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Exhibition: ‘Another Country: Vintage Photographs of British Life by Tony Ray-Jones’ at James Hyman, London

Exhibition dates: 11th September – 11th October 2013

Tony Ray-Jones (British, 1941-1972)
Lady’s Day
c. 1967
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
12 x 20cm (5 x 8 inches)

What a loss to the world when this photographer died aged just thirty. His eye was magnificent. He seems to have instinctively known how to capture the quintessential British at work, rest and play in all that societies class-ridden glory – the fag hanging out of the mouth in Lady’s Day (c. 1967) combining beautifully with the aura of the patterned dresses; the isolation of the figures and their stop-frame movement in Day at the Races (c. 1967), a wonderfully balanced composition caught in the moment; and the orchestral ensemble that is the cast of Bacup, Lancashire, 1968 (1968), each figure playing its part in the overall tension of the picture plane: the brothers at right in matching duffle coats, the boy walking forward down the incline with head thrown sideways balanced at rear by another boy with hands in pockets tossing his head into the wind. Magical.

Just to see this image, to visualise it and have the camera ready to capture its “nature”, its undeniable presence for that one split second, then to develop and find this image on a proof sheet, what joy this would have been for the artist. Equally illustrious is the feeling of Bournemouth, 1969 (1969) with the nuanced use of shadow and light, the occlusion of the figure behind the screen with the turn of the head, and the placement of the two white tea cups at right. Ray-Jones wasn’t afraid to place figures in the foreground of his compositions either as can be seen in Brighton Beach, 1967 (1967) to great effect, framing the mise en scène behind.

These photographs take me way back to my childhood in the 1960s in England, going to Butlin’s Clacton-on-Sea and Bournemouth for our family holidays. Even the name says it all: Clacton “on sea” as though they have to remind people visiting that they are actually at the sea. The photographs perfectly capture the mood of the country in this utilitarian era where holidays at a seaside resort were often dour affairs, punctuated by stony beaches, bad weather and regulated activities. The freedom of the 1970s had yet to arrive and us kids went whether we liked it or not: Mablethorpe, 1967 (1967) perfectly epitomises such an environment, with the long days of pleasure / torture stretching off into the distance much as the sea wall in Ray-Jones’ photo.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to James Hyman for allowing me to publish these magnificent photographs. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Tony Ray-Jones (British, 1941-1972)
Day at the Races
c. 1967
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
13 x 20cm (5 x 8 inches)

Tony Ray-Jones (British, 1941-1972)
A Day at Richmond Park
c. 1967
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
17.5 x 25.6cm (7 x 10 inches)

Tony Ray-Jones (British, 1941-1972)
Chatham May Queen, 1968
1968
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
17.5 x 26.2cm (7 x 10 inches)

Tony Ray-Jones (British, 1941-1972)
Bacup, Lancashire, 1968
1968
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
17.5 x 26.5cm (7 x 10 inches)

James Hyman is delighted to stage an exhibition of rare, vintage photographs by Tony Ray-Jones to coincide with the opening exhibition of the Science Museum Media Space, Only in England, Photographs by Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr, in September 2013.

Tony Ray-Jones had a short life. He died in 1972 aged just thirty. But the pictures that he left behind are some of the most powerful British photographs of the twentieth century. His work of the late 1960s and early 1970s documents English culture and identity and brilliantly captures this period in English public life. Inspired by what he learnt in America in the mid-1960s, from photographers such as Lee Friedlander and Joel Meyerowitz, Ray-Jones was keen to make ‘new’ photographs of English life, which did not read simply as documentary, but also as art objects. As he explained in Creative Camera in 1968: “the spirit and the mentality of the English, their habits, and the way they do things, partly through tradition and the nature of their environment and mentality.”

The acclaim that Ray-Jones received after his death, especially from other photographers, testifies to the respect of his elders and his contemporaries. Bill Brandt praised the “very pronounced style all of his own” and lamented that “his death, at such a young age, is a terrible loss to British photography.” Jacques Henri-Lartigue praised Tony Ray-Jones as a “fantaisiste”: “young, free and whimsical with, in addition, a very sound technique and a vision of fire that was full of humour, truth and a sense of poetry” and Paul Strand praised his “remarkable formal organisation” and declared: “I found the photographs of Tony Ray-Jones very outstanding. In them I find that rather rare concurrence when an artist clearly attaining mastery of his medium, also develops a remarkable way of looking at the life around him, with warmth and understanding.”

