About Peter, First Row, Second Image - PAH 2
One of the earlier outfits Peter worked for was https://www.artistpartners.com/ which was started off in 1950 by G. Donovan Candler when he left a major London based artist’s agency to set up in business with L.A. Rix, Betty Luton White, John Barker and the designer Reg Mount (who, in his wartime work at the Ministry of Information is credited with coming up with the slogan "Keep Calm and Carry on."). They did not solicit the representation of those artists, designers and photographers whom they had previously represented but were, nevertheless, inundated with requests from many of them for representation, and so in two rooms in Lower John Street, Soho, Artist Partners was founded.
Within three years the business had expanded to represent some fifty artists, designers, and photographers, and had moved to premises occupying three floors in a prestigious building in Dover Street, Mayfair.
Amongst their clients was JAK, the cartoonist - my father called him Ray, and he answered to both! This was before he became famously controversial (or controversially famous?) as the London Evening Standard's Political Cartoonist - in those early fifties days he illustrated the TV and Sports pages... Peter greatly admired Ray's draughtsman skills and use of ink with mapping-pen and brush, and delighted in Ray's story about how he used to work at "retouching pubic hair on photographs for the magazine Health & Efficiency" - and they became drinking buddies around Fleet Street and Hampstead.
Also amongst their clients were famous photographers like Zoltán Glass (once, also, a cartoonist...) and Adrian Flowers (through whom Peter bacame friends with Brian Duffy), both of whom Peter's wife (and cousin) Angela worked for.
In '52 Adrian Flowers met his wife, also an Angela. They met in the January and she proposed to him in the February (it was a leap year) but he said no. Then he changed his mind and they got married a few weeks later - after about seven weeks of meeting! They lived down the hill in Belsize Park at 18 Englands Lane, and then Highgate (14 Grange Road) and there was a heady social whirl, parties and much Jazz, in between bouts of intense work... Peter's wife, Angela, was Adrian's studio manager for some years...
Commercial Art, Second Row, Last Image - Work 8
In the foreground:-
de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito FB Mk IV DZ353, 627 Squadron Royal Air Force (627 Sqn RAF) departed RAF Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire on the 19th June 1944 at 23:47 hrs to attack railways to prevent German troop reinforcements reaching Normandy. The first "Tallboy" (12,000lb bomb) was used on this night by 617 Sqn. Classed as successful raid with, out of a total of 483 aircraft used on this and other railways, only 4 were lost (3 Lancasters and 1 Mosquito). DZ353 being the only Mosquito lost on this raid crashed between Orgeres and St. Erblon in France - the reason has not been established.
Crew:
F/Lt (46016) Harry STEERE DFC DFM (pilot) RAF- killed
F/O (Aus404241) Kenneth William GALE DFC (nav.) RAAF- killed
In the background:-
de Havilland DH.98 Mosquito FB Mk IV DZ353, 105 Squadron Royal Air Force (105 Sqn RAF) departed RAF Marham, Norfolk on the 30th January 1943 at 13:25 hrs for a raid into Berlin to interrupt large rallies addressed by Nazi leaders on that day. The raid was in two formations with 3 Mosquito's on each. The first 3 reached Berlin and bombed at mid morning - the exact time that Goering was due to speak. The speech was delayed for an hour - these 3 Mosquitos returned all safe. In the afternoon the next formation of 3 arrived at the time that Goebbels was due to speak and all again bombed at the correct time. German defences however had been alerted. DZ367 was shot down by AAA. 30.1.1943 near Altengrabow, Germany.
Crew:
S/Ldr (40368) Donald Frederick William DARLING DFC (pilot) RAF - killed
F/O (116.695) William WRIGHT (obs) RAFVR - killed