Bailey, Keeler, Faithfull in 1969

Recently found - this 1969 press photo. The byline reads:

 

1/10/69 London. Christine Keeler (left), whose name figured prominently a few years back in a scandal that rocked the British  government attends a party in Chelsea 11/9 to launch a new book on the "Swingin' Sixties".  With her is photographer David Bailey actress Penelope Tree and singer Marianne Faithfull (right).

The book was Goodbye Baby & Amen. A Saraband for the Sixties. The text was by Peter Evans and photos by Bailey.

The sitters included Brigitte Bardot, Cecil Beaton, Marisa Berenson, Jane Birkin, Michael Caine, Julie Christie, Ossie Clark, Joan Collins, Catherine Deneuve, Mia Farrow, Albert Finney, Jean-Luc Godard, Mick Jagger, Brian Jones, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Dudley Moore, Rudolf Nureyev, Oliver Reed, Keith Richard, Peter Sellers, Jean Shrimpton

Iris Murdoch and friends

Found - a photo of a crowd of writers and intellectuals. The novelist Iris Murdoch is recognisable, with her husband John Bayley to her left and the man in suit and tie second last to the right is possibly Isaiah Berlin (without his usual heavy specs) described in an obituary 'as the most prominent thinker of his generation.' Probably from the early to mid 1970s and possibly taken in the garden of Iris's house Cedar Lodge at Steeple Aston near Oxford. Oxford may well have provided most of the guests, some of whom look vaguely familiar. Identifications welcome.

Photography and poetry

In a world of cellphones with cameras as powerful as Leicas, sites like Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest etc., the problem still remains - what shall I shoot? This advice is from The New Illustrated Universal Reference Book (Odhams, London 1933.) The book called itself 'the book of a million facts' covering 'the main interests of humanity…no essential subject is left out.' Much of the technical stuff is highly out of date, the language even more so, but the advice is still good. A good photograph comes from the heart...

The world is crowded with things calling to be photographed when a man first goes forth with a camera. Indeed, he is so overwhelmed with the thousand and one things to take that he frequently returns home with only half his roll of films exposed.He is so confused and confounded by the wealth of possibilities confronting him in the end he cannot see anything worth taking.

The man with the camera should ask himself what class of subject naturally interests him…Let him focus his mind on something before he attempts to focus his camera on anything… every picture that is worthwhile arouses some feeling; wonder or sorrow, peace or joy, fear or distress, or any one of the many emotions which move the human heart.

Luigi Ghirri

Michael Cooper's 1960s

Michael Cooper. BLINDS & SHUTTERS. Genesis/ Hedley, Guildford, 1990. A limited edition book of 5000 copies each copy signed by persons covered in the book (between 9 and 15 signatures per book.)

No two copies are alike. This is a random list of signers as comprehensive as it gets: a merry galaxy of 60's movers, shakers, posers, celebs and characters:

Bill Wyman (signed every copy) Colin Self, Neil Aspinall, Adam Cooper, Terry Doran, Richie Havens, Allen Jones, John Mayall, Richard Merkin, Billy Al Bengston, Gerald Malanga, Bridget Riley, Steve Winwood, Michael McClure, Sandy Lieberson, Spencer Davis, Dennis Hopper, Dean Stockwell, Harry Nilsson, Jenny Boyd, Jo Bergman, John Dunbar, Richard Hamilton, Anita Pallenberg, George Harrison, Pattie Clapton, Peter Blake, Francis Bacon, Donald Cammell, Anthony Caro, Allen Ginsberg, Astrid Kirchner, Claes Oldenburg, Perry Richardson, Ringo Starr, Jurgen Vollmer, Klaus Voorman, Eric Clapton, Christopher Gibbs, Keith Richard, Nigel Waymouth, Ann Marshall, Marianne Faithfull, Larry Rivers, Brian Auger, Larry Bell, William Burroughs, Andy Warhol, Pattie Clapton, Jann Howarth, John Mayall, Bridget Riley, Terry Southern, Kenneth Anger, Don Bachardi, David Hockney, Graham Nash, Derek Taylor, Julie Driscoll, Stanislas Klossowski de Rola, Nicholas Monro.

