Howard Grey
![]() | This biography of a living person needs additional citations for verification. (March 2021) |
Howard Grey | |
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Born | 1942 (age 78–79) |
Education | Douglas High School for Boys, Isle of Man (1953 - 1958), Leicester School of Art (1958-1959), Ealing School Of Photography (1959 -1961) |
Spouse(s) | Isabelle Anscombe (m. 1982) Margaret 'Mog' Scott-Stewart (m. 2009) |
Children | Camilla X. Grey (b.1984) |
Parents |
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Relatives | Alma Cogan (Singer) 1932-1966 |
Website | howardgrey |
Howard Grey (born 1942) is a British photographer. He is known for his photographs of the arrival of the last West Indian migrants at Waterloo Station, London, before the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 came into force.
Life and work[]
Grey was born in Slough.[citation needed] His father, Alf Grey, was a studio portrait and seaside holiday photographer who gave Howard, then aged six, a Zeiss Ikon Baby Box camera.[1] Grey studied photography at Leicester College of Art (1957–1958), and , London (1958–1960), then worked as an assistant photographer at Woburn Studios.[1] He set up a studio in Knightsbridge, London, and worked as a commercial photographer on fashion and TV commercial assignments between 1963 and 1969 in the UK and elsewhere.[1] In the 1980s he created stock photographs for Getty Images.[1]
From January 1962 to November 1969, Grey was working out of Ewart & Company, a TV Commercial company at 48 Glebe Place in London's Chelsea. Here Grey was employed as an occasional assistant in what was Europe's first production company to devote themselves exclusively to making TV Commercials. To further his ambition of becoming a free-lance advertising and editorial photographer, in 1969 he purchased his own studio at 1 Studio Place, London SW1. Soon he was working as a stills photographer alongside art directors with advertising agencies, where he collaborated with above-the-line photography.
In the middle 1960's Grey worked with author and journalist Paul Foot on several investigative works that required photography. One in particular, was when apparent new evidence in the 1962 A6 murder trial had come to light soon after the convicted murderer of scientist Michael Gregsten, James Hanratty, had been executed for the crime. Grey's task was to secretly photograph a character over a period of many months who, according to Foot, was just as likely to have committed the murder as was Hanratty.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Windrush%2C_man_looking_into_camera.jpg/220px-Windrush%2C_man_looking_into_camera.jpg)
In May 1962 he took photographs of the arrival of the last West Indian migrants at Waterloo Station, London, before the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 came into force.[2] They were exhibited in London in 2018.[3][4]
Throughout the 1970's, Grey's experience with the Rolleiflex SL66 medium format camera attracted the attention of the Rank and Carlton Tower Hotel Groups. For them he frequently achieved through-focus photography of bedrooms and banqueting facilities that, until then, was viable only with bulky studio plate cameras.
In 1974 Academy Editions, London, commissioned Philippe Garner with Grey, to author a seminal book on the decorative arts of Émile Gallé.
In 1976, inspired by a small paper-back book on 'Bloomsbury' by Quentin Bell, Grey spent a day photographing Post Impressionist artist Duncan Grant at the artist's home and studio near Lewes in Sussex, England. Stunned by Grant and his home's decoration and history, Grey envisaged an illustrated book on the Bloomsbury Artists and their world and with author and art and crafts historian Isabelle Anscombe as it's writer, Thames & Hudson published 'Omega & After - Bloomsbury and the Decorative Arts' in 1981.
For Weidenfeld & Nicolson, he travelled to Philadelphia with the lead singer of The Three Degrees, Sheila Ferguson to supply all photography for her recipe book, 'Soul Food - Classic Cuisine From The Deep South'.
In 1982, Howard Grey co-founded a small production unit called 'Midnight Television'. With producer John Clark, they made the first of a series of bawdy 1 hour TV entertainment shows primarily aimed at North Sea Oil Rig workers, and at a time before Satellite TV had become readily available. After sales of almost a thousand VHS tapes to the general public, the unit ceased production when the National Union of Mineworkers Pension Fund took control of the unit's distribution company.
Publications[]
- Howard Grey – 2500 Weekends Ago. Self-published / Blurb, 2014. The Victorians By The Sea -Academy Editions 1973 Howard Grey and Graham Stewart.
- Island. The Store; The Spaces, 2018. By Caruso St John and Marcus Taylor. Includes two short stories by Sam Selvon and photographs by Grey following the Windrush generation and their arrival in London; poetry by Kate Tempest, photographs by Hélène Binet, a contribution by John Akomfrah, a visual essay by the architectural firm Caruso St John, and an essay by Penelope Curtis and other artists who explore the notion of floods such as Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster.[5] Alongside these are found texts by William Shakespeare.[6]
Exhibitions[]
- In A Different Light, New Acquisitions, Autograph ABP, Rivington Place, London, 2017. Curated by Renée Mussai with Cherelle Sappleton. Group exhibition.[7]
- Black Cultural Archives, Brixton, London, 2018. Solo exhibition.[3][4]
Collections[]
References[]
- ^ Jump up to: a b c d "Howard Grey". Retrieved 2020-03-05.
- ^ "Windrush generation: Photos that lay undeveloped for over 50 years". BBC. Retrieved 2020-03-05.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Grant, Colin (12 October 2019). "The motherland: lost images of the Windrush generation". The Observer. ISSN 0029-7712. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
- ^ Jump up to: a b "These archive photos show the Windrush generation arriving in London". Time Out London. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
- ^ "Tales of the sea: behind John Morgan's identity for Island, the British Pavilion at Venice Biennale". It's Nice That. 24 May 2018. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
- ^ "Books". thespaces.com. Retrieved 2020-07-31.
- ^ "In A Different Light Exhibition Autograph Archive". Autograph ABP. Retrieved 2020-07-31.
- ^ "rgherg". Victoria and Albert Museum. Retrieved 2021-03-08.
External links[]
- Photographers from Leicestershire
- Alumni of Ealing Art College
- Living people
- 1942 births