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Live at ICA | Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 17.03.2026

Live at ICA | Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 17.03.2026

Live at ICA | Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 17.03.2026

Live at ICA | Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 17.03.2026

Live at ICA | Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 17.03.2026

Live at ICA | Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 17.03.2026

Live at ICA | Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 17.03.2026

Live at ICA | Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 17.03.2026

Live at ICA | Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 17.03.2026

Photography by Mackaisharp

Photography by Mackaisharp

Photography by Mackaisharp

Photography by Mackaisharp

Photography by Mackaisharp

Photography by Mackaisharp

Photography by Mackaisharp

Vintage gelatin silver print

Mayne's close-cropped photograph of a couple of young 'Teds' was chosen for the invitation card to his first solo exhibition in 1956 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Seeking a dramatically close-up encounter, Mayne recalled that he was about four feet away from the couple when the photograph was taken. The pair look at him searchingly but without apparent emotion, although we might see a newfound confidence and stridency in their demeanour.*


Taken from the exhibition


Roger Mayne: Youth
(Jun – Sept 2024)

Acclaimed British photographer Roger Mayne (1929–2014) was famous for his evocative documentary images of young people growing-up in Britain in the mid-1950s and ‘60s.
This exhibition, of around 60 almost exclusively vintage photographs, includes many of his iconic street images of children and teenagers, alongside an almost entirely unknown selection of intimate and moving later images of his own family at home in Dorset, as well as those taken on his honeymoon in Spain in 1962.
A pioneering, self-taught photographer, Roger Mayne (1929-2014) came to prominence in Britain in the mid-1950s. He is renowned for images that portray post-war communities struggling with poverty and deprivation while remaking their lives in the hope of a brighter future. In London's streetscape, Mayne found an unruly energy and unconventional beauty that he could harness in service of his art. His images of young people - the focus of this exhibition - embody the various states of fragility, love and resilience that defined a still unsettled post-war society.
This exhibition presents around sixty photographs, almost all vintage prints, made by Mayne at the time he took them. It combines a selection of his most famous street photographs taken in London's Southam Street and its immediate neighbourhood in Kensal Town, on the northern borders of Notting Hill, with subsequent and largely unknown bodies of work that date from 1962 onward. These later works begin with a series of images taken in Spain when the photographer was on honeymoon with his wife, the playwright Ann Jellicoe (1927-2017). It was here that Mayne felt re-energised as a photographer and captured some of his most hauntingly beautiful and powerful images. Thereafter, having purchased a property in the bucolic surroundings of Dorset in the mid-1960s, the couple and their young children increasingly divided their time between London and the countryside until their permanent move to Lyme Regis in 1975. With this major life change, Mayne's commitment to documenting Britain's youth was replaced by a fervent dedication to recording his own children growing up.
For Mayne, these domestic images were no less important than his street photography. Possessing an honesty, warmth and humour derived from a familial intimacy with his subject, this intense form of domestic scrutiny is not only artistically innovative but also largely unique in the output of any leading British photographer working in the post-war decades.
Mayne believed in photography's power to document, but he also knew that objective truth was ultimately elusive. He thought of his images - all taken with a lightweight handheld camera - as dramatisations, ones in which he frequently sought a direct encounter with the subject he was photographing. Working independently and always intuitively, Mayne produced work that is ultimately characterised by compassion for his subjects and a highly distinctive aesthetic that embraces both the graceful and the unruly. Increasingly appreciated as a pivotal figure in documentary photography's emergence as a major art practice in post-war Britain, Mayne created compelling images that resonate powerfully across the years.
[*The Courtauld]

Taken in The Courtauld

All photos are taken by Roger Mayne

Vintage gelatin silver print

Mayne's close-cropped photograph of a couple of young 'Teds' was chosen for the invitation card to his first solo exhibition in 1956 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Seeking a dramatically close-up encounter, Mayne recalled that he was about four feet away from the couple when the photograph was taken. The pair look at him searchingly but without apparent emotion, although we might see a newfound confidence and stridency in their demeanour.*


Taken from the exhibition


Roger Mayne: Youth
(Jun – Sept 2024)

Acclaimed British photographer Roger Mayne (1929–2014) was famous for his evocative documentary images of young people growing-up in Britain in the mid-1950s and ‘60s.
This exhibition, of around 60 almost exclusively vintage photographs, includes many of his iconic street images of children and teenagers, alongside an almost entirely unknown selection of intimate and moving later images of his own family at home in Dorset, as well as those taken on his honeymoon in Spain in 1962.
A pioneering, self-taught photographer, Roger Mayne (1929-2014) came to prominence in Britain in the mid-1950s. He is renowned for images that portray post-war communities struggling with poverty and deprivation while remaking their lives in the hope of a brighter future. In London's streetscape, Mayne found an unruly energy and unconventional beauty that he could harness in service of his art. His images of young people - the focus of this exhibition - embody the various states of fragility, love and resilience that defined a still unsettled post-war society.
This exhibition presents around sixty photographs, almost all vintage prints, made by Mayne at the time he took them. It combines a selection of his most famous street photographs taken in London's Southam Street and its immediate neighbourhood in Kensal Town, on the northern borders of Notting Hill, with subsequent and largely unknown bodies of work that date from 1962 onward. These later works begin with a series of images taken in Spain when the photographer was on honeymoon with his wife, the playwright Ann Jellicoe (1927-2017). It was here that Mayne felt re-energised as a photographer and captured some of his most hauntingly beautiful and powerful images. Thereafter, having purchased a property in the bucolic surroundings of Dorset in the mid-1960s, the couple and their young children increasingly divided their time between London and the countryside until their permanent move to Lyme Regis in 1975. With this major life change, Mayne's commitment to documenting Britain's youth was replaced by a fervent dedication to recording his own children growing up.
For Mayne, these domestic images were no less important than his street photography. Possessing an honesty, warmth and humour derived from a familial intimacy with his subject, this intense form of domestic scrutiny is not only artistically innovative but also largely unique in the output of any leading British photographer working in the post-war decades.
Mayne believed in photography's power to document, but he also knew that objective truth was ultimately elusive. He thought of his images - all taken with a lightweight handheld camera - as dramatisations, ones in which he frequently sought a direct encounter with the subject he was photographing. Working independently and always intuitively, Mayne produced work that is ultimately characterised by compassion for his subjects and a highly distinctive aesthetic that embraces both the graceful and the unruly. Increasingly appreciated as a pivotal figure in documentary photography's emergence as a major art practice in post-war Britain, Mayne created compelling images that resonate powerfully across the years.
[*The Courtauld]

Taken in The Courtauld

All photos are taken by Roger Mayne

Lou Barlow onstage at The ICA in London, 26th November 2025