Photo Gallery: Ken Russell - A Retrospective | reviews, news & interviews

Photo Gallery: Ken Russell - A Retrospective

The director's flavoursome snaps from the Fifties go on show

by Jasper ReesMonday, 28 November 2011

'Orphans of the Storm', photograph by Ken Russell, 1954All images © TopFoto

An exhibition of Ken Russell's photographs, taken in the 1950s, spirits you back to a London still in recovery from the trauma of war. And yet seen through the prism of Russell's lively eye, always on the look-out for mischief and absurdity, an era we now view as both innocent and slightly dull appears anything but. He took a series of pictures in Hyde Park designed to lampoon ridiculous local by-laws. He had fun with stilts and penny farthings and assorted props.

Above all, he celebrated the great British penchant for dressing up. Enjoy a selection of photographs from Ken Russell: A Retrospective.

Click on a picture to enter the slideshow

[bg|/PHOTOGRAPHY/Jasper_Rees/Ken_Russell_Gallery]

With a smile and a shine
A wedding has been arranged
Priest and deacon
Bride and groom break bread
Chauffeur and master
Pistols at dawn
A question of honour
A policeman on a pogo stick chases a criminal who is carrying a bag of loot (Russell is the copper)
Coffee bar girls
Troubadour: the penny farthing bicycle

Ken Russell: A Retrospective: Signed limited-edition prints are available to purchase
TopFoto website

Seen through the prism of Russell's lively eye, an era we now view as both innocent and slightly dull appears anything but

Buy

Find Ken Russell on Amazon

Explore topics

Share this article

more Visual arts

Gustav Metzger: Earth Minus Environment, Kestle Barton review - an illuminating glimpse of a visionary activist-artist Ecological dirty-realism plus mass-media overload in an idyllic Cornish setting

Milton Avery: American Colourist, Royal Academy review - from backward-looking impressionist to forward looking-colourist A slow reveal of the painter dubbed the American Matisse

Eric Ravilious: Drawn to War review - a lovingly crafted documentary portrait In love and war: one of England's great watercolourists reappraised

Vivian Maier: Anthology, MK Gallery review - what an amazing eye! The brilliance of an amateur photographer who was almost lost to the world

Venice Biennale 2022 review - The Milk of Dreams Part 2: The Arsenale This wildly ambitious mega-exhibition unravels in spectacular style

In the Air, Wellcome Collection review - art in an emergency History, politics and poetry abound in a show offering inspiration and agitation

Whitstable Biennale review - a breath of fresh air From philosophising to crab creatures, a festival programme themed around 'Afterwardness'

10 Questions for art historian and fiction writer Chloë Ashby On sights, acts of seeing and book 'Wet paint', inspired by Manet’s 'A Bar at the Folies-Bergère'