Striking head-and-shoulders portrait photograph of Ralph Bates by Howard Coster

Coster (Howard).     c.1935-1936      Contemporary print from the original glass plate negative, signed by the photographer in white ink in the lower left-hand corner and bearing his studio stamp, “Howard Coster, Photographer of Men” on the verso. Approximately 11 x 9 ins. (28 x 23 cms.). A superb image in the photographer’s inimitable style and in fine state  Born in 1899 in Swindon, Ralph Bates started working as a carpenter at the age of 16. One year later he enlisted and served in the Royal Flying Corps until the end of the First World War. In 1923 he went to Spain, where he worked as a mechanic, living first in the Pyrenees region, later on the Costa Brava. Spain was the backdrop to his first two novels, Sierra (1933) and Lean Men (1936). The next, The Olive Field (1936), is based on the events that led to the Spanish Civil War, in which Bates was an active participant. He became editor of Volunteer for Liberty, the magazine of the International Brigades. Sent on a mission by the Spanish government to the United States, he met his future wife, Eva Salzman. After the Republican defeat, he and his wife lived in Mexico, which inspired the novel Fields of Paradise (1940), eventually settling in New York, where he taught at N.Y.U. until his retirement in 1968. He returned to Spain after Franco's death and, shortly before his own in November 2000, at the age of 101, was honored in Berlin for his participation in the Spanish Civil War.VAT is charged on orders for photographs from customers within the European Economic Community. 

Price: £120