner of William Beveridge's November 1942 Report.

Sales of Picture Post increased further during World War II, and by December 1943, the magazine was selling 1,950,000 copies a week. By the end of 1949 circulation had declined to 1,422,000.

The founding editor,

Nazi invasion of Britain and so fled to Massachusetts
, where he wrote important illustrated US histories and biographies.

During World War II, the art editor of the magazine,

American 7th Army on its advance across Europe in 1945.[4] He visited the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp three times after the British army liberated the complex in April 1945. Several of his sketches and drawings from the camp were published in a September 1945 article, Victim and Prisoner. Ainsworth also commissioned the artist Mervyn Peake to visit France and Germany at the end of the war and reported from Bergen-Belsen.[5]

Hopkinson said that his photographers were thoroughbreds and that text could always be written after the event, but if his photographers did not come back with good pictures, he had nothing to work with. Years later, Hopkinson said that the greatest photos he ever received to lay out were

Bert Lloyd. Many freelancer writers contributed as well, including George Bernard Shaw, Dorothy Parker, and William Saroyan
.

On 17 June 1950,

socialist views. The conflict led to Hopkinson's dismissal in 1950 following the publication of Cameron's article, with pictures by Hardy, about South Korea
's treatment of political prisoners in the Korean War.

By June 1952, circulation had fallen to 935,000. Sales continued to decline in the face of competition from television and a revolving door of new editors. By the time the magazine closed in July 1957, circulation was less than 600,000 copies a week.

Picture Post was digitised as The Picture Post Historical Archive, 1938–1957 and consists of the complete, fully searchable facsimile archive of the Picture Post. It was made available in 2011 to libraries and institutions.[1]

Hulton Press Library

Hulton Getty
Industry
Parent
Getty Images
Websitewww.gettyimages.com

As the photographic archive of Picture Post expanded through the Second World War, it became clear that its vast collection of photographs and negatives, both published and unpublished, were becoming an important historical documentary resource. In 1945, Sir Edward Hulton set up the Hulton Press Library as a semi-independent operation. He commissioned

Charles Gibbs-Smith of the Victoria and Albert Museum to catalogue the entire archive using a system of keywords and classifications. The Gibbs-Smith system was the world’s first indexing system for pictures, and it was eventually adopted by the Victoria and Albert Museum and parts of the British Museum collections.[3]

When Picture Post folded, Sir Edward Hulton sold the archive collection to the

digitise the photo archive, and launched a dedicated website in 2001. A data migration programme began in 2003 and the Hulton Archive was transferred to the main Getty Images website; the Hulton Archive is still available today as a featured resource within the vast Getty holdings.[3]

Present day: Picture Stories

A documentary about the life and photographic legacy of Picture Post, Picture Stories, was produced by Ship of Life Films in 2021.

The documentary features archive interviews with editors Stefan Lorant and Tom Hopkinson and several Picture Post photographers, including Bert Hardy, Thurston Hopkins, John Chillingworth,  Humphrey Spender and David Steen. It also includes the photographer Grace Robertson's last interview, in which she discusses her classic picture story "Mother's Day Off". Modern-day documentary photographers including David Hurn, Daniel Meadows, Anna Fox, Homer Sykes, Peter Dench and Nick Turpin discuss the photography and influence of Picture Post.

Picture Stories received positive reviews and won the Audience Award at the 2021 UK Jewish Film Festival. The Guardian gave the documentary a four-star review, describing it as "inspiring".[8]

References

Citations

  1. ^ a b "The Picture Post Historical Archive, 1938–1957". Gale Digital Collections. Retrieved 19 October 2015.
  2. ^ "What is Photojournalism? | Icon Photography School". 13 June 2011.
  3. ^ a b c Hulton|Archive – History in Pictures Archived 2013-05-27 at the Wayback Machine History of Picture Post by the Archive Curator Sarah McDonald, 15/10/04. Accessed March 2008
  4. ^ "Holding the Line 2015, The Art of the War Years 1939–1945". Sim Fine Arts. 2015. Retrieved 5 November 2016.
  5. ^ Sarah Colegrave Fine Art. "Edgar Ainsworth (1905–1975)". Sarah Colegrave Fine Art. Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 5 November 2016.
  6. ^ "Weekly Magazines to be Merged". The Glasgow Herald. 18 May 1950. Retrieved 26 November 2015.
  7. .
  8. ^ "PICTURE STORIES: How one magazine transformed photography". Eventbrite. Retrieved 2022-03-29.

Sources

Primary
Secondary

External links