Jane Bown: Play Shadow celebrates the centenary of Jane Bown (1925–2014) and offers an intimate portrait of one of Britain’s most revered photographers.

Bown’s black and white images striking in their simplicity, honesty, and use of natural light remain icons of twentieth century photography. Working quickly and intuitively with her Olympus OM-1, Bown captured cultural figures from Samuel Beckett to Queen Elizabeth II, as well as artists including Paula Rego, David Hockney, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and Duncan Grant.

Her portraits strip away artifice to reveal the human presence beneath, with light and shadow serving as both aesthetic tools and metaphors for truth and concealment.

Jane Bown: Play Shadow presents a selection of Bown’s portraits, primarily of cultural figures and personalities who influenced and inspired the cultural scene, alongside a range of photographs, some rarely shown, that explore Bown’s approach to composition, light, and emotional presence.

The exhibition also celebrates Bown’s long standing connection to the region through a contemporary intervention Show Me to You, (part of Fast Forward: Women in Photography) a showcase that celebrates the next generation of photographers inspired by her work. An alumna of the Guildford School of Art (which offered the UK’s only full-time photography course at the time, directed by Ifor Thomas, and is now part of the University for the Creative Arts [UCA]). Portraits by UCA alumni and staff, Anna Fox, Sunil Gupta & Charan Singh, Karen Knorr, Eileen Perrier , Corinne Whitehouse, and Priyanka Pattni, carry forward her humanistic vision while reimagining it for contemporary identities, representation, and social change. Together, they extend Bown’s conversation with light, empathy, and truth into new contexts and communities.

In an age dominated by rapidly evolving technology and visual noise, Jane Bown: Play Shadow invites viewers to slow down and rediscover the power of simplicity, the quiet alchemy between face and light, shadow and storytelling.

Curator: Dr Loucia Manopoulou

Director, Newlands House Gallery