Archer's bookshop, also in 1956, exhibited a second show, "John Deakin's Rome." These were the only photography exhibitions Deakin achieved in his lifetime, and they attracted some critical acclaim. In "The Times", Colin MacInnes reviewed the Paris photos: "Mr Deakin sees one side of Alice's looking glass and the infinite mysteries that lie behind it. Art critic David Sylvester wrote: "The pictures of Paris by John Deakin present a vision that is profoundly personal and profoundly strange, a vision which confounds and undermines all notions of where inanimate ends and animate takes over."