Eimer 1582, BHM 2832.
57mm. By J.S & A.B Wyon.
Obverse with head of Thomas Leverton Donaldson. Reverse with 'To Commemorate Long & Zealous Services In Promoting The Study Of Architecture' within wreath. Edge named to 'Michael James Peto, A.R.I.B.A. 1951'.
Bright Extremely Fine and scarce.
Michael James Peto (1908-1970) was an internationally recognized Hungarian-British photojournalist of the twentieth century.
In the early post-war years, Peto became interested in photography and went to Paris, where he connected with the Hungarian arts community. He studied technique with the well-known photographer Ervin Marton, who encouraged him to continue and became his friend, as did others in the art circle. Peto soon returned to London and gained work as a photojournalist, where his friend, the artist Josef Herman, also supported his new venture. Peto's major interest lay in the study of the human form in its natural surroundings.
During the 1950s and 1960s, Peto photographed many figures of the London arts scenes. His photographs of the ballet partnership of Dame Margot Fonteyn and the young Russian refugee dancer Rudolf Nureyev, who joined her at the Royal Ballet, were known internationally. He was commissioned in 1965 to take still photographs of The Beatles during the making of their film Help!. During the digitisation of the Michael Peto Collection, which is held by Archive Services, University of Dundee, in 2002, 500 previously unpublished photographs of the Beatles taken during the making of Help! were reported to have been uncovered. Peto also photographed several prominent British political figures of the 1950s and 1960s including Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and Edward Heath. He also photographed world leaders such as Israel's P.M.Golda Meir and Soviet Union's first secretary Nikita Khrushchev.
The Michael Peto Photographic Collection is now held and administered by Archive Services at the University of Dundee, Scotland.