These tributes are to be found in the most important book of Tony Ray-Jones work, A Day Off. An English Journal, published in 1974. They are included in a beautiful essay in which Ainslie Ellis, one of the photographer’s earliest champions, addresses not only the photographs but also Ray-Jones’s photographic process. Ellis stresses that what mattered to Ray-Jones was not just taking the picture, but also the creative process of deciding which pictures on a contact strip to print, and then making a master-print, from which all subsequent prints would be matched. We are, therefore, delighted that this exhibition should include many of the pictures reproduced in this celebrated book and that it present exclusively vintage prints, which, in a number of identifiable cases, are the actual photographs that Tony Ray-Jones exhibited in his lifetime.

Often playful and sometimes despondent, what Ray-Jones produced was unlike anything which came before, and was the catalyst for a generation of New British Photographers.

Press release from the James Hyman website

Tony Ray-Jones (British, 1941-1972)
Bournemouth, 1969
1969
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
16 x 25cm (6 x 10 inches)

Tony Ray-Jones (British, 1941-1972)
Brighton Beach, 1967
1967
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
17.5 x 26.5cm (7 x 10 inches)

Tony Ray-Jones (British, 1941-1972)
Mablethorpe, 1967
1967
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
14 x 21cm (6 x 8 inches)

Tony Ray-Jones (British, 1941-1972)
Waxworks, Eastbourne, 1968
1968
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
14 x 21cm (6 x 8 inches)

Tony Ray-Jones (British, 1941-1972)
Durham Miners’ Gala
1969
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
14 x 22.5cm (6 x 9 inches)

Tony Ray-Jones (British, 1941-1972)
Sunday Best
c. 1967
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
30.5 x 20cm (12 x 8 inches)

Tony Ray-Jones (British, 1941-1972)
Blackpool, 1968
1968
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
21 x 14.5cm (8.25 x 5.70 ins)

James Hyman Gallery
16 Savile Row
London W1S 3PL
Phone: 020 7494 3857

Opening hours:
By appointment

James Hyman Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘Edith Tudor-Hart: In the Shadow of Tyranny’ at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh

Exhibition dates: 2nd March – 26th May 2013

Edith Tudor-Hart (Austrian-British, 1908-1973)
Untitled (Unemployed Workers’ Demonstration, Vienna)
1932
Modern silver gelatine print from archival negative
30.3 x 30cm
Scottish National Portrait Gallery: Archive presented by Wolfgang Suschitzky 2004
© The Estate of Edith Tudor-Hart

Another photographer unknown to me, who “attempted to use the camera as a political weapon, aligning her practice with the wider worker photography movement” and produced “images that show a sophisticated realism, marked by their directness and capacity to communicate issues of inequality and deprivation.” In other words she was using photography to fight the good fight, producing photographs that interrogate issues of poverty, unemployment and slum housing.

But there is more to Tudor-Hart’s photographs than just social realism otherwise they would not hold us so. Beyond a perceptive understanding of light and the formal elements of the picture plane there is that ineffable something that a good photographer always has – the ability to transcend the scene, to capture the chance encounter – be it the look on a woman’s face, the ensemble of children preparing vegetables or the untitled man ‘In Total Darkness’ (with traces of Eugene Atget). The aesthetic of engagement, the ability of her photographs to speak directly to the viewer in a vital, dynamic way, also speaks to the life of the photographer: studied at the Bauhaus, an agent for the Communist party, I would have liked to have met this artist.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Edith Tudor-Hart (Austrian-British, 1908-1973)
Demonstration, South Wales
1935
Printed 2004 from original negatives held in the Edith Tudor Hart Archive
Gelatin silver print
Framed: 50.80 x 40.64cm
© The Estate of Edith Tudor-Hart

Edith Tudor Hart was in South Wales in the 1930s following her husband’s appointment as a GP there. As communists they would have sympathised with the economic hardship of the miners in the Rhondda valley. During the industrial depression following the First World War, unemployment figures in the area soared. With the help of other unions, the National Unemployed Workers’ Movement (NUWM) organised Hunger Marches, which demanded more fair unemployment legislation. This photograph was taken during one such demonstration, with the photographer perched on a post opposite the crowd of men.

