Orwell picture misidentified?

[Paul Mackin]

Erik T. Burns wrote:

> Foax:
>  
> Rob J. recently pointed out an article from the Wilson Quarterly's 
> summer issue that included an item on the foreword to Orwell's _1984_, 
> identifying the picture Pynchon refers to here:
>  
> "The little boy, who would have been around two at the time, is beaming,
> with unguarded delight. Orwell is holding him gently with both hands,
> smiling too, pleased, but not smugly so - it is more complex than that, as
> if he has discovered something that might be worth even more than anger -
> his head tilted a bit, his eyes with a careful look that might remind
> filmgoers of a Robert Duvall character with a backstory in which he 
> has seen
> more than one perhaps would have preferred to."
>  
> However, the picture in the WQ - which is the same as the one on 
> Otto's site here: http://ottosell.de/pynchon/orwell.htm - doesn't seem 
> to match Pynchon's description as well as this one: 
> http://tinypic.com/n9je1
>  
> (I have tinypic'd it to make the URL easily accessible. My source for 
> the picture is a George Orwell page on MSN, at 
> http://groups.msn.com/EricArthurBlair/yourwebpage20.msnw -- click on 
> photos/WithOthers to find the picture listing.)
>  
> Now, these are obviously part of a set from the same day. It just 
> seems that in the second photo
> a) Richard is in fact "beaming" and not just grinning
> b) You can see Orwell's eyes
> c) Orwell's head is in fact "tilted" and not bent forward
> and
> d) Orwell looks almost exactly like Robert Duvall.
>  
> Does anyone know where these pictures first appeared and how many are 
> in the series? They were taken by Vernon Richards, whose biography & 
> Guardian obituary are available here: 
> http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/RichardsVernon.htm)
>  
> etb

I don't know but it wouldn't be a bad guess that the picture or pictures 
had appeared in one of the anarchist publications  that Richards was 
associated with.  "Freedom" maybe.  This would necessitate that 
Freedom's printing facilities could do photographs, which even the the 
more primitive setups should have been capable of at the time. Orwell 
had anarchist leanings and would have been well known in anarchist 
circles.  Animal Farm had been published.

Just a guess.