Yevonde

The current exhibition at the Laing is on Yevonde Middleton (1893-1975), a London-based photographer who started with society portraits and later experimented with colour processing, producing some wonderfully vivid/garish images. I came out feeling a bit “meh”, which was unfair of me. It was just that, after the intriguing compositions of Vivian Maier and Evelyn Hofer, Yevonde seemed so glossily conventional and studio-bound. So many Tatler covers, so many debutantes . . . and the oddest of the lot: “Goddesses and Others”, a 1935 exhibition of society beauties dressed as characters from Greek mythology. It was too frivolous (IMHO) to provoke any profound thoughts on the “modern rendering of powerful female mythologies”.

However, Yevonde was something of a trailblazer. There had been women photographers before her; Yevonde herself was apprenticed to one and then set up her own studio in 1914. She was innovative in composition and production, and there was a playfulness in her early work which I liked. Her colour equipment was so large that it really didn’t lend itself to “street photography” (but but but . . . Herbert Ponting) but she pushed the boundaries of what could be achieved in the studio and dark room.

I came out intending to look at other paintings but got buttonholed by someone coherent but garrulous in front of the Stanley Spencer, so I made my excuses and left. Newcastle looked great in the winter sunshine – so much better than Manchester the other week, the thought of which still brings on a sense of gloom.