Transition: The London Art Scene in the Fifties

by Martin Harrison, Carol Brown (Foreword by), Tomoko Sato (Foreword by)

London in the Fifties was a Mecca for the painter Jack Smith, for instance, decreed that 'the wilderness starts ten miles from the centre of London in any direction'. The Bohemian underworlds of Fitzrovia and Soho attracted painters of the calibre of Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach, Leon Kossoff, R. B. Kitaj and Lucian Freud. Kossoff was in no doubt as to what his subject should 'I hate leaving my studio', he said, 'I hate leaving London', and he painted the city from the age of twelve. Bacon became the most famous member of the circle centred on the legendary Colony Room in Soho, run by Muriel a drinking den frequented by artists, critics and assorted hangers-on, eager to take advantage of the sexual freedom to be found in London, as nowhere else in the country, at a time when homosexuality was still against the law. The city was brimming over with ideas and Neo-Romanticism, Social Realism, Pop Art, the Kitchen Sink School, Abstract Expressionism - all flourished in the Fifties and jostled for dominance.
John Berger, then in his twenties and the enfant terrible of the art establishment, was one of the most influential critics of the passionately Marxist, his championing of Social Realism and the political responsibilities of art led him to clash with those painters he saw as failing in their duties to record 'the everyday and the ordinary'. The other great debate involved the relationship between high and low culture. To Lawrence Alloway, another important critic of the day, also in his twenties, popular culture had a vital role to play in 'high' he enthusiastically embraced American movies, music, magazines, all the paraphernalia of the newly invented 'teenager', and urged their incorporation into works of art. Bad press photographs, he held, were of more value to the artist than those striving self-consciously to be 'artistic'. The debates that raged around these issues made such institutions as the Royal College of Art, the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Slade School of Fine Art power-houses of creativity and new ideas.

192 pages, Hardcover

Published April 28, 2002

About the author

Martin Harrison is a British art historian, curator, and author, internationally recognized for his expertise in photography, stained glass, and the work of painter Francis Bacon. Beginning his career in the 1960s as a photographer’s assistant at Vogue, Harrison later emerged as a leading authority on British photojournalism with his influential book Young Meteors: British Photojournalism, 1957–1965. He played a key role in reviving interest in forgotten photographers, including Lillian Bassman and Saul Leiter.
Harrison’s curatorial work spans major institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, with exhibitions held across Europe, the United States, and Mexico. A founding trustee of the English Stained Glass Museum at Ely Cathedral, he also contributed significantly to the study of Victorian stained glass and Pre-Raphaelite art.
His most celebrated contribution lies in his extensive scholarship on Francis Bacon. Since 1999, Harrison has authored several critical texts on the artist’s work and its sources, culminating in the five-volume Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné (2016), a landmark in Bacon studies. He continues to lead academic discourse as editor of the Francis Bacon Studies series, focusing on the artist’s intellectual and visual influences, particularly cinema and photography.
Across a multifaceted career, Harrison has combined visual analysis with rigorous scholarship, leaving a lasting impact on the study of modern art and visual culture.