John Deakin, Francis Bacon (1952)© John Deakin
It only makes sense to pay a visit to Chichester's classy Pallant House if you're within striking distance of the Brighton Photo Biennial, particularly when it's pairing works by major British artists with portraits of them by infamous former Vogue photographer John Deakin.
A gonzo snapper who was hired and fired twice by the same editor, Deakin achieved bad boy status around the pubs and clubs of Soho, counting the likes of Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Michael Andrews among his friends and artistic accomplices.
Those three are among the sitters here, captured as part of a Vogue commission to photograph 12 contemporary artists between 1951 and 1952. The oracular magazine has lent a series of ragged vintage prints, rediscovered in their archives nearly 20 years ago, showing Deakin's style of pushing contrasts to the limit in an ethos leaving no pore unexposed.
"John Deakin is inseparable from the mythology of Soho in the 1950," says curator Robin Muir, discussing the artist Bacon credited with playing a key part in informing his interpretations of the human form.
"Deakin may have behaved the worst – the Woolworth's heiress, Barbara Hutton, called him 'the second nastiest little man I ever met.' But to his peers he was a true original."
See Culture24 next week for our review
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