SYLVESTER JACOBS’ PORTRAIT OF ENGLAND
August 12th, 2009 admin
I spent this evening rooting through various photography books in the Fatamorgana library again and came across an intriguiging book called Portrait of England (M Joseph, 1976) by the black American photographer Sylvester Jacobs.
Jacobs was born in Olkahoma in 1944 and moved to London in the late 1960s where he began working for the Radio Times and Daily Telegraph Magazine. In 1973, the Victoria and Albert museum mounted a travelling exhibition entitled ‘Three Photographers’, one of whom was Jacobs.
In his foreword to the book, Jacobs writes: “I have tried in my own way to photograph and understand those qualities that are both human and personal without making any attempt to be exhausitve or laying stress on the social or the political.” He is concerned with what he describes as “the phenomena of the personality”, the understanding of England, private and public, through the features of faces.
The 270 black and white photographs in the book are split in a series of chapters, which include – Lord Mayor’s Show, Penhurst Fete, On the train, Eton, The hunt, Chipping Norton School, Stow Fair, Markets and the Motor Show.
Reviewing the book Marina Vaizey from the Sunday Times wrote “As a visual essay on aspects of English life it is full of character and free from whimsy. Neither quaint nor too cosy, it’s both gritty and gentle, and appealingly affectionate.”
One of the only references I can find about Jacobs or his work on the internet is in an essay by Peter Marshall where he writes about the work of Tony Ray-Jones from 2005:
“Ray-Jones was also noted for his stinginess, (the kind of guy who would never pay for anything if it could be avoided and insisted on restaurant bills being scrupulously divided up so he only paid for what he had eaten). But to other photographers he could be extremely generous with his time and advice, giving long and detailed criticisms and other help. One who benefited from this was Sylvester Jacobs, a young black American photographer who was working on a similar project to his (though very differently) published in 1976 as ‘Portrait of England’.”
There appears to be a portait of Jacobs on this blog, along with a number of his old students who are trying to track him down.
January 7th, 2010 at 9:38 am
You can contact Sylvester at sjac1@mac.com. He now lives in the USA
March 12th, 2012 at 2:15 am
Sylvester is a very funny intriguing fellow, he seems to love life and is always making those around him joyful with his positive attitude and playful ways, hes a jokester at heart and a philosopher of life, he can see through the world, and he seems to know you with in minutes of talking to you, his raw and talented incite into each individual makes him the great photographer that he is, that and his diligence for life, only have known Janet and he for these last 6 months has been my pleasure and I hope to keep in contact with then for many years to come, you have chosen the right man to blog about, he is one of the greatest men I’ve ever met and I for one am glad to know him.
April 26th, 2012 at 12:54 am
Back in the late 80s I did a Government course in Luton in the UK, designed to get young people who have recently left high school work experience. During the photography course Sylvester was the teacher.
Fondly remember him having us walk around the classroom with the camera to our eye and negotiate tables, chairs and other obstacles by touch so we could move around and take pictures.
Remember visiting him at his house and seeing a lot of his work, I do remember a book on Arabian horses if memory serves.
Now I’m in the US and getting back into photography.