(Curatorial caption, accessed 23 November 2014)
In the two decades following the Second World War, the success of the Welfare State meant that children became a focus of public interest in a way that they never had before. Mayne's photographs reflect these concerns in a very sincere way. His contemporaries liked these uncomplicated pictures, which, according to Colin MacInnes writing in 1962, offered 'a portrait of urban sub-life of which, without him, I would have been unaware'.
