Scar-faced, ex-jailbird Frank Norman was part of the '50s and '60s Soho bohemian set and friends with Francis Bacon, Lucien Freud, Dylan Thomas and other habitues of the infamous Colony Room club.
After being abandoned as a child, growing up in institutions, and working as a fairground worker, he landed in Soho, became a petty criminal and spent time in prison where he learned to paint and write.
Back in Soho on leaving jail, astonishingly he became a succesful author, writer of the smash hit cockney musical 'Fings Aint What They Used To Be’, the acclaimed prison memoir Bang to Rights, and several novels - but never painted again.
In the early '60s he penned 'Soho Night and Day', a evocative survey of the area in its seedy, cosmopolitan prime, with photographs by his pal Jeffrey Bernard (later to become the most famous alcoholic in London).
Frank's grandson, Joe Daniel, came to talk Bureau to talk about him and about the bohemian low-life of Soho in the '50s and '60s.
If you are listening to this in early 2025, and can be in London, we have curated an exhibtion in Soho of Frank's never before shown prison paintings:
See BEHIND BARS- Frank Norman’s Prison Paintings for details
The republished wonderful Frank Norman and Jeffrey Bernard book Soho Night and Day
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