London, Signed Presentation by Lord Snowdon (Tony Armstrong Jones)
[Signed Presentation by Lord Snowdon to Helen Robinson] Armstrong Jones, Tony. London. First English Edition. 1958. Book is in very good condition; jacket is in very good minus condition—jacket shows chipping to the spine ends, light creasing, and minor soiling. Book is warmly inscribed to Snowdon’s friend Helen Robinson, a friend of his who was then working at American Vogue, “To Helen and Philip, with love, from Tony. London is the subject of this book, but time is its real theme. Published two years before Tony Armstrong-Jones married Princess Margaret and became Lord Snowdon, this collection of photographs captures England suspended between worlds. Though the royal connection would later amplify his fame, these photographs show that the young photographer scarcely needed the help. At just twenty-seven, he was already emerging as one of the keenest observers of British life. Composed almost entirely of full-page black-and-white photographs, the book captures a city where the last remnants of the Edwardian world still lingered amid postwar austerity and the first stirrings of modern Britain. The result is less a portrait of London than a portrait of a society between eras—the calm before the cultural revolution that would transform Britain in the 1960s. This presentation copy, inscribed to Snowdon’s friend Helen Robinson of American Vogue, offers an appealing glimpse into the young photographer’s circle just before history dramatically enlarged it.
“I believe that photographs should be simple technically, and easy to look at. They shouldn’t be directed at other photographers; their point is to make ordinary people to react—to laugh, or to see something they hadn’t taken in before, or to be touched.”
--Tony Armstrong Jones