John Deakin

John Deakin (8 May 1912 – 25 May 1972) was an English photographer, best known for his work centred on members of Francis Bacon's Soho inner circle. Bacon based a number of famous paintings on photographs he commissioned from Deakin, including Portrait of Henrietta Moraes,Henrietta Moraes on a Bed and Three Studies of Lucian Freud.

Deakin also spent many years in Paris and Rome, photographing street scenes, but his only stable period of employment as a photographer were two stints of working for Vogue between 1947 and 1954. Deakin initially aspired to be a painter, and as his photographic career waned, Deakin devoted his time to painting in the 1960s, questioning the validity and status of photography as an art form. He showed little interest in curating and publicising his own work, so many of his photographs were lost, destroyed or damaged over time.

A chronic alcoholic, Deakin died in obscurity and poverty, but since the 1980s his reputation has grown through monographs, exhibitions and catalogues.

Deakin was born in Bebington on the Wirral and attended West Kirby Grammar School. He left school at sixteen, and travelled around Ireland and Spain. He returned to London in the early 1930s where he met and started dating Arthur Jeffress. They spent much of the 1930s together travelling between London, Paris and Venice. During this time Deakin started as a painter but switched to photography. While in Paris in 1939 fashion illustrator Christian Bérard introduced Deakin to Michel de Brunhoff, editor of French Vogue. From 1940 until 1945, Deakin served in the British Army Film Unit as a photographer, where he photographed the Second Battle of El Alamein.

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