Nigel HendersonStressed Photograph of a Bather c.1950

This is one of a pair of black and white photographs with the same title (see P79310). Both works are part of the series of distorted or ‘stressed’ images that Nigel Henderson produced in the early 1950s. The artist has experimented with the printing process to alter the representations. He explained that the process involved: ‘stretching and distorting the printing paper while enlarging in order to stress a point or evoke an atmosphere’ (quoted in Walsh, p.28). Nevertheless, the subject has not been so abstracted as to become unrecognisable. Both photographs show a male figure wearing striped swimming trunks standing with his hands on his hips on a beach at the sea’s edge. At his feet is a pile of clothes… (read more)