(Above) Rock with your hands: dancers in the Cat's Whiskers, Published in Picture Post: February / March, 1956 Photographer: Ken Russell
Exhibition Preview: Soho Nights, Photographers' Gallery, Ramillies Street until February 8 2009.
Soho Nights is the second part of the Photographers' Gallery Soho Archives project documenting the vibrant character of London's Soho from the 1930s to the 1950s.
The exhibition is the first in the Gallery’s new project space at its new location at 16-18 Ramillies St, W1.
The exciting exhibition explores Soho after dark and the energy and excitement found at it coffee bars and theatres between the 1930’s and the 1950’s.
Soho Nights combines the archives of the legendary magazine Picture Post and the film maker Ken Russell’s series of photos from the Cat’s Whiskers Coffee Bar.
Included are vintage prints, original copies of Picture Post and specially enlarged printed contact sheets.
(Above) Blue Heaven in the Basement: Cy Laurie's jazz club in Mac's Rehearsal Rooms, Soho. (Published in Picture Post: 10 July 1954) Photographer: Slim Hewitt © Getty Images
Picture Post was one of the most successful magazines to be published in the UK reaching a circulation of two million in the post war period.
Its last issue was released on June 1 1957 but in its day the magazine captured the dynamism of Britain at the time by focusing on the lives of normal people.
Its focus on popular entertainment and the rise of youth culture meant that the clubs and cafes in Soho were fashionable and popular subjects.
(Above) A Soho Pub is Unofficial Headquarters of Free French: Story about the York Minister public house and French clientele. (Published in Picture Post: 18 October 1941) Photographer: Kurt Hutton © Getty Images
Ken Russell is of course best known today as the film director who produced the Oscar winning films Women in Love and Tommy.
The exhibition shows his 1956 photographic series taken at The Cats Whiskers Coffee bar, which was always so packed that hand gestures replaced conventional dancing, leading to the birth of the hand jive.
Exhibition curators are Bob Pullen, Research Assistant in the Photography and Archive Centre at University of Arts London and Professor Val Williams, Director of the Photography and Archive Research Centre at University of the Arts, London.
For more information on the Photographers' Gallery or Soho Nights see www.photonet.org.uk.
