<p>From childhood Jonathan Glancey has been fascated by the work John Gay, the German-born photographer whose objective eye ught the spir of London and a untry transn</p>
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JOHN GAY: LONDON PTURED THROUGH A LENS
* john gay photography *
Shortly before he died 1999, the photographer John Gay sent me a pair of prts he'd taken of Le Corbier's pilgrimage chapel at Ronchamp the Hte-Saône. This send shot is both funny and movg: funny bee om some aspects the chapel do remble an outsized wimple; movg bee is also a eply spirual buildg, and the nun Gay's picture nveys a sense of serene spirualy. Both pictur are black-and-whe – Gay never shot lour – and I'm lookg at them while I wre this my study at photographs mean a lot to me, as om early childhood I'd been ptivated by Gay's work.
Gay was rerdg a way of life that was vanishg almost as fast as he uld prs the shutter releas of his large-format meras. I was given a brand new py of Gay's magil London's Historic Railways Statns (1972) wrten by John Betjeman. Perhaps Gay's perspective was so particular bee he was not origally om this untry.
JOHN GAY RETROSPECTIVE
Gay was born Hans Gohler, Karlshe, southwt Germany, 1909. Upon arrivg England, he took an adopted name om the 18th-century poser John Gay, most famo for his Beggar's Opera, a wickedly satiril portra of polil and social rptn. Gay worked for Strand and Country Fair magaz, producg fe portras as well as rerdg everyday English untry scen.
APRIL : THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF JOHN GAY
29 January 2009: For 60 years, photographer John Gay ptured the reali of daily English life. When John Gay’s substantial llectn was bequeathed to the NMR, was immediately apparent that here was an important photographer who had been overlooked by postery. John Gay (1909-99) was one of a generatn of German émigrés who ma an immense ntributn to Brish culture and amic life, and at the height of his reer he was one of the most rpected photographers the untry.