Text from the National Galleries of Scotland website

Edith Tudor-Hart (Austrian-British, 1908-1973)
Members of the Social-Democratic Youth Movement Marching Past the Opera House, Opernring, Vienna
c. 1928
Printed 2004 from original negatives held in the Edith Tudor Hart Archive
Gelatin silver print
28 x 30cm
Scottish National Portrait Gallery
© Copyright held jointly by Peter Suschitzky, Julia Donat & Misha Donat

This is a very dynamic image showing members of the Social-Democratic Youth Movement marching in Vienna. In the wake of the First World War, the Austrian political parties had a youthful membership – it is estimated that up to sixty per cent of the Viennese Social Democrats were under forty years of age. The limits of teenagers’ political engagement was a particular source of controversy, with many arguing that the youth movement should be more educational than political. Memoirs of the period reveal that political identification was often fluid. A common joke amongst young activists was that you went to bed a Social Democrat and woke up a Communist!

Text from the National Galleries of Scotland website

Edith Tudor-Hart (Austrian-British, 1908-1973)
Untitled (Man Selling Fruit, Vienna)
c. 1930
Modern silver gelatine print from archival negative
30.3 x 30.1cm
Scottish National Portrait Gallery: Archive presented by Wolfgang Suschitzky 2004
© The Estate of Edith Tudor-Hart

Edith Tudor-Hart (Austrian-British, 1908-1973)
Untitled (Caledonian Market, London)
c. 1931
Modern silver gelatine print from archival negative
27.7 x 27.5cm
Scottish National Portrait Gallery: Archive presented by Wolfgang Suschitzky 2004
© The Estate of Edith Tudor-Hart

Edith Tudor-Hart (Austrian-British, 1908-1973)
Ferris Wheel, Vienna
c. 1931
Printed 2004 from original negatives held in the Edith Tudor Hart Archive
Gelatin silver print
29.3 x 29.2cm
Scottish National Portrait Gallery: Archive presented by Wolfgang Suschitzky 2004
© The Estate of Edith Tudor-Hart

Before marrying Edith Tudor Hart had studied photography at the Bauhaus in Dessau. The concerns of this school are obvious in the geometries and startling perspective of this image. Note the exaggerated size of the steel supports of the wheel and the minute figures of the people standing on the ground. The photographer’s eagerness to document the dynamism of urban life suggests she was aware of developments in Soviet avant-garde photography.

Text from the National Galleries of Scotland website

Edith Tudor-Hart (Austrian-British, 1908-1973)
Karl-Marx-Hof, Vienna
c. 1932
Printed 2004 from original negatives held in the Edith Tudor Hart Archive
Gelatin silver print
30.2 x 30cm
Scottish National Portrait Gallery
© Copyright held jointly by Peter Suschitzky, Julia Donat & Misha Donat

The Karl-Marx-Hof was a fortress-like housing estate built by the Social Democrats between 1927 and 1930. A kilometre in length, its huge walls contained nearly 1400 apartments for Viennese workers. In her photograph of the building Tudor-Hart summons both its strength and sense of modernity. However, the permanence evoked by the architecture soon proved to be more apparent than real. In February 1934, during the short-lived Austrian civil war, the building was shelled by Austro-fascist forces. Out-gunned, and concerned about women and children still in their homes, the Karl-Marx-Hof’s defenders surrendered. The first mass movement against European fascism was easily defeated and the Austrian Social Democrats were driven into illegality and exile.

Text from the National Galleries of Scotland website

Edith Tudor-Hart (Austrian-British, 1908-1973)
Family Group, Stepney, London
c. 1932
Printed 2004 from original negatives held in the Edith Tudor Hart Archive
Gelatin silver print
Scottish National Portrait Gallery
© Copyright held jointly by Peter Suschitzky, Julia Donat & Misha Donat

Tudor-Hart worked extensively amongst working-class communities in East and North London, photographing children on the streets and families in their homes. She was part of a larger movement on the left concerned about the effect of widespread slum housing. However, Tudor-Hart’s imagery is rarely merely propaganda and her ability to connect with those she photographs – often women and children – is evident. This complex photograph explores the photographer’s relationship to her subjects. Shot deliberately through the window it emphasises her voyeurism, thus limiting the sentimental impact of the image.

