Arthur Firmin
1912-1955

Arthur Firmin was born in 1912 in Kenya.
He was the most distinguished mountaineer and professional photographer in East Africa. He specialized in portraiture, wild game and mountain photography.

After an education in England, he returned in 1937 and joined the Kenya Police Force, in which he served throughout the war, acting as official photographer.
He resigned in 1946 to set up his own business in Nairobi.
 
Through exceptionally hard work, the highest professional standards and able assistance from his wife Kathleen (who was also a photographer) he was soon established a leading photographer in Nairobi and East Africa, with a wide and growing reputation in other countries such as England and America.
 
In 1953, at the first exhibition in London of Commonwealth Photographers, he won high praise: The Manchester Guardian Critic wrote: ‘ Firmin’s work dominates the exhibition… (his principal exhibit, a magnificent landscape taken in the Ruwenzori) deserves to be enlarged to the size of a shop window and set up outside for everyone to enjoy’. He had an exceptional flair for composition and lighting effects. His superb pictures have given pleasure to thousands.