Michael Cooper 'a person of tremendous love and vision.'
(1941 - 1973)

Francis Bacon is possibly the Button Gwinnet of the pack, although it is said that the Warhol signature does most for the value of the book.The book came out after his death but signature sheets had been circulated for many moons before printing… Colin Self is the second most common signer  and Peter Blake is, as always, fairly ubiquitous. More info at our sister site Bookride.

N.N. Sen on Man Ray

A contemporary review of Man Ray's movie L'Étoile de Mer by N.N. Sen in the first issue of the  literary journal Experiment (Cambridge, 1928). It was edited by William Empson, Hugh Sykes Davies, Humphrey Jennings and William Hare (Lord Ennismore) and Jacob Bronowski.

 N.N. Sen (Nikhil N. Sen) was a friend of Mulk Raj Anand (mentioned in an earlier posting on curries) and moved in the same circles in London in the 1920s. Not much is known about Sen; however, Anand mentions him extensively in his Conversations in Bloomsbury (1981). The Open University site has this on him:

It appears that Sen was already in London when Anand arrived in 1925. Like Anand, Sen was a student at University College, London. He was also a poet and an art lover. According to Anand, Sen studied in the British Museum Reading Rooms and the two often lunched together in University College lower refectory, the Museum Tavern or at Poggiolis in Charlotte Street. Sen's girlfriend was Edna Thompson, who was a student of literature; other fellow students included Mr. Topa and Parkash Pandit. Sen apparently worked at Arthur Probsthain’s Oriental Bookshop in Russell Street, and found work for Anand in Jacob Schwartz’s Ulysses Bookshop.

Furthermore, Sen already knew several members of the 'Bloomsbury Group' when Anand arrived in Britain. Indeed, it was Sen who introduced Anand to Bonamy Dobree, Gwenda Zeidmann, Jacob Schwartz, Harold Monro, Edith Sitwell, Laurence Binyon and Leonard Woolf. Together they met T. S. Eliot, Aldous Huxley and D. H. Lawrence, and they would go to the British Museum with Laurence Binyon. Like Anand, Sen was frustrated by the orientalist views of some members of the Bloomsbury Group and would often argue with Eliot and Lawrence.

Man Ray's film is readily available at ubu.com and on YouTube with added music. It lasts 17 minutes and stars Alice Prin (Kiki of Montparnasse) and Robert Desnos (who wrote also the script.) Ray is seen below with Dali.

L'ÉTOILE DE MER

A POEM AS SEEN BY MAN RAY
     Two figures move on an open road–one sees them as through a haze–a man and a woman. Seems like a distant memory–as though one was trying to receive an old scene.

This haziness continues throughout the whole piece. A similar effect was used in one of Otto Mathieson's films, where the actor sees his whole life pass before him just before he dies.

  One remembers the distortion in Dr. Calighari, the whole production was distorted as seen by a madman's eyes.

  This hazy effect might be used effectively to suggest distant, long-forgotten memories–where uncertain shadows loom out from an old situation. Except for a short while when the hero of the piece is shown in a contemplative mood, the whole film is hazy.

  The man and the woman walk up a flight of stairs and enter a room. The woman undresses and stretches herself in a bed, the man bids farewell and leaves her.

A delightful comedy touch, effective because it is so unexpected.

  I am not so acquainted with the poem that Man Ray has translated into a picture or a series of photographs interposed amongst a series of moving pictures. There is little or no narrative. The only subtitles used are a play of words–

"Sybille," says the hero, "Si belle."

Francis King

Francis King (4 March 1923 - 3 July 2011), acclaimed novelist, poet, critic and editor. President Emeritus of International PEN and appointed  CBE in 1985. He came out in the 1970s and wrote his autobiography 'Yesterday Came Suddenly' in 1993, after the death of his long-term partner.

3 photos of him with his cat in London by the US photographer Miriam Berkley. The envelope is dated 1991. The Daily Telegraph obituary said 'he was naturally reticent, concealing his inner turbulence from friends who saw only a witty and equable companion with exceptionally good manners.