 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Picture Post" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(August 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
 Cover of thePicture Post vol. 8 no. 12 dated 21 September 1940 | |
| Editor | Tom Hopkinson |
|---|---|
| Former editors | Stefan Lorant,Max Raison |
| Staff writers | MacDonald Hastings, Lorna Hay,Sydney Jacobson,J. B. Priestley, Lionel Birch, James Cameron,Fyfe Robertson,Anne Scott-James,Robert Kee,Timothy Raison andBert Lloyd |
| Categories | Current affairs;photojournalism |
| Frequency | weekly |
| Circulation | 1,950,000 copies a week in 1943 |
| Publisher | Sir Edward G Hulton |
| First issue | 1938 |
| Final issue | 1957 |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Based in | London |
| Language | English |
Picture Post was a photojournalistic magazine published in theUnited Kingdom from 1938 to 1957.[1] It is considered a pioneering example ofphotojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,000,000 copies a week after only two months.[2] It has been called the UK's equivalent ofLife magazine.[3]
The magazine's editorial stance wasliberal,anti-fascist, andpopulist,[4] and from its inception,Picture Post campaigned against thepersecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. In the 26 November 1938 issue, a picture story was run entitled "Back to the Middle Ages": photographs ofAdolf Hitler,Joseph Goebbels andHermann Göring were contrasted with the faces of those scientists, writers and actors they were persecuting.
In January 1941Picture Post published their "Plan for Britain". This included minimum wages throughout industry, full employment, child allowances, a national health service, the planned use of land and a complete overhaul of education. This document led to discussions about post-war Britain and was a populist forerunner ofWilliam Beveridge's November 1942 Report.
Sales ofPicture Post increased further duringWorld War II, and by December 1943, the magazine was selling 1,950,000 copies a week. By the end of 1949 circulation had declined to 1,422,000.
The founding editor,Stefan Lorant (who had also foundedLilliput and had even earlier pioneered the picture-story in Germany in the 1920s), had been succeeded by (Sir)Tom Hopkinson in 1940. Lorant, who was Jewish, had been imprisoned by Hitler in the early 1930s and later wrote a best-selling book,I Was Hitler's Prisoner. By 1940, he feared that he would be captured in aNazi invasion of Britain and so fled toMassachusetts, where he wrote important illustrated US histories and biographies.
During World War II, the art editor of the magazine,Edgar Ainsworth, served as a war correspondent and accompanied theAmerican 7th Army on its advance across Europe in 1945.[5] He visited theBergen-Belsen concentration camp three times after the British army liberated the complex in April 1945. Several of his sketches and drawings from the camp were published in a September 1945 article,Victim and Prisoner. Ainsworth also commissioned the artistMervyn Peake to visit France and Germany at the end of the war and reported from Bergen-Belsen.[6]
Hopkinson said that his photographers were thoroughbreds and that text could always be written after the event, but if his photographers did not come back with good pictures, he had nothing to work with. Years later, Hopkinson said that the greatest photos he ever received to lay out wereBert Hardy's images from theKorean War'sBattle of Incheon, for whichJames Cameron wrote the article. The magazine's greatest photographers included Hardy,Kurt Hutton,Felix H. Man (aka Hans Baumann),Francis Reiss,Thurston Hopkins, John Chillingworth,Grace Robertson, and Leonard McCombe, who eventually joinedLife magazine's staff. Staff writers includedMacDonald Hastings, Lorna Hay,Sydney Jacobson,J. B. Priestley, Lionel Birch, James Cameron,Fyfe Robertson,Anne Scott-James,Robert Kee andBert Lloyd. Many freelancer writers contributed as well, includingGeorge Bernard Shaw,Dorothy Parker, andWilliam Saroyan.
On 17 June 1950,Leader magazine was incorporated inPicture Post.[7] Editor Tom Hopkinson was often in conflict with (Sir)Edward G. Hulton, the owner ofPicture Post. Hulton mainly supported theConservative Party and objected to Hopkinson'ssocialist views. The conflict led to Hopkinson's dismissal in 1950 following the publication of Cameron's article, with pictures by Hardy, aboutSouth Korea's treatment of political prisoners in the Korean War.
By June 1952, circulation had fallen to 935,000. Sales continued to decline in the face of competition from television and a revolving door of new editors. By the time the magazine closed in July 1957, circulation was less than 600,000 copies a week.
Picture Post was digitised as The Picture Post Historical Archive, 1938–1957 and consists of the complete, fully searchable facsimile archive of thePicture Post. It was made available in 2011 to libraries and institutions.[1]
| Industry | Publishing,media,web design |
|---|---|
| Genre | Stock photography |
| Predecessor | Hulton Press Library,Radio Times photo archive, BBC Hulton Picture Library, Hulton Picture Collection |
| Founder | Sir Edward Hulton |
| Products | Archive journalistic photography |
| Parent | Getty Images |
| Website | www.gettyimages.com |
As the photographic archive ofPicture Post expanded through the Second World War, it became clear that its vast collection of photographs and negatives, both published and unpublished, were becoming an important historical documentary resource. In 1945, Sir Edward Hulton set up the Hulton Press Library as a semi-independent operation. He commissionedCharles Gibbs-Smith of theVictoria and Albert Museum to catalogue the entire archive using a system of keywords and classifications. The Gibbs-Smith system was the world's first indexing system for pictures, and it was eventually adopted by theVictoria and Albert Museum and parts of theBritish Museum collections.[4]
WhenPicture Post folded, Sir Edward Hulton sold the archive collection to theBBC in 1957. It was incorporated into theRadio Times photo archive, and the BBC expanded the collection further with the purchase of the photo archives of theDaily Express andEvening Standard newspapers. Eventually, the BBC disposed of its photo archive and the BBC Hulton Picture Library was sold on once more, this time to Brian Deutsch, in 1988. In 1996, the Hulton Picture Collection was bought byGetty Investments for £8.6 million. Getty Images now owns the rights to some 15 million photographs from the British press archives dating back to the 19th century.[8] In 2000, Getty embarked on a large project todigitise the photo archive, and launched a dedicated website in 2001. Adata migration programme began in 2003 and the Hulton Archive was transferred to the main Getty Images website; the Hulton Archive is still available today as a featured resource within the vast Getty holdings.[4]
A documentary about the life and photographic legacy ofPicture Post,Picture Stories, was produced by Ship of Life Films in 2021.
The documentary features archive interviews with editors Stefan Lorant and Tom Hopkinson and severalPicture Post photographers, includingBert Hardy,Thurston Hopkins, John Chillingworth, Humphrey Spender and David Steen. It also includes the photographerGrace Robertson's last interview, in which she discusses her classic picture story "Mother's Day Off". Modern-day documentary photographers includingDavid Hurn,Daniel Meadows,Anna Fox,Homer Sykes,Peter Dench andNick Turpin discuss the photography and influence ofPicture Post.
Picture Stories received positive reviews and won the Audience Award at the 2021 UK Jewish Film Festival.The Guardian gave the documentary a four-star review, describing it as "inspiring".[9]