Helen Margaret Muspratt (13 May 1907 – 29 July 2001) was a British photographer.

Early life and education

Born in

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

, India, to British Army Lieutenant-Colonel Vivian Edward Muspratt and his wife, Lily May, née Hope. She studied photography at

Regent Street Polytechnic The University of Westminster is a public university, public university based in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1838 as the Royal Polytechnic Institution, it was the first Polytechnic (United Kingdom), polytechnic to open in London. The Po ...

Photography career

Muspratt opened a photography studio in Swanage, Dorset in 1929. In 1932, she met Lettice Ramsey, and together they opened the Ramsey & Muspratt studio in Cambridge. Early in her career, Muspratt pursued both portraiture (especially of children) and experimental work; her solarization studies were influenced by the American artist

Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American naturalized French visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, ...

. Her documentary work included travel to the Soviet Union in 1936 to photograph farmers and villagers along the Volga; upon her return, she joined the Communist Party in Britain. Commissioned by the

Left Book Club The Left Book Club is a publishing group that exerted a strong left-wing influence in Great Britain, during its initial run, from 1936 to 1948. It was relaunched in 2015 by Jan Woolf and Neil Faulkner, in collaboration with Pluto Press. Pionee ...

in 1937, she photographed miners and unemployed labourers in the

Rhondda valley Rhondda , or the Rhondda Valley ( ), is a former coal mining, coalmining area in South Wales, historically in the county of Glamorgan. It takes its name from the River Rhondda, and embraces two valleys – the larger Rhondda Fawr valley (, 'la ...

in south Wales. In 1937, she opened a second Ramsey & Muspratt studio in Cornmarket Street, Oxford. The Oxford premises of Ramsey & Muspratt had been a studio opened by Walter Benington on behalf of Elliott & Fry. In Oxford, portraiture was the mainstay of her commercial work until her retirement in the 1970s. In 1976, she held a retrospective exhibition of her work. Wider recognition came with the 1986–87 touring exhibition ''Women's Photography in Britain'' and the volume ''The Other Observers: Women Photographers in Britain-1900 to the present''; in 1986, Channel 4 broadcast a documentary series on women photographers that featured Muspratt; she also appeared in the BBC series ''Women of Our Century'' in 1990.

Personal life

In 1937, she married Communist Party organiser Jack Dunman.

Death

Muspratt died on 29 July 2001 in Brighton, England.

Collections

Muspratt's work is held in the following permanent collection: *

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: * National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra * National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London ...

, London holds fifteen of Muspratt's portrait photographs

Exhibitions

* Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, 2016 *

Bodleian Libraries The Bodleian Libraries are a collection of 28 libraries that serve the University of Oxford in England, including the Bodleian Library itself, as well as many other (but not all) central and faculty libraries. As of the 2021–2022 report year, ...

, Oxford, 2020, to mark the donation of Muspratt's archive to the Libraries

References

External links

*https://www.helenmuspratt-photographer.com * * *
Ramsey & Muspratt Gallery
at Peter Lofts, successor to Ramsey & Muspratt in Post Office Terrace, Cambridge (1980). {{DEFAULTSORT:Muspratt, Helen 1907 births 2001 deaths 20th-century British photographers English women photographers People from Chennai Alumni of the University of Westminster Photographers from Dorset 20th-century British women photographers Communist Party of Great Britain members 20th-century English women 20th-century English people