Picture Post
Colin Jacobson looks at the history of a pioneering photojournalism magazine.
The demise of a magazine is a sad occasion and it may seem strange to be celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the last edition of the British weekly Picture Post. Published in a time before television and the weekend colour magazines, it provided a mass audience with a lively, witty and comprehensible weekly diet of political, social and cultural features.
Launched on October 1st, 1938, Picture Post was an overnight success. Its initial print run of 750,000 sold out; by the summer of 1939 it had achieved a circulation of 1.7 million and was firmly lodged in the national psyche. Its visual style was to become hugely influential in the development of British photojournalism.
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