Text from the National Galleries of Scotland website

Edith Tudor-Hart (Austrian-British, 1908-1973)
Untitled (Ultraviolet Light Treatment, South London Hospital for Women and Children)
c. 1935
Modern silver gelatine print from archival negative
30.3 × 30cm
Scottish National Portrait Gallery: Archive presented by Wolfgang Suschitzky 2004

This photograph was taken for a booklet promoting the work of the South London Hospital for Women and Children, produced in collaboration with the German exile photographer, Grete Stern. It shows light treatment for children suffering from vitamin deficiencies, a standard cure at the time. The South London Hospital was founded in 1912 “to meet the growing demand of women for medical treatment by members of their own sex.” Tudor-Hart campaigned throughout her life for health reforms for women and children, part of a wider movement of women whose activity was vital to the formation of the National Health Service in 1948.

Text from the National Galleries of Scotland website

Edith Tudor-Hart (Austrian-British, 1908-1973)
Untitled (Drying Room, Pit-head Baths, Ashington Colliery, Northumberland)
c. 1937
Modern silver gelatine print from archival negative
30.3 x 30.1cm
Scottish National Portrait Gallery: Archive presented by Wolfgang Suschitzky 2004
© The Estate of Edith Tudor-Hart

The life and work of one of the most extraordinary photographers in Britain during the 1930s and 1940s is the subject of a major new exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Based on extensive new research, Edith Tudor-Hart: In the Shadow of Tyranny, is the first full presentation of the Austrian-born photographer’s work. The exhibition presents over 80 photographs, many of which have never been shown before, and includes film footage, Tudor-Hart’s scrapbook and a selection of her published stories in books and magazines.

During the 1930s, photography became implicated in the vital political and social questions of the era as never before. The enhanced technological capacities of the camera and faster printing processes offered left-wing political activists new techniques for popular mobilisation. The medium took on a sharper social purpose, breaking down the traditional divisions of culture through its quality of immediacy and capacity for self-representation.

Edith Tudor-Hart was a key exponent of this aesthetic of engagement, with images that show a sophisticated realism, marked by their directness and capacity to communicate issues of inequality and deprivation. In a turbulent decade, she attempted to use the camera as a political weapon, aligning her practice with the wider worker photography movement. Tudor-Hart’s photography dealt with many of the major social issues of the day, including poverty, unemployment and slum housing. Her imagery is a vital record of the politically-charged atmosphere of inter-war Vienna and Britain during the Great Slump of the 1930s. After 1945, Tudor-Hart concentrated on questions of child welfare, producing some of the most psychologically penetrating imagery of children of her era.

Tudor-Hart’s life story as a photographer is inextricably tied to the great political upheavals of the twentieth century. Born Edith Suschitzky in Vienna in 1908, she grew up in radical Jewish circles in a city ravaged by the impact of the First World War. Her childhood was dominated by social issues in a culture acutely aware of the impact of the Russian Revolution. After training as a Montessori teacher, she studied photography at the Bauhaus in Dessau and pursued a career as a photojournalist. However, her life was turned upside down in May 1933 when she was arrested whilst working as an agent for the Communist Party of Austria. She escaped long-term imprisonment by marrying an English doctor, Alexander Tudor-Hart, and was exiled to London shortly afterwards. Notoriously, Tudor-Hart continued to combine her practice as a photographer with low-level espionage for the Soviet Union and was pursued by the security services until her death in 1973.

Tudor-Hart’s photography introduced into Britain formal and narrative features that derived from her training on the Continent. Her method initiates a dialogue with those she photographs, very different from the more distancing imagery of the photojournalists. Along with thirty or so German-speaking exile photographers, many of Jewish origin, Tudor-Hart helped transform British photography. After the Second World War, rejected by Fleet Street and the British establishment, Tudor-Hart turned to documenting issues of child welfare. Her photographs were published in Picture Post and a range of other British magazines. By the late 1950s she had abandoned photography altogether.

