Yvonne Gregory

Yvonne Gregory was a society and theatrical photographer of the 20^th century. She worked outside of 43 Dover Street, Mayfair, throughout the 1920s and 30s alongside her husband Bertram Park, and their friend Marcus Adams. The three photographers shared the same studio, splitting each floor between them, with Yvonne taking the ground floor.

Yvonne was born in London, Hampstead. In 1889, she trained as a miniature painter and worked as a dark room assistant and re-toucher for Bertram Park, before picking up the camera herself. She regularly exhibited her work at the Royal Photographic Society, joining in 1926 and gaining her Associates in the same year and a Fellowship two years later in 1928.

She was widely sought after for her portrait photography, which captured the presence and exuberance of society figures and theatrical stars such as John Gielgud, Sybil Thorndike, and Elsa Lancaster. Yvonne also photographed many important theatre productions from the 1920s and 30s, such as the first English presentation of George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan in 1924.

Yvonne’s photography was influenced by modernism; she frequently experimented with the boundaries of the medium and the aestheticism of her work. From the 1930s onwards, Yvonne prolifically published photographs in nudist and naturist books and magazines, collaborating with her husband to produce several photobooks including their 1935 publication The Beauty of the Female Form.

Despite Yvonne’s prolific body of work and importance in the photographic world during this period, she has been overlooked in favour of her husband’s work and only recently been recognised for her photography.

Yvonne died in 1970 at the age of 80. The National Portrait Gallery and the University of Bristol Theatre Collection both hold an archive of her work.

We hold a number of her images in the Hundred Heroines Collection, as well as tear sheets of her theatre work.

Related Links

• The Bertram Park and Yvonne Gregory archive
• The National Portrait Gallery has created some walking tours. The first stop on the Mayfair Walk (all pioneering women) itinerary is Yvonne Gregory’s studio at 43 Dover Street. The tour also includes studios of Barbara Ker-Seymer, Dorothy Wilding, Lizzie Caswall Smith and Yevonde.