Mary Evans collection of the week: John Turner
In 2018, Liz Carroll and her husband Martin unearthed a suitcase full of photographic negatives taken by Liz’s father, John Turner, which had been in the loft since he died in 1987. Most of the images had never been made into prints, but scanning the negatives revealed that John had taken a succession of superb images, all done while he worked as a property manager for a firm of estate agents.
The photographs cover around 40 years, beginning in the 1930s with pre-War London as well as Paris and Munich, and continue into the 1960s. John Turner was a gifted photographer and had great compositional skills as well as an eye for a quirky shot. As just one example, witness this image of a middle-aged fashionista caught in the stare of a bronze dog in Hanover Square in the fifties.
The discovery of the collection gained quite a bit of publicity with short films on CNN and the BBC, which can be viewed here and here.
The images are now available solely through Mary Evans, and would be terrific for book covers among many other uses. We hope you enjoy this edited selection.
Mary Evans newsletter – 17 May, 2021.