Howard Coster
(1885-1959), PhotographerSitter in 5 portraits
Artist associated with 9350 portraits
Howard Coster was born in London on 27 April 1885. He was introduced to photography through his uncle who owned a photographic studio where Coster worked before he moved to South Africa to try his hand at farming. After serving in the RAF during the war he worked in a studio in South Africa where he met his future wife Joan Burr, who was also a photographer. In 1926 they moved London and opened a studio on Essex Street. Coster quickly received commissions and began to use the credit line 'Coster, Photographer of Men'. Over the next twenty years he photographed most of the leading figures in politics, literature and the arts and his work was frequently published in magazines. The National Portrait Gallery holds around 8,000 negatives, 2,000 prints, 12 albums and archive material from the Coster studio and in 1985 held a retrospective of Coster’s work.
by Keith Medley
cream-toned bromide print on card, 1939
NPG x25135
Photographing me' (H.M. Bateman; Howard Coster)
by H.M. Bateman
pen and ink, 1933
NPG D2119
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Jane Liddell-King
22 July 2020, 20:17
He photographed L. Susan Stebbing who was educated at Girton College and became the first woman to hold a Chair in Philosophy in Britain. She wa also the first woman president of the Humanists in the UK.