Bert Hardy (1913, London—1995) was a British documentary and press photographer.
He rose from humble working class origins to work first for the General Photographic Agency, then to found his own freelance firm Criterion. In 1941 Criterion was absorbed into the leading picture publication of the 1930s and 1940s, Picture Post. Hardy was self-taught and used a Leica - unconventional for press photographers at that time - but went on to become the Post's Chief Photographer.
Hardy served as a war photographer in the Royal Army 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 a liberated Naziconcentration camp to record the suffering there. He later went on the cover the Korean War for Picture Post, reporting on United Nations atrocities at Pusan in 1950.
After leaving Picture Post Hardy became one of the most successful advertising photographers of the 1960s.
Books
Bert Hardy. Down the Bay: Picture Post, Humanist Photography and Images of 1950s Cardiff (2003)
Hardy became famous for his photographs of the Blitz and in 1942 was drafted into an army photographic unit.
Hardy was with Allied troops that took part in the D-Day landings in June 1944.
Bert, on the other hand, was plying his trade upright in the open, cursing the military exigencies that had organized this invasion in the middle of the night.
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