10 Facts About Bert Hardy

Albert William Thomas Hardy was an English documentary and press photographer known for his work published in the Picture Post magazine between 1941 and 1957.

Bert Hardy signed on with the General Photographic Agency as a Leica photographer, later founding his own freelance firm, Criterion.

In 1941, Bert Hardy was recruited by the then editor Tom Hopkinson of the leading picture publication of the 1930s to the 1950s, Picture Post.

Bert Hardy served as a war photographer in the Army Film and Photographic Unit from 1942 until 1946: he took part in the D-Day landings in June 1944; covered the liberation of Paris; the allied advance across the Rhine; and was one of the first photographers to enter the liberated Belsen to record the suffering there.

Bert Hardy saved some Russian slaves from a fire set by German police in the city of Osnabruck, before photographing the aftermath.

Bert Hardy stayed on until Picture Post ceased publication in June 1957.

Three of Bert Hardy's photos were used in Edward Steichen's famous The Family of Man exhibition and book; two were taken in Burma, including one of a monk at his desk in deep thought.

One of his most famous, and Bert Hardy long claimed his favorite, photo, shows two young boys off on a lark in Gorbals, an image which has come to represent Bert Hardy's keenest documentary skill.

Bert Hardy himself was photographed many times, including during the war; three very good photo-portraits of him are currently in the Photographs Collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

Just before Picture Post closed, Bert Hardy took 15 photos of the Queen's entrance at the Paris Opera on 8 April 1957, which were assembled as a photo-montage by the magazine's technicians.