A Maverick Eye

First edition first impression in fine condition.

John Deakin's extraordinary documentary photographs are haunting evocations of life on the streets of London, Paris and Rome in the 1950s and 1960s. His eye is a profoundly generous one and his chief focus is on ordinary life. His pictures of dog walkers, priests, nuns and shopkeepers reveal and empathy to rival that of Doisneau and Brassai. Equally intriguing are his depictions of human activity with the participants gone: a vanished vernacular of chalked-up children's games, of graffitied messages of love or anger to the world, street signs, peeling wills, window shutters and shop-front banners - signals from another age.