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Although educated in engineering, Anthony
Howarth followed his grandfather’s profession as a
photographer. Apart from commercial slide sets for
tourists, which took in The Lake District, York,
Liverpool, The West Coast of Scotland, Lourdes,
Monaco, Brussels and Athens, he
began in the late 1950s with student publications.
Then front–of–house pictures, of the Footlights and
Cambridge Arts theatre productions, some of which were published in the Sunday Times and The Observer
newspapers.
In 1959 he joined a group of students to drive
round Africa; London, Cairo, Cape Town, Casablanca,
London. More than thirty countries, over 30,000
miles in nine months. Back in London, Life Magazine
and other magazines around the world, published his
pictures from Africa including a number of cover
stories. This kick-started a career as an
international photo journalist.
During the early 1960s he also pursued other
interests. With business partner, Colin Bell, he was involved in
the launch of the Establishment satire club and the
magazine PRIVATE EYE. They created the pioneer tabloid
magazine, SCENE, the world’s first four colour
magazine printed on news print. SCENE was a
precursor of Time Out and Rolling Stone. It's
theatre critic was Tom Stoppard. Benny Greene
reviewed jazz. The sub-editor was Gordon Williams,
author of Straw Dogs. Mathew Carter, famous as a
typographer for Monotype, designed the magazine and
Colin Bell, a First from Kings, Cambridge, brought
an aggressive blend of intellectual popularism to
the endeavour.
Scene did well as an independent publication.
However, W. H. Smiths refused to distribute it on
the basis that it was too irreverent about
establishment institutions. At that time, without
Smith’s distribution no publication could long survive
independently.
Scene became part of the Private Eye stable for a
few years; publication ended in the late 1960s.
Anthony Howarth went on to become one of the most
published photographers of the 1960s and 1970s.
Working for all the major US, UK and European
magazines, his work has been recognised in about 200
magazine cover stories, close to 500 inside magazine
stories and over two thousand published magazine
pages. There were very nearly 50 covers for the
various Telegraph weekend magazines alone. He was
always a freelance but, from 1964 to 1971 the
Telegraph paid him a small annual retainer not to
work for the Sunday Times Magazine, The Observer
Magazine and, strangely, The Illustrated London
News.
“I worked intensively as a magazine photographer
for twelve years, from a hesitant start in 1959
until a move into film in1971. This was followed by
fourteen years of sporadic, part time
photography in amongst my filmmaking, between 1972
and 1986. In fact from 1982 onwards, my life was
more tied up in Africar and the subsequent solar
vehicle engineering projects than in photography or
filmmaking.”
Anthony Howarth's photographs have been exhibited and have
won awards. There is a permanent exhibition of his
work in France (www.vacationhouseinfrance.com).
