John Somerset Murray
(1904-1992), Photographer and inventorSitter in 1 portrait
Artist of 24 portraits
A grandson of John Murray, calotypist of India, and cousin of the portraitist Olive Edis, he opened his own portrait studio in Chelsea in 1933 and largely worked on advertising. Shortly afterwards he turned to commercial photography including working for Pilkington Glass. Influenced by the technical experimentation of Man Ray he too began to try new methods. He met Winifred Casson at one his lectures and taught her his technical understanding of photography. With Winifred Casson he executed solarised and surrealist photographs, which were shown at the Chelsea Studio Club in the 1950s. Murray left photography behind after the outbreak of War in 1939, and took up electronic engineering but his photography was rediscovered when his surrealist work was shown in the Arts Council's exhibition 'Modern British Photography: 1919-1939' in 1980.
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