John Stewart: a Retrospective

Press Release

John Stewart: A Retrospective The Wilmotte Gallery at Lichfield Studios 24th November 2010 – 28th January 2011

Continuing its tradition of showcasing celebrated international photography, the Wilmotte Gallery will stage the first UK retrospective of John Stewart’s work. “A Retrospective” will profile some forty never before seen still-life images and recent photographs of rural China.

Born in London in 1919 and brought up in Paris, John Stewart’s career as a stockbroker was cut short by World War II, during which he spent three and a half years as a Japanese prisoner of war. He bought his first camera in the early 1950s and soon after met Picasso during a trip to the South of France. Stewart’s first portrait work resulted from this meeting, when he was granted a request to photograph the artist sitting in a field of tall. A few days later, he received an invitation to photograph Matisse, who was unwell at this point and working from his bed at home in Nice. Following this he was invited to attend the inauguration of Matisse’s Chapel in Vence, where he had a chance meeting with a man holding a Leica camera who recommended a good place to get his film processed.

“I should try to spend a few days in Paris on my way back to New York and entrust my films to Pierre Gassman. He will show you how to develop, how to crop, all kinds of things. And tell him I sent you.” “And what is your name?” I asked. “Henri Cartier Bresson” and that’s how I found out what I would do in life. 1

Thanks to these first successful photographs, Stewart began a stellar career that saw him go to work in New York under Alexei Brodovitch, the celebrated director of Harper's Bazaar. A notoriously hard taskmaster. Each week Brodovitch gave Stewart and twenty other students professional classes in Richard Avedon’s studio. Impressed by Stewart’s talent, Brodovitch offered him a contract on the condition that he become a "maid-of-all-work", photographing fashion, beauty, portraits and still-life. His photography soon began to appear regularly in Vogue, House & Garden and Elle and is now in museums and collections around the world.

In the seventies, Stewart abandoned commercial photography to devote himself entirely to personal work, rediscovering his early fascination with still-life. He developed an intuitive style based on humour and sensitivity towards his subjects such as textiles, flowers and manmade objects that were often abandoned and rusty with time. Early on in his career Stewart decided that he wanted to do more than just take pictures, he wanted to make them too. As a result many of his photographs are developed using the Fresson Process, a unique method of charcoal printing that has been mastered by the Fresson Family over four generations. Each print requires hours of work and the process is so intensive that the studio only produces two thousand prints per year. The technique generates an image that is distinctively charged and reminiscent of ‘pointillism’ in Impressionist painting, a style very appropriate to the intensity of Stewart’s observation.

Now in his nineties, Stewart lives and works in Paris. His exhibition at the Wilmotte Gallery, which will draw on work from what is now a sixty-year career, will illustrate why Stewart is often regarded as one of the most versatile photographers working today.

For further press information and images contact:

1 John Stewart, Flotsam, Adventures of a Footloose Photographer, pub Paul Dry Books, Sept 2010 Press Release

Alice Broughton at Theresa Simon & Partners 020 7734 4800 [email protected]

Visitor information Wilmotte Gallery at Lichfield Studios 133 Oxford Gardens, London, W10 6NE

Hours Tues-Sat 11am-6pm Exhibition 24th November 2010 – 28th January 2011 Nearest Tube Ladbroke Grove or Latimer Road Public enquiries [email protected] Website www.tristanhoare.com

Notes to editors:

John Stewart (born London, 1919) was educated in Paris. Following a stint of employment at Rothschild bank, he joined the British army. Four of his six years with the forces were spent as a prisoner in Japanese war camps. His experiences in the South Asian Pacific equipped him to be technical adviser on David Lean’s “Bridge on the River Kwai.” (1957).

Stewart has produced a number of books that reflect his life both in and out of photography, The latter include: “Elephant School”, (Pantheon Books, New York, 1982), a children’s book about the Young Elephant Training Centre in Thailand; “To the River Kwai - Two Journeys”, (Bloomsbury, London 1988), documenting old POW camps in the jungle. His books on photography include: “Gravitas”, a substantial volume on folds and draperies (Serindia, London 1998); a significant publication to accompany his 2008 Paris retrospective; a compendium of anecdotes and reminiscences, “Flotsam, Adventures of a Footloose Photographer” (Paul Dry, Philadelphia 2010).

Tristan Hoare studied History of Art at Edinburgh University. Following an internship at the Louvre, he spent four years at Christie’s Auctioneers, both in London and Paris. During this time he worked in a variety of departments including 18th century French Furniture, Old Masters, Impressionist and Contemporary Art, before focusing on photography. After leaving Christie’s, Tristan worked for Ben Brown Fine Arts in Cork Street before setting up his own company advising clients and curating mixed exhibitions.

Tristan Hoare and celebrated international architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte, whose practice is situated on the first floor of the studios, alternate exhibitions at the Wilmotte Gallery. Hoare intends to show work rarely seen in this country, with three to four exhibitions per year.

Lichfield Studios was purchased by the Earl of Lichfield in 1984, where he designed and built a state of the art photographic studio. One of the great photographers of his generation, he used the studio to photograph Royals, celebrities and friends and was awarded fellowships of both the British Institute of Professional Photographers and the Royal Photographic Society. Notable shoots that took place at the studios include Lady Thatcher (celebrating her 80th birthday), Pelé (recreating his famous overhead kick), Forty Years On (re-photographing his former Harrow school friends in the same style as their Leavers photographs of 1957) and also shooting, twenty years later, several of the sitters featured in his book “Lichfield – The Most Beautiful Women” (1981). Lichfield died in 200