Kurt Hutton: The Quiet Pioneer

Description

Text by John Chillingworth and Colin Wilkinson
ISBN 9781908457240
Soft cover
Duotone:  290 x 220mm portrait + 132pp

More often than not, when discussion turns to the pioneering days of modern photojournalism, a number of names instantly spring to mind; Cartier-Bresson, Brassai, Doisneau and Kertesz are just a handful who are synonymous with the genre. However, arguably one of the founding fathers of reportage is inevitably missing from the list. A man who was at the very forefront of this photographic revolution and who, like those mentioned above, did much to change the world of photography. Kurt Hutton – arguably every bit as influential and ground-breaking as his counterparts – did much to usher in the new era of photo-documentary and was one of an elite band of photojournalists to first utilize the Leica in Britain, fundamentally changing how we viewed our world in the process.

The ‘revelatory experience’ – when one comes across Kurt’s imagery for the first time – seems to be a regular occurrence and happened again recently with none other than the Leica company itself – needless to say, an exhibition is now touring Leica galleries across Europe as a result. It is baffling why Hutton is not mentioned in the same breath as those ‘greats’ listed above but after a hiatus of some 70 years since the last ‘Kurt Hutton’ book, we can at least take another small step in establishing Hutton as one of the true giants of 20^th century photojournalism.