Underground London

Originally held at the Brighton Museum & Art Gallery, United Kingdom, this exhibition brought together more than 100 works by British photographer Robert Whitaker predominantly taken during the latter half of the 1960s.

Frequent subjects of Whitaker’s photographs were the Beatles, with whom Whitaker accompanied on their English tours. Other subjects included Mick Jagger, Allen Ginsberg, Julie Christie, Martin Sharp and Yoko Ono.

In an essay to accompany the exhibition, curator, academic and writer David Alan Mellor stated, ‘In so far as this burgeoning ‘underground’ culture moved towards developing a theory and a politics during the period 1965–70, it was based upon a triumph of ‘post-scarcity’ leisure and hedonism, as well as – another paradox – spiritual questioning. Material abundance was assumed in the advanced technological society of post-war Britain; but abundance and playfulness were also motifs of temporary utopias.’

Quote sourced from: Underground London: The Photographs of Robert Whittaker 1965 – 1970. Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, 1996.