Corbeau & Renard, La trajectoire du regard, 2006, p. 52
Catalogue Essay
Born in Pulham, Norfolk, Peter Rose Pulham studied at the London School of Architecture. Searching for a challenge, he transferred to Oxford University where he soon was to encounter Cecil Beaton. At the end of his first year, Pulham worked six months for Howard Coster, a portrait photographer, which resulted in an offer of a position at Harper’s Bazaar in London. He was sent to Paris for a year in 1936/37 and – regarding Paris as a source for inspiration – Pulham was not to return until he was forced to by the war. Back in England, he exhibited his paintings in major London galleries including Redfern and the London Gallery. Pulham is likely to have taken photographs in England in the early 1940s and after devoting himself to the medium from 1946 to 1953, he withdrew from it again three years before his death in 1956. He destroyed his negatives leaving very few of his works behind.