Name Bertram Park | ||
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Books Collins Guide to Roses, Roses - A Select List and Guide to Pruning, Roses | ||
Bertram Charles Percival Park, OBE, (1883-1972) was a British portrait photographer whose work included British and European royalty. His images were widely used on British and British Commonwealth postage stamps, currency, and other official documents of the 1930s. With his wife Yvonne Gregory, he also produced a number of photographic books of the female nude.
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Early life
Bertram Charles Percival Park was born in Minster, Kent, in 1883 to Charles Percival Park and Katharine Mary Park. He initially worked in the family firm which made artist's materials.
Family
Park married the photographer Yvonne Gregory (1889-1970) at Hampstead in 1916. Yvonne became one of his principal models. They had a daughter, Hilary June Park who was born in Hampstead in 1920. Hilary, known as June, was an architect who married David Francis Rivers Bosanquet in 1941 and divorced him in 1947. Her second marriage was to the Finish architect Cyril Mardall (1909-1994) in 1947. She died around 2006.
Photographic career
In 1910, Park was one of the founders of the London Salon of Photography. In 1919, with funding from the Egytologist Lord Carnarvon, he established studios at 43 Dover Street, London, with his wife Yvonne and children's photographer Marcus Adams. They shared darkroom staff and facilities and were known as the "Three Photographers".
Park's work included British and European royalty. In 1927 he was made an MBE. In the 1939 Birthday Honours he was made up to OBE. His images were widely used on British and British Commonwealth postage stamps, currency, and other official documents in the 1930s. He also produced a number of photographic books featuring the female nude and supplied photographs to naturist publications. One of his models was Pamela Green.
In later life, Park lived in Pinner, Middlesex, in a house whose grounds he used as a setting for his photography.
Police career
Outside photography, Park was a Commandant in the Metropolitan Special Constabulary and was noted as such in 1927 and 1939.
Roses
Park was an expert on the cultivation of the rose about which he wrote many books. He was the editor of The Rose Annual and in 1957 a review in the American Institute of Biological Sciences described his The Guide to Roses, for which he also provided the photographs, as "the last word on roses".
Death and legacy
Park died in Pinner in 1972. He left an estate of £103,322 net. In 1984, his daughter June presented to the National Post Museum (now the British Postal Museum and Archive) an album that Park had created of his photographs and the stamps based upon them. Park and Gregory's theatrical portraits form part of the University of Bristol Theatre Collection.