‘He made the East End look glamorous’: Bandele ‘Tex’ Ajetunmobi’s London – in pictures

As one of Britain’s first black photographers, Ajetunmobi captured the glitz, diversity and camaraderie of long-established communities in his adopted home

Bandele ‘Tex’ Ajetunmobi (1921—1994) was a self-taught photographer from Lagos who documented the daily lives of his friends and acquaintances in the streets, homes and pubs around Whitechapel, Stepney and Mile End boroughs in London from the late 1940s to the 1980s. You can see a new online gallery of his work here. All photographs: Bandele Tex Ajentunmobi/Autograph ABP

Ajetunmobi took this photograph at a club in Whitechapel during the 1950s, one of a series of images documenting the glitzy, underground nightlife of the time. ‘Everyone looks so relaxed and wonderful; these are working class people in the middle of the East End who look like glamorous models,’ says Victoria Loughran, Ajetunmobi’s niece

Ajetunmobi’s photographs, rarely seen outside his circle of family and friends during his life, are an important historical document of social and cultural life in the East End

This photograph was taken on Brick Lane, where Ajetunmobi had a stall buying and selling small goods. He always had his camera on him, and would stop people in the street and ask to take their picture

A young couple proudly pose for Ajetunmobi in front of an east London housing block circa 1975

What distinguishes Ajetunmobi’s archive from other photography of the postwar period is its informal nature and his ability to capture the camaraderie between the long-established communities in the area

He also captures the recent arrivals to Britain from countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Asia

A self-portrait of Bandele ‘Tex’ Ajetunmobi. In 1947, at the age of 26, he stowed away on a boat to Britain from Lagos, Nigeria. He chose to leave Lagos as he found himself an outcast on account of the disability he developed from having polio as a child. He became one of the first black photographers in Britain

Settling in Spitalfields, he documented the East End for nearly half a century. His images record a postwar, multicultural London

While most of Ajetunmobi’s work was destroyed when he died in 1994, his niece – Victoria Loughran – managed to save some 200 negatives alongside his camera equipment

Ajetunmobi took photographs for pleasure and artistic purposes, and frequently gave his pictures away to friends and acquaintances

In the 1970s, Ajetunmobi used colour film for his portraits. He invested in his practice with expensive cameras, Hasselblads and Leicas

Ajetunmobi’s negatives are now part of Autograph’s collection of photography, held at their gallery in Hackney, London

The collection addresses gaps in the visual representation of Britain’s cultural history and its diverse communities