Comments on: Edith Tudor-Hart, Photographer

By: Torsten Busch

Torsten Busch — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 09:56:56 +0000

The dog is a bulldog and the photograph’s historic subheading in Lilliput read „A beauty parlour for dogs – Should we have this?“ — published together with a photograph of a London slum (“Must we have this?”).

On Malcolms hypothesis that the Iron Curtain may never have descended across Europe without the Cambridge spy ring (Edith herself was merely a talent scout): Hypothetical historical differences are difficult to predict. Richard Davenport-Hines recently went as far to state that the long term results of the Burgess and Maclean defection reached their apotheosis when joined with other forces in the referendum vote for Brexit on 23 June 2016 (Enemies Within, 2018, p. xxv). Well, I would put my money on a proposition attributed to Gore Vidal on the main difference for the history of the world if Khrushchev had been shot rather than Kennedy—that is that Onassis probably wouldn’t have married Mrs Khrushchev.

By: Phil Maxwell

Phil Maxwell — Mon, 07 Aug 2017 09:15:19 +0000

I would have loved to have had Edith as a grandmother.

By: M D West

M D West — Sun, 06 Aug 2017 12:54:51 +0000

How was such an openly Communist photographer like Edith Tudor-Hart an effective Soviet agent?

By: Greg Whitmore

Greg Whitmore — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 13:39:03 +0000

Fascinating piece and great photographs.
The whole Austro Hungarian influence on British photojournalism through Stefan Lorant and Lilliput in the late thirties is super interesting. The first picture editor of the Observer was a woman called Mechthild Nawiasky, who was born in Prague, and was working at Lilliput with Lorant before joining the paper. I like to think her and Edith must have been mates.
I researched and wrote a piece about Nawiasky for the Obs. In it is a link to a 1959 Spectator article recalling the goings on, and colourful characters, in the early days of Lilliput; if you’re interested.

https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2016/dec/04/the-lion-tamer-from-lilliput-and-the-birth-of-observer-photography

By: Jeff Spires

Jeff Spires — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 12:03:35 +0000

More of why I subscribe to your great publication.

By: Roger

Roger — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 10:50:25 +0000

Love to have met the Edith she’s very interesting.

By: paul loften

paul loften — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 10:30:19 +0000

Thank you for these superb photos.

By: Malcolm

Malcolm — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 10:28:57 +0000

Ah, the ideology of it all…
It is curious how these photographs are being eulogised as if they are important social documents. There are many far better examples than these. Of course conditions were terrible for many people in London and many other cities, but nobody was taken away to Gulags or simply disappeared, never to be seen again, as was the case for many millions in the Soviet Union. I have never understood how people like Edith Tudor Hart took it upon themselves to depict this country in such a terrible light, whilst believing the USSR to be a Utopian paradise, where everyone was free to do as they pleased whilst cared for from cradle to grave by a benign and generous state. The Cambridge spying ring, which she was instrumental in setting up, was composed of pathetic, bitter men who thought their activities were heroic. Burgess and Mclean were hopeless drunks, despised by the Russian KGB agents who controlled them; Philby was useless philanderer and drunk whose raison d’etre seemed to be that he was part of the British Governing class (his own description) and therefore, exempt from the normal rules that apply to the great unwashed. He was also never trusted by the Russians and spent his years in Moscow sitting in his top floor apartment near Patriarchy Pond, listening to the BBC World Service and becoming ever more bitter about the nation he chose to betray, much to the amusement of the Russians. Blunt was even worse. A patrician snob whose fist reaction to being unmasked was to worry about his loss of face and his knighthood. He was protected by the establishment for years until Mrs Thatcher revealed his treachery in 1979, after Private Eye magazine got wind of his activities and threatened to publish the story. All of this is well known. What isn’t so well known is just how much damage these pathetic traitors did to this country and our allies by passing secrets to the Soviet Union. It is quite likely that without their duplicity and treachery, along with the utter stupidity of our own intelligence service, who couldn’t bring themselves to believe that people of their own class could possibly be in league with the Soviet Union, that the Iron Curtain may never have descended across Europe. These foolish ideologues knew very little about the harsh reality of life in the Soviet Union, where queues for food were a daily occurrence and fear was the culture experienced by the people, preferring to believe in the propaganda of middle class Marxists, much like the chattering classes of Hampstead and Highgate who read the Guardian today. They never understood Russia or Russians and today they are almost forgotten men who are regarded as pathetic dupes by Russians who don’t care much for traitors.

There is a book of Edith’s photographs, which is a catalogue from an exhibition of her work in Vienna.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 09:27:23 +0000

Mr Tingey: in a sense all art serves an end, and that end, being driven by the beliefs of the creator, is, effectively a form of propaganda. And in criticising it you simply state that you don’t support the viewpoint of the artist, which is not a remark of great importance. It is not a way of refuting the fact that capitalism destroyed the lives of huge numbers of people in the 20s and 30s, very much as it is doing across London today.

By: peter stephan jungk

peter stephan jungk — Thu, 03 Aug 2017 09:22:31 +0000

dear sir,

Edith Tudor-Hart has absolutely NOT faded into obscurity after being being blacklisted for her Communist activity…I’m afraid you did not research your story well.

please have a look at:

http://www.fischerverlage.de/buch/die_dunkelkammern_der_edith_tudor-hart/9783100023988

http://www.actes-sud.fr/catalogue/litterature/la-chambre-noire-dedith-tudor-hart

AND the documentary film i have made about edith:

http://www.trackingedith.com

PLUS there’s a fantastic book about her work which you do not mention:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/EDITH-TUDOR-HART-TYRANNY-Hardcover/dp/B00JHRTG20/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1501752126&sr=8-1&keywords=shadow%2C+tudor-hart

kind regards,

peter stephan jungk

peterjungk@gmail.com