Mike Eghan at Piccadilly Circus, London 1967

Location

Country: UK
City: London
Place: Downing Street

Captured with his arms outstretched, the Ghanaian BBC World Service journalist, Mike Eghan, brims with confidence and style, on the steps of the famous Eros statue at Piccadilly Circus in London. In 1967, James Barnor was commissioned by DRUM, the leading South African magazine at the time, to produce a photo-feature on Eghan who was the first Black radio presenter in Britain and he went on to host his own popular talk show in the 1970s. 

Barnor had originally planned to photograph Eghan inside the BBC, however he later recalled ‘...it became evident quickly that [Eghan] was too big to be confined indoors, so I thought ‘No this is not enough; let’s go to the centre’. 

DRUM magazine was important in reflecting the African diaspora in London as well as championing Black photographers, as Barnor explains: 

‘You couldn’t get work in the 1960s as a Black photographer. It wouldn’t happen that a Black photographer would instruct white sitters […] If you worked for a studio in London, you worked behind the scenes in the darkroom doing odd jobs. Drum though, where I did freelance work, was different. They let me photograph the cover girls, Muhammad Ali, Mike Eghan.'

Throughout a career spanning seven decades, Barnor’s images reveal the various ways that modernity shaped itself around the world. His photographs captured a period of transition in both London and Ghanaian society and helped to build a new image of modern London as a multicultural world city. 

James Barnor was born in Accra, the capital of Ghana, where he first established a studio in 1949. From 1959-70 he built a successful career in England before returning to Accra, where he was the first photographer to introduce new colour processing to Ghana. On return to London in the 1980s, Barnor’s work became less well-known until 2009,when the UK curator René Mussai of Autograph, London, discovered his work at the Black Cultural Archives in Brixton. She curated his exhibition Ever Young, which was presented in 2010 at Autograph, before touring internationally. Since then, Barnor’s work has gained international prominence: in 2011, at the age of 82, he had his first major retrospective, held at the National Gallery of South Africa. In 2020, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society; and in 2021, enjoyed a critically acclaimed exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery.

People

Henry Michael Eghan (1936 - )

Places

England, London, Piccadilly Circus

Subjects

car, taxi, aeroplane, statue (as Subject), theatre, cigarette, cinema, topography, male portrait, townscape/cityscape, man, 20th century costume, coat, trousers, tie, Coca Cola, clock, journalist, street, traffic island, monument, restaurant, steps

Materials & Techniques

silver gelatin print, black & white photograph

Artist

James Barnor (1929 - )

Title

Mike Eghan at Piccadilly Circus, London 1967

Edition

1/10

Date

2010

Medium

Silver gelatin print

Dimensions

height: 123.30 cm, width: 123.30 cm

Acquisition

Purchased from Autograph ABP, November 2010

Inscription

br: James Barnor / 1967/2010 / Ed 1/10

GAC number

18360