Grace Robertson (13 July 1930
[Ms Grace Robertson, OBE](_blank)
Debretts. Retrieved 16 June 2013. – 11 January 2021) was a British photographer who worked as a
photojournalist, and published in ''
Picture Post
''Picture Post'' was a photojournalistic magazine published in the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1957. It is considered a pioneering example of photojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,700,000 copies a week after only two months. ...
'' and ''
Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for Cell growth, growth, reaction to Stimu ...
''. Her photographic series, including "Mother's Day Off" (1954) and "Childbirth" (1955), mainly recorded ordinary women in
postwar Britain
In Western usage, the phrase post-war era (or postwar era) usually refers to the time since the end of World War II. More broadly, a post-war period (or postwar period) is the interval immediately following the end of a war. A post-war period c ...
.
Robertson's work is held in the collections of the
National Galleries of Scotland,
Science Museum Group
The Science Museum Group (SMG) consists of five British museums:
* The Science Museum in South Kensington, London
* The Science and Industry Museum in Manchester
* The National Railway Museum in York
* The Locomotion Museum (formerly the Nat ...
,
Tate
Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...
and
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...
.
Early life
Robertson was born in
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
, England, in 1930, to the journalist
Fyfe Robertson
James Fyfe Robertson (19 August 1902 – 4 February 1987) was a Scottish television journalist and broadcaster.
Biography
Robertson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was one of six children of Jane Dunlop and James Robertson, a miner w ...
and his wife Elizabeth (Betty; née Muir).
Both her parents were born in Scotland, and Robertson described herself as Scottish in a 2010 interview with ''
The Scotsman
''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pare ...
''.
After leaving school at 16 she looked after her mother, who had
rheumatoid arthritis
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a long-term autoimmune disorder that primarily affects joints. It typically results in warm, swollen, and painful joints. Pain and stiffness often worsen following rest. Most commonly, the wrist and hands are invol ...
.
She became interested in photography in 1948 and, in 1949, her father gave her a
Leica camera.
Career
In 1951 Robertson had a
photo-essay A photographic essay or photo-essay for short is a form of visual storytelling, a way to present a narrative through a series of images. A photo essay delivers a story using a series of photographs and brings the viewer along a narrative journey.
E ...
about her younger sister doing her homework published in ''
Picture Post
''Picture Post'' was a photojournalistic magazine published in the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1957. It is considered a pioneering example of photojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,700,000 copies a week after only two months. ...
'',
where her father worked.
Another early success was on Chinese artists.
Some of her early submissions used the masculine pseudonym "Dick Muir", to avoid using her father's name.
Her first commission for ''Picture Post'' was in
Snowdonia
Snowdonia or Eryri (), is a mountainous region in northwestern Wales and a national park of in area. It was the first to be designated of the three national parks in Wales, in 1951.
Name and extent
It was a commonly held belief that the na ...
, which resulted in "Sheep Shearing in Wales" (1951).
In 1952, she photographed the Bluebell Girls in Italy,
and also published "Tate Gallery" (1952).
At the date she was working, most photojournalists were men, and she was often assigned more feminine stories.
Working as a freelancer throughout her career, her best-known series, "Mother's Day Off", documented working-class women from
Bermondsey
Bermondsey () is a district in southeast London, part of the London Borough of Southwark, England, southeast of Charing Cross. To the west of Bermondsey lies Southwark, to the east Rotherhithe and Deptford, to the south Walworth and Peckham ...
in London, enjoying a day out in
Margate
Margate is a seaside town on the north coast of Kent in south-east England. The town is estimated to be 1.5 miles long, north-east of Canterbury and includes Cliftonville, Garlinge, Palm Bay and Westbrook.
The town has been a significan ...
, and was published in ''Picture Post'' in 1954. The middle-aged to elderly subjects are depicted dancing, drinking and on a fairground ride. She was commissioned to shoot a similar series featuring women from
Clapham
Clapham () is a suburb in south west London, England, lying mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, but with some areas (most notably Clapham Common) extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth.
History
Early history ...
for ''
Life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for Cell growth, growth, reaction to Stimu ...
'' magazine in 1956.
''
The Scotsman
''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its pare ...
'' describes both these sets of photographs as "perfectly composed, artifice-free examples of classic reportage".
Her series "Childbirth", published in ''Picture Post'' in 1955, included photographs of a woman in labour and delivery, considered explicit at the time, and were among the earliest such images to appear in a magazine.
Around this time, ''Life'' offered her a staff job in the United States, but Robertson refused.
After the failure of the ''Picture Post'' in 1957, she worked as a freelance photographer and photojournalist for ''Life'' and other publications, and also took advertising photographs. After having children, she trained and worked as a primary school teacher from 1966 to 1978, while continuing to take photographs.
After retiring from teaching, she started to paint during the 1980s.
In 1986,
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...
broadcast a documentary about Robertson, and her work was included in an exhibition at the
National Museum of Photography, Film & Television in
Bradford; several other exhibitions in the UK and the United States followed. In 1989, she published an autobiographical monograph, entitled ''Grace Robertson – Photojournalist of the 50s''. In 1992, the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
commissioned a programme from her about ninety year olds.
She also gave lectures on women photographers.
'', characterises Robertson's work as recording ordinary women in postwar Britain, and describes her as a "proto-feminist".
Tirza Latimer and Harriet Riches consider her work to be "limited to a focus on women's interests."
in 1999.
(2007).
Robertson who stood 6 ft 2in in her bare feet married in 1955 the ''Picture Post'' photographer
.
They had two children.
, where they remained until his death in 2014 at age 101.
Robertson died on 11 January 2021, aged 90.
*''Picture Post: Women''. London: Collins & Brown, 1993. By
. .
.