Alec Wainman

Alec Wainman (1913-1989) was a professor of modern languages and talented photographer who joined British medical volunteers in the Spanish Civil War where he took a huge collection of photos.[1]

Alec Wainman
Alec Wainman
BornMarch 11, 1913
North Yorkshire, UK
Died1989
EducationModern Languages
OccupationPhotographer, Linguist
Known forSpanish Civil War photography

Life and work

Alec Wainman was born on March 11, 1913 in North Yorkshire, U.K., as Alexander Wheeler Wainman. He was raised in Vernon, Canada, returned to Britain in 1928 and studied Russian and Italian at Oxford. In 1934 and 1935 he worked at the British Embassy in Moscow.

At the outset of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 he went to Spain volunteering in the non-combative Republican medical services as interpreter and ambulance driver. This enabled Wainman to indulge his passion for photography capturing behind-the-scenes photos of Republican everyday life. Suffering from hepatitis, he returned to Britain in 1938. At the close of the war he helped to take out Spanish refugees of the French concentration camps and bring them to Britain.[2]

During World War II he served in the Special Operations Executive of the British Army. Wainman returned to civilian life as a lecturer, then as a professor, on Slavic studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He died in 1989.[3]

Wainman’s collection of photos

In 1975, a London-based publishing house got Wainman's photos with a view to publishing them. But the publisher went into liquidation and Wainman's collection was believed to be lost.[4] Eventually, in 2013 his son John Alexander Wainman, known as the pseudonym Serge Alternês, salvaged his father's photo collection and published a selection, along with his memoir, in the book Live Souls.[5][6]

Wainman's collection was also used in BBC documentary 'The Secret of a Murdered Priest'. [7]

Exhibitions

Film

Film Without you I would not exist.[9]

Wainman's photographic collection was featured in the BBC film "The murdered 'handsome' priest with a decades long secret," BBC REEL, written, produced and directed by Mario Aranguren.

gollark: It makes up something like 40% of GDP in many places and has more coercive power.
gollark: Well, that would affect other people so probably they should.
gollark: Indeed.
gollark: Solution: create/find then subjugate extraterrestrial life.
gollark: Unfortunately the government does not agree and does not read my blog posts disagreeing with them.

References
  1. Chris Farman, Valery Rose, Liz Woolley; No Other Way: Oxfordshire and the Spanish Civil War 1936-39, ISBN 9781910448052.
  2. Herminio Martínez: Reluctantly finding a home in Britain: Spanish Republican refugees and exiles in the 1940s Retrieved 20 January 2020.
  3. About Alec Wainman Retrieved 20 January 2020.
  4. History of Wainman’s photo collection Retrieved 20 January 2020.
  5. Serge Alternês & Alec Wainman: Live Souls. Citizens and Volunteers of Civil War Spain, ISBN 978-1-55380-437-6.
  6. Richard Baxell, Review of Serge Alternes and Alec Wainman, Live Souls Retrieved 20 January 2020.
  7. "BBC Documentary 'The Secret of a Murdered Priest'".
  8. Exhibition: Beyond the trenches (1936-1939) Retrieved 20 January 2020.
  9. Film from Sonia Boué: Without you I would not exist Retrieved 20 January 2020.
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