Photographs by Roger Mayne

Photographs by Roger Mayne at Gitterman Gallery in New York. "...n 1954 Mayne moved to become a photographer, but it was not until 1956 that he discovered Southam Street. It was a street in a working class neighborhood of West London that would be demolished to make room for high-rise apartments. During the five years Mayne photographed there, it was full of energy: teddy boys, jiving girls, and kids playing in the street. Mayne also photographed other streets of West London and similar working class neighborhoods in Britain. For Mayne even the empty streets and dilapidated buildings had 'a kind of decaying splendor.' Though modernization ended community life in the streets, Mayne’s work preserves the spirit of that time. By 1959 Mayne’s images were so indicative of this period that Vogue used them to illustrate teenage styles. Colin MacInnes used one of his images on the cover of Absolute Beginners, a novel told in the first person by a teenage freelance photographer living in West London that commented on the youth culture of the time."