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Joan Craven
(1897-1979), PhotographerArtist of 17 portraits
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Yahya El-droubie
18 May 2018, 12:30
Joan Craven was born Mabel Craven in Leeds in 1897. Her photography career began in the 1920s when she opened a studio on Bond Street. Her work included photographs of ballerinas including Lydia Sokolova and Alexandra Danilova, and early portrait subjects include the French actress and pianist Yvonne Arnaud and British pianist Harriet Cohen. Some Joan’s pictures of Cohen are held by the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Later on, Joan shared studios with Walter Bird at Kinocrat House on the Cromwell Road, London. By the 1950s Joan was specialising in “figure photography”, and she photographed famous pin-ups of the era including Pamela Green. Several of her nude studies appeared in Photograms of the Year albums, and she was prominently featured in a number of American magazines dedicated to the genre.