Bandele Ajetunmobi “He was the youngest brother and he was disabled as well but he was very good at art, so they apprenticed him to a portrait photographer in Lagos. It suited him yet it wasn’t enough, so he packed up and, without anything much, left for England with my Uncle Chris.” - Victoria Loughran, niece of Photographer, Bandele “Tex”” Ajetunmobi. Bandele Ajetunmobi - widely known as “Tex” - was one of Britain’s first black photographers. Ajetunmobi was born in Nigeria in 1921 and was apprenticed to a portrait photographer in Lagos. In 1947, at the age of twenty-six, he stowed away on a boat from Nigeria. In Nigeria, Ajetunmobi found himself an outcast because of a disability from polio as a child. He settled in Spitalfields, East London, an area he documented through photography for almost half a century, focusing on immigrant communities and the multi-racial nature of the area. These images serve as early documents of a multi-cultural London in the post-war years at a time when a growing number of men and women were immigrating to Britain from the former colonies. They depict the Whitechapel area where many immigrants from the Caribbean settled. The music clubs in Whitechapel were shaped by and for black people - but from the start were also frequented by white people. Art historian Kobena Mercer noted in Britain “the nightlife surrounding black music was always a cross-cultural affair”. Most of Ajetunmobi’s work was destroyed when he died in 1994 apart for some two hundred negatives that his niece Victoria Loughran rescued. These are housed in the archive of ‘Autograph ABP', London. #neonurchin #neonurchinblog #dedicatedtothethingswelove #suzyurchin #ollyurchin #art #music #photography #fashion #film #design #words #pictures #love #nigeria #polio #disability #stowaway #commercialstreet #spitalfields #streetphotographer #nightlife #multiracial #multicultural #crosscultural #immigrants #blackphotographer #autographabp #bandeleajetunmobi #tex (at East End of London) https://www.instagram.com/p/Ckfs6WoIG5O/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=













