Yorkshire & Lincolnshire

Marc Riboud, a young photographer, took pictures  of Leeds in 1954 when he was working for Picture Post magazine.

The project came about when history lecturer Janet Douglas spotted some photos in a Saturday newspaper. 

She enquired, and found, along with those Picture Post snaps, hundreds more images from the same shoot had been left undeveloped for 50 years at a London photo agency. 

They had just been found again, half a century later, in an office clear-out.

For a historian, this was like striking gold. 

"The pictures capture locations long since demolished, and paint a picture of a much-changed way of life," she told Inside Out. 

World famous works

Janet’s daughter Anna is an art curator, who got excited about the exhibition from an artistic perspective. 

"Marc Riboud is now a world famous photographer, arguably the most famous living photographer in France. Early work from such an artist is a really exciting discovery," she said. 

Marc Riboud captures a Leeds scene on camera.

There was a tragic reason behind the disappearance of these pictures. 

Marc Riboud had finished the assignment and was handing the pictures in to his editor when he learned that his mentor, photographer Robert Capa, had been killed taking pictures of the Vietnam war. 

He was so upset he dropped the undeveloped films, walked straight out, and blanked out all memories immediately before hearing this news, including those weeks he spent working in Leeds. 

Fifty years later, when the photos turned up "it was like a memory pulling me back, to see a photograph and another photograph, brought out another and another memory".

But he had no record of who he photographed and where he photographed. 

Putting you in the picture

The organisers are now appealing to the people of Leeds to come forward and identify themselves. 

They’re hoping to find those children playing in the streets of Leeds in 1954, and build the discovery of a few photographs into a social history of Leeds.

Helen Langford, exhibition curator, is enthusiastic, "We want to recapture the slice of history that we find in these pictures. 

"The connection there with the people is just fantastic. They’re just amazing pictures, they go straight out of the paper and straight into your heart".

If you spot anyone who you recognise in these pictures, Leeds City Museum wants to hear from you. 

Contact them at people.search@leeds.gov.uk or phone them on 0113 214 1571.

Photo credits

Images © Marc Riboud/Courtesy HackelBury Fine Art, London.