Jean Straker was born in London in 1913 and spent some of his early life in Paris, where his parents were dancers in the Folies Bergère.

During the '30s, he worked as a freelance journalist in the British film industry. During the Second World War, Straker, a conscientious objector, worked as a photographer, documenting operations in a number of London hospitals.

In 1951, he opened the Visual Arts Club at Studio House, 12 Soho Square, for "artists and photographers, amateur and professional, studying the female nude." Six years later, officers from Scotland Yard, acting on behalf of the Italian Police, visited Straker, concerned that the photograph Sun Worship might be obscene. In 1961, police raided Studio House and took a number of prints and negatives that they considered obscene. Straker stood trial in 1962, and despite arguing that his photographs were "of artistic value," he lost the case and forfeited all the prints and negatives that were confiscated.

Throughout the rest of the '60s, Straker campaigned for freedom of expression and freedom from censorship in the arts. He gave talks to various student unions and societies across Britain. Straker died in 1984.

This image, Figure Study, is one of Straker's artistic nudes and is currently on display in the Soho Archives show at the Photographers' Gallery in London. Click here to read our listing.

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