Olivia Stewart

The Outward Gaze: The Photographs of Joan Leigh Fermor Olivia Stewart

This new selection of Joan Leigh Fermor’s photographs is to show what caught the eye of an artist whose interest in what she saw and photographed was outward, and never filtered through a self-referencing lens nor constrained by censorship and market forces. The selection of photographs – as with the previous book, The Photographs of Joan Leigh Fermor: Artist and Lover – is personal and are those which evoke a sense of place and time, and leave – as Joan did – many things unsaid. The 2018 Exhibition of Joan’s photographs at the Benaki Museum achieved exactly what we wanted – in the beauty and detail that could be seen in the larger photographs, and by creating a space of calm with a flow of movement.