Photo Gallery: Ken Russell - A Retrospective | Visual arts reviews, news & interviews
Photo Gallery: Ken Russell - A Retrospective
The director's flavoursome snaps from the Fifties go on show
Monday, 28 November 2011
'Orphans of the Storm', photograph by Ken Russell, 1954All images © TopFoto
An exhibition of Ken Russell's photographs, taken in the 1950s, spirits you back to a London still in recovery from the trauma of war. And yet seen through the prism of Russell's lively eye, always on the look-out for mischief and absurdity, an era we now view as both innocent and slightly dull appears anything but. He took a series of pictures in Hyde Park designed to lampoon ridiculous local by-laws. He had fun with stilts and penny farthings and assorted props. Above all, he celebrated the great British penchant for dressing up. Enjoy a selection of photographs from Ken Russell: A Retrospective.
Click on a picture to enter the slideshow
- With a smile and a shine
- A wedding has been arranged
- Priest and deacon
- Bride and groom break bread
- Chauffeur and master
- Pistols at dawn
- A question of honour
- A policeman on a pogo stick chases a criminal who is carrying a bag of loot (Russell is the copper)
- Coffee bar girls
- Troubadour: the penny farthing bicycle
- Ken Russell: A Retrospective: Signed limited-edition prints are available to purchase
- TopFoto website
Seen through the prism of Russell's lively eye, an era we now view as both innocent and slightly dull appears anything but
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