John Gay was born Hans Ludwig Göhler in Karlsruhe, Germany in 1909. After the rise of Nazi Germany, he became increasingly horrified by the treatment of his Jewish friends – although not Jewish himself – and in 1935 he immigrated to England, where he established himself as a photographer. Gay was inspired by nature, landscape and architecture, and recorded with an almost anthropological eye the deep changes occurring in postwar Britain.
Photographer John Gay was born Hans Ludwig Göhler in Karlsruhe, Germany in 1909. On finishing his schooling, he became interested in photography and attended art school in Paris, working as a photographer on returning to Germany. After the rise of Nazism in Germany, Gay became increasingly horrified by the treatment of his Jewish friends, although not Jewish himself. In 1935 he decided to leave his own family to accompany a friend, Walther Stern, and his parents, to England. The Sterns became his ‘adoptive family’ and they settled in Halifax, Yorkshire. Gay arrived on a student visa, intending to learn English at Pitmans College in Russell Square, in central London, but eventually studied watercolour painting and later began working as a photographer. After serving in the British Expeditionary Force in France during the Second World War, Gay resumed his career as a photographer, focusing on nature, landscape and architecture, and recording with an almost anthropological eye the deep changes occurring in postwar Britain. In his architectural photography, Gay depicted innovative, cutting-edge designs, making homes and offices appear more striking through the unusual angles at which he photographed them. Gay was also fascinated by cast iron decoration –from the ornate foliated gates at Hyde Park to unadorned terrace railings – perhaps a reminder of the paper cut-outs he used to make in Germany when he was young. Gay also produced commercial photographs for a number of firms, including Kosset Carpets, as well as various pet food companies. This work stimulated his interest in animal photography, mainly of cats, which would later result in the publication of John Gay's Book of Cats (1975). Gay took portraits for the Strand Magazine until its closure in March 1950 and thereafter his photos of buildings and landscapes were published in the magazine Country Fair. Gay also became a prolific portrait photographer and produced an important series of informal portraits of textile designers in the postwar period, featuring several refugee women, whose reputations have suffered from a certain degree of neglect (such as Margaret Leischner and Marianne Staub), as well as Czechoslovak émigré and noted designer, Zika Ascher. Gay also made portraits of writers and publishers of the day, such as Agatha Christie, Hilaire Belloc, Walter de la Mare, T.S. Eliot, John Masefield and Sir Victor Gollancz, among others.
After marriage to Marie Arnheim in 1942 – a German Jewish refugee who had immigrated to England from Berlin in 1936 – Gay settled in Highgate in north London, moving in 1951 to the house where he spent the rest of his life. He formed a strong attachment to the area, photographing it often. The couple chose their new English surname after attending a performance of The Beggar's Opera, written by an earlier John Gay, and Gay later anglicised his first name to John. Gay became a naturalised British citizen in 1946. Over the years, Gay enjoyed exploring and photographing Highgate cemetery, which was near his home. A passionate gardener, he restored the cemetery as a part of a team, his work ranging from planting and nurturing to clearing undergrowth and heavy tree surgery. In photographing cemeteries, Gay revealed the contrast between natural forces and civilization, capturing the gradual return to nature, with sculptures entwined in vegetation, angels wreathed in ivy, monuments covered in dead leaves or being toppled by tree roots. In his later years, Gay also took up pottery – he had a deep knowledge of this medium, in particular, glazing. He and his wife also drew, holding life-drawing groups in their home. In 1964 he published London Observed with commentary by Macdonald Hastings, followed by Prospect of Highgate and Hampstead (with Leonard Clark, 1967), London's Historic Railway Stations (with Poet Laureate, John Betjeman, 1972), Highgate Cemetery (1984) and Cast Iron (1985).
John Gay died in London in 1999. In 2006, the Grundy Gallery in Blackpool held an exhibition of Gay's photographs for Country Fair, recording Blackpool holidaymakers during the summer of 1949. To mark the centenary of his birth in 2009, English Heritage published England Observed, edited by Andrew Sargent, and hosted a major exhibition of the same name at Kenwood House, Highgate, which displayed selected images from the 40,000 negatives and prints housed in the archive of the English Heritage’s National Monuments Record, while John Gay: a Centenary Exhibition was held at the Guildhall Art Gallery in London. In April 2021 John Gay was the subject of a talk given by Andrew Sargent at the Thame Museum in Oxfordshire. Gay’s photographs are also represented in the UK in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, London and Burgh House, in Hampstead. The Victoria & Albert Museum image collection holds more than 60 of his photographic images, while the commercial Mary Evans Picture Library holds the licence for more than 5000 of his photographs.