Bert Hardy's best shots: Iconic photographer's work on display in new exhibition

A couple leaning in for a kiss in Piccadilly in 1953, British sailors in Gibraltar in 1954 and a vicar comforting a girl in an East End bomb site in 1940 are a few of the images iconic Picture Post photographer Bert Hardy thought good enough to take home.

The same prints kept by Hardy, who died in 1995 aged 82, go on display — and on sale, from £2,500 — at the Photographers’ Gallery from May 13 to July 3.

Hardy became famous for his work published in liberal photojournalistic magazine Picture Post from 1941 until the magazine's closer in 1957. A self-taught photographer, Hardy became the Post's chief photographer quickly, after his first work was published. It was a study of firefighters during the Blitz.

After the Post closed, Hardy worked successfully in advertising, before he retired in 1964, aged 51. He bought a small farm in Oxted, Surrey, and spent the reminder of his life there with wife Sheila.