Barbara Marcia Ker-Seymer (20 January 190525 May 1993) was a British photographer and society figure, considered one of the group designated by the tabloid press as '

Bright Young People __NOTOC__ The Bright Young Things, or Bright Young People, was a nickname given by the tabloid press to a group of Bohemianism, Bohemian young Aristocracy (class), aristocrats and socialites in 1920s London. They threw flamboyant costume party, f ...

Early life

Born in

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

, the second daughter of Horace Vere Clay Ker-Seymer (or Clay-Ker-Seymer; his father was Harry Ernest Clay, son of politician James Clay and brother of the composer

Frederic Clay Frederic Emes Clay (3 August 1838 – 24 November 1889) was an English composer known principally for songs and his music written for the stage. Although from a musical family, for 16 years Clay made his living as a civil servant in HM Treasury ...

; for inheritance purposes his mother's surname of Ker-Seymer was appended), of a

landed gentry The landed gentry, or the ''gentry'', is a largely historical British social class of landowners who could live entirely from rental income, or at least had a country estate. While distinct from, and socially below, the British peerage, th ...

family of

Hanford, Dorset Hanford is a village and civil parish in the administrative area North Dorset, in the English county Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county c ...

which had somewhat descended in wealth by this time, a situation primarily attributable to Horace's gambling addiction, which led him to squander his fortune- including the family's house- and caused estrangement from his wife), and Diana, the third daughter of Walter Pennington Creyke (died 1892), of Seamore Place,

Park Lane Park Lane is a dual carriageway road in the City of Westminster in Central London. It is part of the London Inner Ring Road and runs from Hyde Park Corner in the south to Marble Arch in the north. It separates Hyde Park to the west from May ...

, and Caroline (1844-1946), a writer as "Diane Chasseresse" and daughter of the agricultural scientist and entrepreneur Sir

John Bennet Lawes Sir John Bennet Lawes, 1st Baronet, FRS (28 December 1814 – 31 August 1900) was an English entrepreneur and agricultural scientist. He founded an experimental farm at his home at Rothamsted Manor that eventually became Rothamsted Research, ...

, 1st Baronet. A younger sister, Pauline, was born in 1906, but died the next year. By the time Barbara left school, she, her mother and her elder sister, Manon (born 1903) were living at West Kensington, which was perceived at the time to be a place 'where the fly-blown respectability of the lower middle class clings to its dreary outposts against the slums'. Diana Ker-Seymer, whose 'preferences were lesbian', 'periodically retreated abroad with a girlfriend,' which did nothing to stabilise family life. Despite her mother's view of the family as 'poor', at least relative to the manner in which she had been brought up, Barbara was nevertheless presented at court as a

debutante A debutante, also spelled débutante, ( ; from french: débutante , "female beginner") or deb is a young woman of aristocratic or upper-class family background who has reached maturity and, as a new adult, is presented to society at a formal " ...

, expensively attired (including with the customary ostrich feathers), alongside

Meraud Guinness Meraud Michelle Wemyss Guinness also known as Meraud Guevara (24 June 1904 – 6 May 1993) was a British painter, writer and poet. She lived most of her life in France, having settled there with her husband, Álvaro Guevara, from whom she was ...

Career

After leaving the

Chelsea School of Art Chelsea College of Arts is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London based in London, United Kingdom, and is a leading British art and design institution with an international reputation. It offers further and higher educat ...

, a meeting with society photographer

Olivia Wyndham Olivia Madeline Grace Mary Wyndham (30 November 1897 – 1967) was a British society photographer and a member of the 1920s socialite group known as the bright young things. The daughter of Colonel Guy Percy Wyndham, C.B., M.V.O. (a member of th ...

inspired Ker-Seymer to teach herself photography. Her work eschewed artifice, instead aiming at producing naturalistic images, with her sitters relaxed rather than posed, as though they were 'just sitting around'. These subjects included

Nancy Cunard Nancy Clara Cunard (10 March 1896 – 17 March 1965) was a British writer, heiress and political activist. She was born into the British upper class, and devoted much of her life to fighting racism and fascism. She became a muse to some of the ...

