John Gay - Portraits in print
Vita Sackville-West
by John Gay
1948
NPG x47302
Past display archive
29 July - 3 December 2006
Room 31 showcase
Free
Photographs taken for The Strand Magazine and Country Fair | Further Links
This display highlights the recent acquisition of a comprehensive archive of the portrait photographs of John Gay (1909-1999).
Celebrated as a photographer of railway stations, graveyards and country scenes, John Gay also took a number of striking portraits of literary personalities for The Strand magazine from 1947 to 1949. This display includes over twenty of these portraits from essays such as 'Mr Rank's young ladies', 'The best-selling authors' and 'The people who make money out of radio'. In-situ portraits of Agatha Christie, Enid Blyton, Dylan Thomas, Vita Sackville-West, Terence Rattigan and Gilbert Harding are shown with the original Strand essay page spreads.
Also displayed are six photographs that Gay took for Country Fair in the 1950s, including designer Lucienne Day and the champion rose-grower Harry Wheatcroft. Gay himself was named Country Fair 'Man of the Month' in June 1955 by editors A. G. Street and Macdonald Hastings, who described him as a 'photographer who truly reflects the glories of Country Fair'.
John Gay was born Hans Ludwig Göhler in Karlsrühe 1909. He left Germany in 1933, and moved to England in 1935 on a student visa[a1] . He was not technically a refugee and began a prolonged struggle to stay in Britain, to gain a work permit and to be naturalised. By 1937 he was granted permission to work as a photographer and by 1939 had established a promising freelance career. In March 1940 he joined the Army Pioneer Corps and was immediately posted to the British Expeditionary Force and later the Intelligence Corps. Comfortable with English customs and ways, he decided to change his name to John Gay, after the poet and dramatist of Beggar's Opera fame.. Demobbed on 22 March 1946 John Gay was granted a Certificate of Naturalisation and began his post-war career as a freelance photographer in Highgate naming his wife Marie Anita Gay as an active partner in the business.
His black and white topographical photographs are published in six books and collections of his non-portrait work are held at the National Monuments Record (5000 photographs of geographical, agricultural and architectural interest) and the Victoria and Albert Museum (photographs of ironwork).
Terence Rattigan
by John Gay
published June 1949
NPG x47300
Dylan Thomas
by John Gay
published July 1948
NPG x47303
Agatha Christie
by John Gay
published February 1949
NPG x126501
Cecil Day-Lewis
by John Gay
published July 1948
NPG x126513
Robin Day; Lucienne Day (née Conradi)
by John Gay
circa 1951
NPG x128510
Sir Allen Lane
by John Gay
published November 1947
NPG x127765
Further Links
Related portraits
- Graham Greene; Douglas Francis Jerrold (NPG x127763)
- Sir Allen Lane (NPG x127765)
- Dylan Thomas (NPG x47303)
- Cecil Day-Lewis (NPG x126513)
- Richard Frederick Dimbleby (NPG x47293)
- Daphne Du Maurier (NPG x47294)
- Gilbert Charles Harding (NPG x126560)
- Terence Rattigan (NPG x47300)
- Emlyn Williams (NPG x47304)
- Agatha Christie (NPG x126501)
- Sally Ann Howes (NPG x127261)
- Zena Marshall (NPG x127263)
- Guy Morgan (NPG x128539)
- Jack Monk (NPG x128540)
- Stephen P. ('Steve') Dowling (NPG x128541)
- A.B. Payne (NPG x128542)
- Enid Blyton; Gillian Mary Baverstock (née Pollock); Imogen Pollock (NPG x128508)
- Sir Hugh Maxwell Casson (NPG x126624)
- Robin Day; Lucienne Day (née Conradi) (NPG x128510)
- Anne Eleanor Scott-James (Lady Lancaster) (NPG x128638)
- Mike Hawthorn (NPG x128294)
- Harry Wheatcroft (NPG x126683)
- David Hicks (NPG x126644)
Related sitters
- Gillian Mary Baverstock (née Pollock)
- Enid Mary Blyton
- Sir Hugh Maxwell Casson
- Dame Agatha Mary Clarissa Christie (née Miller)
- Lucienne Day (née Conradi)
- Robin Day
- Cecil Day-Lewis
- Richard Frederick Dimbleby
- Stephen P. ('Steve') Dowling
- Dame Daphne Du Maurier
- Graham Greene
- Gilbert Charles Harding
- (John) Michael ('Mike') Hawthorn
- David Nightingale Hicks
- Sally Ann Howes
- Douglas Francis Jerrold
- Sir Allen Lane
- Zena Marshall
- Jack Monk
- Guy Morgan
- Austin Bowen ('A.B') Payne
- Imogen Pollock
- Sir Terence Rattigan
- Anne Eleanor Scott-James (Lady Lancaster)
- Dylan Thomas
- Harry Wheatcroft
- (George) Emlyn Williams