Picture Post
Encyclopedia
Picture Post was a prominent photojournalistic magazine published in the United Kingdom
from 1938 to 1957. It is considered a pioneering example of photojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,700,000 copies a week after only two months. It has been called the Life magazine
of the United Kingdom.
The magazine’s editorial stance was liberal
, anti-Fascist and populist and from its inception Picture Post campaigned against the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany
. In the 26 November 1938 issue a picture story was run entitled "Back to the Middle Ages": photographs of Adolf Hitler
, Joseph Goebbels
and Hermann Göring
were contrasted with the faces of those scientists, writers and actors they were persecuting.
's November 1942 Report.
Sales of Picture Post increased further during World 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.
Founding editor Stefan Lorant
(who had also founded Lilliput
and had even earlier pioneered the picture-story in Germany in the 1920s) had been succeeded by (Sir) Tom Hopkinson in 1940. Lorant, who had some Jewish ancestry, had been imprisoned by Hitler in the early 1930s, and wrote a best-selling book thereafter, I Was Hitler's Prisoner. By 1940, he feared he would be captured in a Nazi invasion of Britain
, and fled to Massachusetts, USA, where he wrote important illustrated U. S. histories and biographies.
New editor Hopkinson said his photographers were thoroughbreds, and whereas text could always be written after the event, if his photographers did not come back with good pictures, he had nothing to work with. Years later Hopkinson said the greatest photos he ever received to lay out were Bert Hardy
's images from the Korean War Battle of Incheon, which James Cameron
wrote the article for. The magazine's greatest photographers included Hardy, Kurt Hutton
, Felix Man, Francis Reiss, Thurston Hopkins, John Chillingworth, Grace Robertson
, and Leonard McCombe (McCombe eventually joined Life Magazine's staff). Staff writers included MacDonald Hastings, Lorna Hay, Sydney Jacobson, J.B. Priestley, Lionel Birch, James Cameron, Fyfe Robertson
, Anne Scott-James
, Robert Kee
, and Bert Lloyd; many notable freelancer writers contributed, as well, including George Bernard Shaw
, Dorothy Parker
, and William Saroyan
.
Editor Tom Hopkinson was often in conflict with (Sir) Edward G. Hulton, the owner of Picture Post. Hulton mainly supported the Conservative Party
and objected to Hopkinson's socialist views. This conflict led to Hopkinson's dismissal in 1950 following the publication of Cameron's article, with pictures by Hardy, about South 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 was closed in July 1957, circulation was less than 600,000 copies a week.
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 the Victoria and Albert and parts of the British Museum
collections.
When Picture Post folded, Sir Edward Hulton sold the archive collection to the BBC
in 1957. It was incorporated into the Radio Times
photo archive, and the BBC expanded the collection further with the purchase of the photo archives of the Daily Express
and Evening Standard
newspapers. Eventually the BBC disposed of its photo archive and the BBC Hulton Library was sold on once more, this time to Brian Deutsch, in 1988.
In 1996 the Hulton Deutsch Collection was bought for £8.6m by Getty Images
. Getty now own the rights to some 15 million photographs from the British press archives dating back to the Nineteenth Century.
In 2000, Getty embarked on a large project to digitise
the photo archive, and launched the website www.hultonarchive.com in 2001. A data 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.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
from 1938 to 1957. It is considered a pioneering example of photojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,700,000 copies a week after only two months. It has been called the Life magazine
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
of the United Kingdom.
The magazine’s editorial stance was liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
, anti-Fascist and populist and from its inception Picture Post campaigned against the persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
. In the 26 November 1938 issue a picture story was run entitled "Back to the Middle Ages": photographs of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, Joseph Goebbels
Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
and Hermann Göring
Hermann Göring
Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...
were contrasted with the faces of those scientists, writers and actors they were persecuting.
History
In January 1941 the 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 of William BeveridgeWilliam Beveridge
William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge KCB was a British economist and social reformer. He is best known for his 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services which served as the basis for the post-World War II welfare state put in place by the Labour government elected in 1945.Lord...
's November 1942 Report.
Sales of Picture Post increased further during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
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.
Founding editor Stefan Lorant
Stefan Lorant
Stefan Lorant was a pioneering Hungarian-American filmmaker, photojournalist, and author.-Early work:...
(who had also founded Lilliput
Lilliput (magazine)
Lilliput was a small-format British monthly magazine of humour, short stories, photographs and the arts, founded in 1937 by the photojournalist Stefan Lorant. The first issue came out in July and it was sold shortly after to Edward Hulton, when editorship was taken over by Tom Hopkinson in 1940....
and had even earlier pioneered the picture-story in Germany in the 1920s) had been succeeded by (Sir) Tom Hopkinson in 1940. Lorant, who had some Jewish ancestry, had been imprisoned by Hitler in the early 1930s, and wrote a best-selling book thereafter, I Was Hitler's Prisoner. By 1940, he feared he would be captured in a Nazi invasion of Britain
Operation Sealion
Operation Sea Lion was Germany's plan to invade the United Kingdom during the Second World War, beginning in 1940. To have had any chance of success, however, the operation would have required air and naval supremacy over the English Channel...
