John Claridge’s Soho Faces
Only a few tickets left for THE GENTLE AUTHOR’S WALKING TOUR OF SPITALFIELDS on Sunday October 3rd at noon. Email spitalfieldslife@gmail.com to book.
Map of the Gentle Author’s Tour drawn by Adam Dant
Join me on a ramble through Spitalfields taking less than two hours, but walking through two thousand years of history and encountering just a few of the people who have made the place distinctive.
Click here for further information
Spike Milligan, Comedian & Writer
Contributing Photographer John Claridge’s exhibition SOHO FACES opens at the House of St Barnabas in Greek St, Soho, W1D 4NQ, on Thursday 7th October.
“I started taking portraits of people at The French House in the seventies when I took a picture of Gaston Berlemont. Then, while taking Spike Milligan’s portrait, we got to talking about Soho. At the time, I was living in Frith St, so Ronnie Scott’s and The French were both very familiar to us and, even then, both of us voiced our sadness at changes we saw – lovely delicatessens, independent restaurants and specialists shops closing down, all of which had been there for years.
In 2004, I decided to document the customers at The French in earnest. For me, it was the one place in Soho that still held its Bohemian character, where people truly chose to share time and conversation, and I became aware that many I had once chinked glasses with were no longer around.
These portraits of the regulars are a cross-section of those who sat for me, but there is no rhyme or reason to my selection.”
– John Claridge
Molly Parkin, Painter & Novelist
Gaz Mayall, Musician
Lisa Stansfield, Simger & Songwriter
Eddie Gray, Jazz Violinist
Lesley Lewis, Owner of The French House
Kenny Clayton, Jazz Pianist
Fergus Henderson, Chef & Restauranteur
Georgina Sutcliffe, Actor
John Phillips, Journalist
Norman Balon, Landlord of the Coach & Horses
Millie Laws, Reflexologist
George Baker, Actor
Oliver Bernard, Poet
Clare Shenstone, Artist
Peter Boizot, Founder of Pizza Express
Peter Owen, Publisher
Vanessa Fenton, Dancer at the Royal Ballet & Choreographer
Sebastian Horsley, Artist
Burt Kwouk, Actor
Kevin Petillo, Television Producer
Pinkietessa, Costume maker
James Birch, Art Dealer
Jay Landesman, Nightclub Owner, Writer & Publisher
Anna Lujan Sanchez, Dancer with Ballet Rambert
Freddie Jones, Actor
Paul Lawford, of The Rubbishmen of Soho
Alison Steadman, Actor
Gaston Berlemont, Former Publican at The French House
Paul Barlow, Cyclist
Photographs copyright © John Claridge
You may also like to take a look at
Along the Thames with John Claridge
At the Salvation Army with John Claridge
A Few Diversions by John Claridge
Signs, Posters, Typography & Graphics
Views from a Dinghy by John Claridge
In Another World with John Claridge
A Few Pints with John Claridge
Some East End Portraits by John Claridge
Sunday Morning Stroll with John Claridge
Just Another Day With John Claridge
At the Salvation Army in the Eighties
These wonderful, professional photographic portraits / studies of Soho characters are a reminder of life as it was when I was around there in the late sixties & seventies as a young man, now living in Australia, thanks for the memories, so treasured!
Many thanks!
Yes, there are photographers who know how to capture real chaps. John Claridge belongs to those.
Love & Peace
ACHIM
Absolutely wonderful!
As an aspiring young actor i used to frequent both the French and the Coach and Horses throughout the 80’s and half of the 90’s and what a fine ‘education’ it was. Such characters. I still pop in to the French when i get back to London and it still has a few of them left. But where are the young ones? Where are the up and coming dissolutes? Surely Ne’er do wells still exist?
Compare with Felix Nadar’s portraits from the start of photography. Claridge moves us in closer and insists on eye contact. The contrast emphasises the journey each face has made!
Beautiful portraits, AND I find it interesting that the male sitters are very three dimensional and “solid” whereas the portraits of women are very etherial and “airbrushed”…
Simply stunning photographs.
This man Claridge is the real deal! Major photographic portraits. Museum curators must want them, fools if they don’t.
Milo asks,”But where are the young ones? Where are the up and coming dissolutes? Surely Ne’er do wells still exist?”
Ah, could dissolutes be at the end of an august line, Milo?
A desperate question, in reply.
Wonderful images, although apart from just a few, I don’t recognise the names of most of them here. One I do personally remember though is Burt Kwouk. My father-in-law had a health food store on Bedford Hill in Balham until his sudden death in the early 1980s, and Burt Kwouk was a very regular customer.
Quick reply to Bill. Well i’m doing my darnedest to carry on the tradition but i need back up.
Back to Milo from Bill: I am 100% behind you! And, in dissolution, perhaps a little bit ahead?
To all the dissolutes!