JOHN CHILLINGWORTH

introduced by Matthew Butson

Picture Post, the UK’s best known illustrated magazine was launched 75 years ago in October 1938 and ran for almost twenty years until 1957. It was massively popular and at its peak had a circulation of just under two million copies.

At the age of 22, John Chillingworth was the youngest member of the ‘star’ team of photographic journalists on the magazine. He worked alongside many other great photographers including Bert Hardy, Kurt Hutton, Felix Man, Bill Brandt, Thurston Hopkins, Grace Robertson, and Leonard McCombe. Editorially the magazine was liberal, anti-Fascist and populist. It covered everything from politics, through to sport, fashion, music, theatre and film, as well as picture stories of everyday life both in the UK and abroad.

Chillingworth stayed with Picture Post for seven years producing a vast range of photo stories of a very high quality. Encouraged by the legendary picture magazine editor Tom Hopkinson, he learned to combine ‘story-telling’ images with the written word and worked with some of the finest magazine journalists of the age. Hopkinson, described Chillingworth as one of his great successes.

Although John Chillingworth’s images are still reproduced in publications around the world, this is his first monograph and features a wide range of photographs, primarily taken during his Picture Post years. The book is introduced by Matthew Butson, Vice President of Hulton Archive, whose vast experience of the Picture Post archive stretches back almost 30 years.

Hardback, 96 pages
76 colour / black & white photos
245mm x 245mm
ISBN: 978-1-907893-43-8