Forgotten photojournalism of Southwark’s finest: Bert Hardy at the Photographers Gallery

Bert Hardy rose from humble working class origins in Elephant and Castle to become one of the classic photojournalists of the 20th century.

Photojournalism in War and Peace, a collection of works spanning Hardy’s four-decade-long career are being shown at the Photographers Gallery in Soho, until June 7.

The retrospective covers his work for Britain’s leading photo-magazine, Picture Post, including his portrayal of post-war life in Britain, the social conditions and working-class lives of the time across London, Liverpool, Cardiff, Belfast, Tyneside and Glasgow.

His photographs taken during the Blitz, the liberation of Bergen-Belsen and the Korean War are also shown alongside archival material like press passes, diaries, and correspondence.

Hardy’s career coincided with a boom in naturalistic photographic journalism during the 1950s and 60s, which meant using natural light and small cameras to snap glimpses of life.

Looking at Hardy’s work evokes a sense of loss. The people of his pictures and the world they live in don’t seem to exist anymore.

Today, people living in poverty are photographed as victims surrounded by crumbling architecture. Hardy’s photographs hold the feeling of movement and of life, the people within them have hopes as well as fears.

Hardy’s ability to capture the working class in this dual light was controversial.

His photograph of two boys walking arm-in-arm became one of the most famous images of post-war Glasgow – a symbol of renewal amidst decay.

The Gorbals was often referred to as Europe’s worst slum, and the most dangerous place in the UK with street gangs and casual violence rife.

Hardy’s depiction of misery lifted by the playfulness of the children captured the complexity of poverty, from the eye of a man looking back on his own difficult childhood.

The Picture Post refused to publish the image, choosing grittier shots of Gorbals life which would eventually land Hardy the Encyclopaedia Britannica Photographic Awards.

Also featured in the exhibition is one of Hardy’s most famous projects – Scenes From the Elephant, which made up a feature in the Picture Post in 1949.

The series depicts the life of his beloved Elephant and Castle against a backdrop of bomb and building sites decked with sooty bricks and cast iron spikes. But within the images there are glimpses of modernisation, trams, trains and trucks appear through the smoke, lit by London’s first traffic lights.

The exhibition is almost claustrophobic, with hundreds of small prints neatly aligned along the walls of a single floor.

At the back, in a contrastingly dark side room there is a collection of Hardy’s war photography which include some of his most contentious pictures.

In 1950, Picture Post sent Hardy and a reporter, James Cameron, to cover the Korean War. 

Hardy’s photos would result in the magazine’s editor losing his job for a story documenting the treatment of prisoners by the South Korean Government, an ally of the Western Powers.

Cameron and Hardy accompanied the U.S. Marines in the first wave of landings at Inchon on September 15, 1950. The landings were the most powerful sea-borne invasion since D-Day and they were the only British journalists present.

After the landing, Hardy photographed prisoners of war in Pusan – then the only Korean city held by U.N. Forces – in squalor. The accompanying article by Cameron was critical of the Allies, the UN and the Red Cross for giving the South Korean dictatorship a free rein.

Hardy’s pictures – now hung on walls across The Photographers Gallery – were banned in Britain throughout the war.

The quality of the work shown at the gallery stands in stark contrast with Hardy’s relative obscurity next to some of his British contemporaries.

The Photographers Gallery may have caused a turning point for Bert Hardy and his iconic black and white portrayal of the 20th century.

To see Bert Hardy: Photojournalism in War and Peace, visit The Photographers Gallery in Soho before June 7.

Pictured top: Gorbals Boys, 1948 by Bert Hardy (Picture: Images provided by Getty Images Archive, home of the Picture Post collection, in support of Bert Hardy: Photojournalism in War and Peace, now on show at The Photographers’ Gallery)