, and fled to Massachusetts, USA, where he wrote important illustrated U. S. histories and biographies.
New editor Hopkinson said his photographers were thoroughbreds, and whereas text could always be written after the event, if his photographers did not come back with good pictures, he had nothing to work with. Years later Hopkinson said the greatest photos he ever received to lay out were Bert Hardy
Bert Hardy
Bert Hardy was a documentary and press photographer known for his work published in the Picture Post magazine between 1941 and1957....
's images from the Korean War Battle of Incheon, which James Cameron
James Cameron (journalist)
Mark James Walter Cameron was a prominent British journalist, in whose memory the annual James Cameron Memorial Lecture is given.-Early life:...
wrote the article for. The magazine's greatest photographers included Hardy, Kurt Hutton
Kurt Hutton
Kurt Hutton, born Kurt Hübschmann , was a German-born photographer who pioneered photojournalism in England.-Life:Beginning his career with the Dephot agency in Germany, he migrated to England in 1934 and worked for Weekly Illustrated....
, Felix Man, Francis Reiss, Thurston Hopkins, John Chillingworth, Grace Robertson
Grace Robertson
Grace Robertson, OBE, is a Scottish photographer who was born in Manchester, England in 1930.After leaving school she looked after her mother who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. Robertson's father gave her a second-hand camera in 1949 and the following year she had a photo story about her...
, and Leonard McCombe (McCombe eventually joined Life Magazine's staff). Staff writers included MacDonald Hastings, Lorna Hay, Sydney Jacobson, J.B. Priestley, Lionel Birch, James Cameron, Fyfe Robertson
Fyfe Robertson
Fyfe Robertson was a Scottish television journalist.He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and christened James. He was one of six children of Jane Dunlop and James Robertson, a miner, who became a minister in the United Free Church of Scotland. He grew up in poverty but attended the High School of...
, Anne Scott-James
Anne Scott-James
Anne Eleanor Scott-James, Lady Lancaster was an English journalist and author. She was one of Britain's first women career journalists, editors and columnists, and latterly author of a series of gardening books....
, Robert Kee
Robert Kee
Robert Kee CBE is a British broadcaster, journalist and writer, known for his historical works on World War II and Ireland....
, and Bert Lloyd; many notable freelancer writers contributed, as well, including George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
, Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....
, and William Saroyan
William Saroyan
William Saroyan was an Armenian American dramatist and author. The setting of many of his stories and plays is the center of Armenian-American life in California in his native Fresno.-Early years:...
.
Editor Tom Hopkinson was often in conflict with (Sir) Edward G. Hulton, the owner of Picture Post. Hulton mainly supported the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
and objected to Hopkinson's socialist views. This conflict led to Hopkinson's dismissal in 1950 following the publication of Cameron's article, with pictures by Hardy, about South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
'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 was closed in July 1957, circulation was less than 600,000 copies a week.
Hulton Picture Library
As the photographic archive of Picture 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 Picture Library as a semi-independent operation. He commissioned Charles Gibbs-Smith of the Victoria and Albert MuseumVictoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
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 the Victoria and Albert and parts of the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
collections.
When Picture Post folded, Sir Edward Hulton sold the archive collection to the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
in 1957. It was incorporated into the Radio Times
Radio Times
Radio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
photo archive, and the BBC expanded the collection further with the purchase of the photo archives of the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
and Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
newspapers. Eventually the BBC disposed of its photo archive and the BBC Hulton Library was sold on once more, this time to Brian Deutsch, in 1988.
In 1996 the Hulton Deutsch Collection was bought for £8.6m by Getty Images
Getty Images
Getty Images, Inc. is a stock photo agency, based in Seattle, Washington, USA. It is a supplier of stock images for business and consumers with an archive of 80 million still images and illustrations and more than 50,000 hours of stock film footage...
. Getty now own the rights to some 15 million photographs from the British press archives dating back to the Nineteenth Century.
In 2000, Getty embarked on a large project to digitise
Digitizing
Digitizing or digitization is the representation of an object, image, sound, document or a signal by a discrete set of its points or samples. The result is called digital representation or, more specifically, a digital image, for the object, and digital form, for the signal...
the photo archive, and launched the website www.hultonarchive.com in 2001. A data migration
Data migration
Data migration is the process of transferring data between storage types, formats, or computer systems. Data migration is usually performed programmatically to achieve an automated migration, freeing up human resources from tedious tasks...
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.