Guy Bourdin: Image Maker

Guy Bourdin, fashion photographer, 'Image Maker'.
The same day I went with friends to see this exhibition at Somerset House, London,
The Sun newspaper announced the end of page three*.
So image, particularly images of women, was a hot topic of conversation.
Men taking photos of women.
Women's bodies used to sell things.

During his training, Guy Bourdin spent time with the surrealist, Man-Ray.

Bourdin seems to have had a thing for shoes.
In the 1970s, for a Charles Jourdan advertising campaign,
Bourdin dispensed with the women altogether, well most of the female body,
and took mannequin legs around Britain  on a month long trip to take photos of shoes.

Very playful and still very much the female form.

A bit like one of those optical illusions when all that is drawn are dots,

but you can't help seeing a 3D cube.

"How on earth did he get them to stand up?"

Bourdin made films too.

There was something about that make-up.
Triggering memories of experimenting with cream eye-shadow that came out of tubes.
Blue for my friend and brown for me.
At this point, my friend admitted to still having her first pale pearl lipstick.

Joyfully we reminisced about lip-gloss,
Roll-on, scented, cherry, lip-gloss.

"There's your blue eye-shadow!"

In our teens, where did our ideas of self image, beauty,
make-up and body shape come from?
We conferred and it seems that for us, it was primarily Jackie magazine.
If you were lucky, a lip-gloss was the free-gift.

"But we didn't appreciate our figures when we were younger."

There's so much to say about the shapes of women's bodies.
This furniture is a reminder of yet another body shape.
My Sindy doll had that chest of drawers, the 'Sindy' version.
Sindy's body shape; waist, bust and hips, surely not aspirational anymore.

Aspirational?
Didn't we all want to be a princess (and the pea)?

Incredible shape,

movement,

and legs.

 Playing with shape.

Bourdin's photography is intended, like surrealism, to disturb then delight.
For us it did both.
Delight and consternation.
Questions about body shapes, modelling at what price,
how women's bodies are used for publicity
and although not page three, all the women in this exhibition where the same shape.

So for balance, here are our shapes.

Guy Bourdin: Image Maker is on at Somerset House until 15th March 2015.
Details on the Somerset House website, here.

*The Sun stopping 'page 3', appears to ave been a publicity stunt.
It stopped for all of two days.

Ten Minutes

Heading to Charing Cross station,

we had a little time before the 14.47 to Catford Bridge.

"We've got ten minutes!"

How to fill them?

"Right I'll take you on my tour of the National Gallery."

Not my tour, but a friends, I hadn't been to the National Gallery for ages.

"Are you sure we have time?"

"Yes, I'll show you all the paintings I look at with my family."

"Oh you turn right, I usually go left."

We begin a whistle-stop tour.

"Van Gogh, those are fabulous colours."

"Monet's Water-Lillies, you don't need to go to Paris."

"There's a painting of South East London somewhere around here.

Pissarro did a painting of Sydenham."

"Is this it?"

"No that's France."

"Upper Norwood, near Crystal Palace, getting closer."

We ask. It's not on display at the moment.

"It's all here, Lady Jane Grey."

"Up through here to the Stubbs."

"It's absolutely huge. It's life-size."

"Those eyes."

"I had forgotten how beautiful the National Gallery is."

"My turn,

I usually head left when I come in here, I'll take you to the paintings I usually see."

The Four Elements by Beuckelaer

Earth

Water

Air.

Fire

"I love the way they are hung, in the round, facing each other."

"They remind me of Grayson Perry's work, all those objects, large compositions,

so many things happening."

We had at one time, seen his tapestries together.

"Have you seen the painting with the skull?

You know, the painting where in order to see it properly,

you have to be standing to the side of the picture, looking at it from an angle."

They hadn't.

That's what happens when you always turn right in the National Gallery.

Mind you I couldn't talk as I usually headed left

and didn't know that Monet's Water-Lillies were even in here.

It's through there.

Holbein, The Ambassadors

"There's the skull,

and this is what happens when you look at it from this angle."

"Clever, the kids would like that."

"Right, we'd better get that train."

We did.

Of course I don't generally advocate for ten minute trips to galleries

but once you get to know a place share it with friends, then head off in a new direction.

And next time you see people spending so little time in front of paintings,

seemingly just stopping to take photos,

it may possibly be part of a longer term relationship with that gallery and those paintings.

One flying visit amongst many, taking it all in.

Like popping in to see old friends.

Hope you enjoyed Eva's tour of the National Gallery,

made possible by my camera phone and free admission.

Details on the National Gallery website, click here.

Engaged

It's 1943.

The latest and most innovative technology is being used by the British and the Americans
to communicate with each other via transatlantic radio-telephone
during the Second World War.

For security, a 40 ton scrambling machine, Sigsaly, has been installed

in the basement in Selfridges department store, Oxford Street, London.

A private extension is being installed at the Cabinet War Rooms,

for the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill's, private use.

A direct line to President Roosevelt.

Secrecy is of the utmost importance.

Where to put that extension?
For the Prime Minister's ears only.

The Transatlantic Telephone Room disguised as a toilet.

Perfect!

To keep this telephone top secret, a toilet lock was put on the door.

Surely Churchill's staff would never guess that when 'engaged',

behind that door Churchill was not spending a penny

but talking to the president of the United States of America.

No point waiting for the 'vacant' sign to appear, they were told.

This toilet was especially reserved for the Prime Minister, for his sole use.

It was to be kept locked at all times.

It was 'said' to be the only flushing toilet in Churchill's secret underground war rooms.

However, there was no running water in the underground Cabinet War Rooms.

Everyone else, his wife, Chiefs of Staff and office staff

had to make do with one of these,

the Elsan Chemical Lavatory.

Nice.

Or they could go upstairs to the ground floor of the building above.

However arrangements were made in case you were caught short in the night.

Clementine Churchill's bedroom.

more 'toilette' than toilet.

Perhaps a chamber pot was deemed too unseemly

for the bedroom of the wife of the Prime Minister.

Churchill doesn't seem to care though.

Nonchalantly on show at the end of his bed in his study bedroom.

The Cabinet War Rooms, now Churchill War Rooms

have been open to the public since 1984

and reassuringly do have public toilets with running water and a flush.

Details on the Churchill War Rooms website, here.