logo70.gif

thing happened on the way to A E Clothiers, where you can find all the university colours on socks, ties, caps, umbrellas and much more. On a whim I added a detour via the Central Library where there was an exhibition entitled Cambridge Revisited that made it very worthwhile. Amongst a series of old photographs of city and university life, a portrait caught my eye. Could it have been the stylist in me that spotted her? Joan Robinson was seated with her legs to one side, dressed in an intellectual thirties gown with a Princess Leia hairdo. Marvellous. Look up the photographers on the internet and you will discover a whole archive of Lettuce Ramsey and Helen Muspratt. They ran a successful portrait studio between Oxford and Cambridge. These two women used all the techniques of their time, such as solarisation or superimposition, making them bang up to date. They did this with such apparent nonchalance that they are still modern to this day. At first glance you think of fashion photography even though the portraits are mainly of Oxbridge intellegentsia. The fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto said that he dipped into the August Sander book Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts and was happily influenced by his portraits documenting the German population. I feel slightly like I have found an Oxbridge version of that and will happily do the same. An extensive archive is available for all to see thanks to the restorative powers of Peter Lofts, the last photographer in the studio which had the rather story book address of Post Office Terrace.

See Pictures
Review & Photography: Antonia Leslie
A E Clothier
Peter Lofts
Cambridge Central Library
August Sander
Yohji Yamamoto


CLOSE WINDOW