For half a lifetime after Stanley Stanley met a jolly, heavily tanned, bald man on the beach at Antibes, the prints and hand-painted plate he brought back as a souvenir of their time in southern France were stored away under his socks in a chest of drawers.

This spring, that evidence of the encounter between Stanley, an amateur photographer, and the bald man – Pablo Picasso – will be seen for the first time in a public exhibition.

The images, which Stanley printed himself (before his new wife forced him to abandon using their kitchen as a darkroom) are going on display at the Lightbox Gallery, in Woking, Surrey, from 10 April.

Picasso in his garden. One of the photographs taken by Stanley Stanley. (cropped) Photograph: Stanley Stanley © Succession PicassoDACS, London 2018

The photographs include Picasso chomping at a cigar by the edge of the sea while eyeing up a beautiful young woman, identified only as “jeune Parisienne, Nivea”, and his friend, Ernst Ascher, an African art dealer, startlingly transformed into a living canvas.

Jonathan Stanley, the photographer’s son, said: “My father knew of course that Picasso was a very famous artist, but he really had no interest in his work and certainly had no opinion of the plate; for as long as I can remember it was just there in the drawer with his underwear. In 1954 my father drove to the south of France with a friend, and it was a chance encounter on the beach – my father couldn’t walk into a room without striking up a friendship with somebody – and they just took to one another immediately.”

The photographs were all taken over four days after Stanley was invited back to Picasso’s villa, and include views of his family and friends, and the two men chatting in the artist’s jungly garden.

The exhibition also includes a painting that, sadly, neither man had any regard for – a harbour view by the young Austrian artist Soshana Afroyim who had modelled for Picasso and proudly presented him with an example of her work.

Picasso with a young woman named only as Nivea. Photograph: Stanley Stanley © Succession PicassoDACS, London 2018

Matthew Regan, the curator of the exhibition, which runs beside a display of far more famous images of Picasso in Paris by the photographer Lee Miller, as well as Picasso’s work in prints and ceramics, admitted his heart sank when a local man called into the gallery saying he had some photographs that might be of interest.

Regan said: “When I saw them I really was astonished. Stanley had a very good eye and a very good camera, and they do show a different, and very intimate and informal, side of Picasso. One [image] showing them sitting around a kitchen table covered in a fabulous collection of African art is extremely interesting. Ascher had brought a bag full down from Paris, and it shows that this late in his career Picasso was still buying such pieces.”

Stanley trained as a photographer in aerial reconnaissance in the RAF, when he was also urged to abandon his Jewish name, Samuels, in case of capture by the Germans, and so chose his own striking name. After the war he managed to buy an excellent Rolleiflex camera, which is also in the display, and did some work with English film companies before becoming a successful business man.

“There was no further contact and he never spoke much about it, just said that they had met,” his son said. “Although he kept them I don’t think he took any further interest in the photographs. When I started researching them I don’t think anyone had looked at them since he printed them.”