history

Robert Frank

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Robert Frank (1924–2019) London, 1951–53

Soon after his emigration to New York in 1947, Alexey Brodovitch hired Frank as a fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar. The position brought many occasions for travel, and Frank’s impressions of the United States, in comparison to other places, impacted his work. After receiving his first Guggenheim Fellowship in 1955, Frank embarked on a two-year trip across America during which he took over 28,000 pictures. Eighty-three of those images were ultimately published in Frank’s groundbreaking monograph The Americans, first by Robert Delpire in 1958 in Paris, and a year later by Grove Press in the United States. Frank’s unorthodox cropping, lighting, and sense of focus attracted criticism. His work, however, was not without supporters. Beat writers Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg felt a kinship with Frank and his interest in documenting the fabric of contemporary society. Eventually The Americans jettisoned Frank into a position of cultural prominence; he became the spokesperson for a generation of visual artists, musicians, and literary figures both in the United States and abroad.

Pace Gallery

Outlander triggered more interest in Scotland than ‘any other cultural artefact in recent years’ 

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Outlander

The historical roots of the hit television series Outlander and its cultural impact on Scotland will be examined in the first major academic conference of its kind next year.

The University of Glasgow will host the Outlander Conference 2020 in June with the history, customs, politics, culture, clothes and music featured in the phenomenally successful television series which is based on the novels of Diana Gabaldon [ . . . ]

Continue at THE SCOTSMAN: Outlander triggered more interest in Scotland than ‘any other cultural artefact in recent years’ – The Scotsman

In Search Of London’s Last Cockneys 

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“We had to move away, Cos’ the rent we couldn’t pay.”

What does it mean to be cockney? Pearly kings and queens? Rhyming slang? Pie and liquor? It’s commonly believed that to be truly cockney, you must be born within earshot of Bow Bells, which peal from Cheapside’s St Mary-le-Bow church.

Noise pollution and a lack of maternity wards in the area have rendered this definition practically obsolete. The term ‘cockney’ dates back to the 1300s and was originally used as a pejorative label for the city’s toffee-nosed urban folk. It’s since become a term of endearment primarily referring to the working class, down-to-earth, East Enders of London.

But in 2010, Professor Paul Kerswill of the University of York estimated that the cockney accent would disappear from London “within 30 years”. 10 of those years have now elapsed. Is this native London breed really set to become brown bread? And what has triggered the mass exodus of these former city-dwellers to surrounding counties such as Essex and Kent?

“We’re still alive and kicking, but we’re hanging by a thread”

Think cockney and Pearly Kings and Queens often spring to mind. The tradition, dating back to the Victorian costermongers (street traders) of north London, was founded by Henry Croft, a former workhouse inmate, who — inspired by the style-savvy costermongers who sewed lines of pearls onto their clothes to mimic the rich — chose to go one step further by completely embellishing suits with pearl buttons [ . . . ]

Read complete feature story in THE LONDONIST: In Search Of London’s Last Cockneys | Londonist