Raymond Mortimer Charles Raymond Bell Mortimer CBE (25 April 1895 – 9 January 1980), who wrote under the name Raymond Mortimer, was a British writer on art and literature, known mostly as a critic and literary editor, who also wrote a classic history of th ...

Frederick Ashton Sir Frederick William Mallandaine Ashton (17 September 190418 August 1988) was a British ballet dancer and choreographer. He also worked as a director and choreographer in opera, film and revue. Determined to be a dancer despite the oppositi ...

Edward Burra Edward John Burra CBE (29 March 1905 – 22 October 1976) was an English painter, draughtsman, and printmaker, best known for his depictions of the urban underworld, black culture and the Harlem scene of the 1930s. Biography Early life Burra w ...

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...

and

Julia Strachey Julia Strachey (14 August 1901 – 1979) was an English writer, born in Allahabad, India, where her father, Oliver Strachey, the elder brother of Lytton Strachey, was a civil servant. Her mother, Ruby Mayer (1881-1959), was of Swiss-German orig ...

. She opened her London studio- above

Asprey Asprey International Limited, formerly Asprey & Garrard Limited, is a United Kingdom-based designer, manufacturer and retailer of jewellery, silverware, home goods, leather goods, timepieces and a retailer of books. Asprey's flagship re ...

the jewellers- in 1931, and at around the same time produced for

Harper's Bazaar ''Harper's Bazaar'' is an American monthly women's fashion magazine. It was first published in New York City on November 2, 1867, as the weekly ''Harper's Bazar''. ''Harper's Bazaar'' is published by Hearst and considers itself to be the st ...

the photographic series 'Footprints in the Sand' about up-and-coming writers; one of her sitters was

Evelyn Waugh Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh (; 28 October 1903 – 10 April 1966) was an English writer of novels, biographies, and travel books; he was also a prolific journalist and book reviewer. His most famous works include the early satires ''Decli ...

. She was a friend of the

Surrealist Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

artist

John Banting John Banting (12 May 1902 – 30 January 1972) was an English artist and writer. Born in Chelsea, London on 12 May 1902 and educated at Emanuel School, Banting was initially attracted to vorticism and associated with the Bloomsbury Group, before ...

, managing to keep his suicidal moods at bay with her upbeat personality. With the onset of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and the dispersal of the avant-garde scene in which she had operated, along with changes in public attitudes and shortages of photographic supplies, Ker-Seymer abandoned her photography for work in a film studio, and spent the majority of the war living in the remote English countryside. She never returned to photography, instead opening one of London's first launderettes. She enjoyed the work, and the business became successful, which allowed her to bring up her son in security.

Personal life

Ker-Seymer was married twice: first, in June 1941, to Humphrey Joseph Robinson Pease, of Yewden Manor, Henley-on-Thames, a researcher for

Mass-Observation Mass-Observation is a United Kingdom social research project; originally the name of an organisation which ran from 1937 to the mid-1960s, and was revived in 1981 at the University of Sussex. Mass-Observation originally aimed to record everyday ...

; second, in March 1945, to John David Rhodes (d. 2007), with whom she had one son, Max Humphrey Lionel Ewart Rhodes (later Ker-Seymer), born 1947. They divorced in 1955. She died on 25 May 1993.

References

External links

Independent obituary, 29 May 1993Portrait by Humphrey Spender, National Portrait Gallery, LondonTate Archive 40, 1997 Barbara Ker-Seymer 'Fashion Sense' from www.tate.org.ukBarbara Ker-Seymer in the British Film Institute
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kerseymer, Barbara 1905 births 1993 deaths British debutantes Photographers from London Alumni of Chelsea College of Arts People from Kensington Place of death missing