John Deakin
John Deakin (8 May 1912 – 25 May 1972) was an English photographer, best known for his work centred on members of Francis Bacon's Soho inner circle.
[4] A chronic alcoholic, Deakin died in obscurity and poverty, but since the 1980s his reputation has grown through monographs, exhibitions and catalogues.
While in Paris in 1939 fashion illustrator Christian Bérard introduced Deakin to Michel de Brunhoff, editor of French Vogue.
Deakin recognised this work was his true vocation when he wrote: "Being fatally drawn to the human race, what I want to do when I take a photograph is make a revelation about it.
"[8]Notorious for "his blistering personality, bad behaviour and total disregard for others",[9] Deakin was fired from Vogue for a second time in 1954, on account of his drinking and "an accumulation of minor incidents involving lateness, a series of crashing tripods, and inevitable arguments with fashion editors.
Deakin spent many years trying unsuccessfully to publish a book of his Paris photographs, but they were exhibited in 1956 in David Archer's bookshop in Soho.
Smart's catalogue included the observation: "You certainly won't feel rested after a time in John Deakin's Paris.
In The Times, Colin MacInnes reviewed the Paris photos: "Mr Deakin sees one side of Alice's looking glass and the infinite mysteries that lie behind it.
Daniel Farson commented that "Deakin's artistic career had one consistency: the moment success came near he veered off in another direction."
[14] Deakin, nevertheless, continued to photograph many of the major figures in the Soho art scene during the 1950s and 1960s, including Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach and Eduardo Paolozzi.
[16] Freud and Bacon appeared as two of the Eight Portraits, an unpublished manuscript of photos and writings which was discovered after Deakin's death.
In this work, Deakin wrote of Bacon: "He's an odd one, wonderfully tender and generous by nature, yet with curious streaks of cruelty, especially to friends.
[9] In 1979, the art critic John Russell wrote that, with Deakin's passing, "There was lost a photographer who often rivalled Bacon in his ability to make a likeness in which truth came wrapped and unpackaged.
The expressions of his victims look suitably appalled for Deakin had no time for such niceties as "cheese" and the effect was magnified by huge contrasty blow-ups with every pore, blemish, and blood-shot eyeball exposed.
"[22] Bruce Bernard wrote, at Deakin's first retrospective, that he was proud "to have had a part in doing our dear, witty and wayward friend some of the justice he so strenuously denied himself.
