Barney Wan, art director who helped to make Vogue the house magazine of swinging London – obituary

Barney Wan, who has died aged 89, was the art director who played a leading role in the success of British Vogue in the 1960s and 1970s when the magazine was referred to, both reverentially and derisively, as the fashion bible. Edited by the legendary Beatrix Miller, the magazine was pivotal in the creation of the image that London was “swinging”, and Wan was in there with a calm eye that was at once helpful, skilled and opinionated.

When he took over as art director, computer technics were still the unknown aids of the future. Graphic design work was manual, involving a lightbox to view colour transparencies or black and white contact sheets, which would then be marked up and processed through a photocopier ready to be cropped to the required size with a large pair of scissors.

It was skilled work. The art department smelled permanently of Cow Gum, the essential rubber-solution glue that designers used to paste the trimmed pictures, accompanying text and graphics on to one sheet in order to create mock-up pages. Even the cover, the flag that would sell the issue on the bookstalls, was created this way. This was Barney Wan’s world.

He worked closely with the magazine’s fashion and features editors and built a close relationship with the leading photographers of the day, among them David Bailey, Lord Snowdon, Norman Parkinson, Clive Arrowsmith and Terence Donovan. Lesser known photographers aspiring to work for Vogue would present their portfolios, and Wan would either offer newcomers an opportunity or, at least, his encouragement and a suggestion of a direction they might take. Many careers were kick-started by his enthusiasm. Eric Boman, working in New York, regularly credits Wan for his success.

On leaving Vogue in the 1980s Wan concentrated on the design of books of photographs, mostly with the friends he had made over the years. His list grew consistently. There were books for Sir Cecil Beaton, Linda McCartney, and Mirella Ricciardi, who in 1971 published Vanishing Africa, a seminal look at that continent. There were four books with Lord Snowdon, who proclaimed: “I couldn’t have worked with anyone else.” Wan’s most recent books were with the photographers Carol Beckwith and Angela Fisher, who colourfully document the indigenous tribal cultures of Africa.

Wan was born in China in December 1931; the precise date was unknown, but later in Hong Kong he was given the official date of December 4 along with his brother and sister. Their father was the editor of a leading China newspaper editor, their mother one of his many elegant concubines (as was the custom of the day for wealthy men).

When they were still young they moved to Hong Kong, acquiring British Colonial nationality and British first names. Barney attended a British school until, aged 18, he moved to San Francisco to study architecture, but discovered that work as a freelance illustrator was lucrative and more satisfying.

In a spirit of adventure he moved to Paris, where the work was equally rewarding and the social life better. His shared apartment on Quai des Celestins overlooking the Seine, was a meeting place for a rakish set of transient friends.

London came next – first, work in the J Walter Thomson advertising agency, and then a move to the art department of Queen magazine owned by the publisher Jocelyn Stevens and edited by Beatrix Miller.

It came as no surprise to anyone, least of all the staff, that the volatile Stevens and the cerebral Miller would clash and Miller departed to edit Vogue. She was soon followed by other staff members, including Marit Allen, who was a star ascendant alerted to the rapidly changing look of fashion and the talent of new young designers like Foale and Tuffin, Gerald McCann, Ossie Clark, Bill Gibb and Mary Quant.

When Grace Coddington joined the team, they brought a revitalised look to Vogue. Barney Wan was offered the position of art director of Conde Nast’s new magazine, Men In Vogue. The role of art director of Vogue itself followed.

Wan was a quiet man of style with clothes that often reflected his Chinese background. Jackets with what were then called Mao collars became his signature image. In fact his China roots were a constant presence; he knew the best Chinese restaurants, spoke Mandarin, and each Chinese New Year was celebrated with lunch with a large table of guests at Chinatown in Soho. He was a firm follower of Chinese astrology and would try matchmaking friends. He would say “You Aquarian, he/she Gemini. You good together.” Verbs were often absent in his conversation.

Wan was a man of great charm and interest in people, and his life became a roll-call of figures in the arts, theatre and cinema; the film directors George Cukor, John Schlesinger and Tony Richardson featured prominently in his diary. Decades ago a newspaper interview referred to him as “a rare redeeming personality in London’s fashionable, fashion world”.

Barney Wan was godfather to many children.

Barney Wan, recorded date of birth December 4 1931, died October 18 2021