Lives less ordinary: Jane England’s Turn And Face The Strange documents 70s cultural and social churn
//British street style legend Paul Beecham in Battersea, south London, 1974//
//Jasper Havoc (Peter McMahon, 1953-1979), a member of the Sydney performance troupe Sylvia and the Synthetics, in Ladbroke Grove, west London, in 1977 and on the front of England’s book//
Jane England’s Turn And Face The Strange is a valuable addition to the documentation of the social and cultural churn occurring at the edges of society in the 1970s.
//Jordan Mooney outside Sex, 430 King’s Road, World’s End, south-west London, February 1976//
England, a prominent gallerist whose spaces in Notting Hill and central London have showcased the work of many important visual artists, arrived in London from Australia in the early part of that decade, having graduated in art history at Melbourne University.
She studied photography and shot editorial and fashion for the likes of The Sunday Times Magazine; many of the images in her book are of friends, casual acquaintances and fellow travellers.
//Scenes from the 1976 Notting Hill Carnival//
//Brian Britton and Dominie Mauconduit (1956-2015), Mornington Crescent, north London, July 1977//
And England has provided notes and memories of these individuals, illuminating their common pursuit of lives less ordinary.
//Gregory Mannix, artist and Australian alternative fashion pioneer who died in the early 80s, in Melbourne, 1975//
//Bertie “Berlin” Marshall, writer and member of the Bromley Contingent, West Kensington, London, January 1977//
//Jasper Havoc and Eddie Cairns (1953 – 1983), Ladbroke Grove, 1977//
With many of the individuals gone and the areas of London and Melbourne they inhabited given way to gentrification, Turn And Face The Strange represents an elegy to times passed.
Adrian Dannatt provides a scene-setting introduction to England’s book, which is published by Black Dog and available here.