Commenting on the exhibition, Director of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Christopher Baker, said, ‘We are really pleased to be staging this thrilling retrospective of Tudor-Hart’s photography. It combines stunning images with an intriguing life-story and illuminates a turbulent period in European history. Tudor-Hart was one of the great photographers of her era.’ Edith Tudor-Hart: In the Shadow of Tyranny is drawn largely from the photographer’s negative archive, which was donated to the National Galleries of Scotland by her family in 2004. The exhibition travels to the Wien Museum in September and will form the first complete presentation of her work in Austria.

Press release from the Scottish National Portrait Gallery

Edith Tudor-Hart (Austrian-British, 1908-1973)
Untitled (Children Preparing Vegetables, North Stoneham Camp, Hampshire)
1937
Modern silver gelatine print from archival negative
30.2 x 29.8cm
Scottish National Portrait Gallery: Archive presented by Wolfgang Suschitzky 2004
© The Estate of Edith Tudor-Hart

Edith Tudor-Hart (Austrian-British, 1908-1973)
Untitled (Basque Refugee Children, North Stoneham Camp, Hampshire)
1937
Modern silver gelatine print from archival negative
30.2 x 30cm
Scottish National Portrait Gallery: Archive presented by Wolfgang Suschitzky 2004
© The Estate of Edith Tudor-Hart

The children are giving the Spanish anti-fascist Republican salute.

Edith Tudor-Hart (Austrian-British, 1908-1973)
Untitled (Child Staring into Bakery Window)
c. 1935
Modern silver gelatine print from archival negative
35.30 x 30.00cm
Scottish National Portrait Gallery: Archive presented by Wolfgang Suschitzky 2004
© The Estate of Edith Tudor-Hart

Edith Tudor-Hart (Austrian-British, 1908-1973)
Untitled (In Total Darkness, London)
c. 1935
Modern silver gelatine print from archival negative
27.70 x 27.50cm
Scottish National Portrait Gallery: Archive presented by Wolfgang Suschitzky 2004
© The Estate of Edith Tudor-Hart

Scottish National Portrait Gallery
1 Queen Street, Edinburgh EH2 1JD
Phone: +44 131 624 6200

Opening hours:
Daily 10am – 5pm

Scottish National Portrait Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘Daniel Meadows: Early Photographic Works’ at the National Science and Media Museum, Bradford

Exhibition dates: 30th September 2011 – 19th February 2012

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952)
25th wedding anniversary party. Farnborough Park, Kent. August 1985
From Suburbia, 1984-1987
Gelatin silver print
© Daniel Meadows

In the 1970s, Daniel Meadows was at the forefront of the independent photography movement. His practice is complex, passionate and sometimes deeply autobiographical.

Daniel Meadows’ early work broke with tradition and infused the medium with new energies and ways of seeing. Between 1971 and 1987, he produced an astonishing record of urban society in Britain, working in a uniquely collaborative way through his interviews with – and writing about – his subjects.

Text from the National Science and Media Museum website

Many thankx to the National Media Museum, Bradford for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. All pictures are copyright © Daniel Meadows except for the June Street, Salford which is copyright © Daniel Meadows and Martin Parr.

Daniel Meadows: Edited Photographs from the 70s and 80s authored by Val Williams

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952) and Martin Parr (British, b. 1952)
Untitled
From June Street, Salford, February – April 1973
Gelatin silver print
© Daniel Meadows and Martin Parr

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952) and Martin Parr (British, b. 1952)
From the series June Street, Salford, photographed in Salford
1973
Gelatin silver print
© Daniel Meadows and Martin Parr

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952)
Brighton, Sussex. May 1974
From the Free Photographic Omnibus, 1973-1974
Gelatin silver print
© Daniel Meadows

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952)
Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria
Left: identified as James O’Connor. Right: David Balderstone
November 1974
From the Free Photographic Omnibus, 1973-1974
Gelatin silver print
© Daniel Meadows

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952)
From the Free Photographic Omnibus portrait series, photographed in Hulme, Manchester
1974
Gelatin silver print
© Daniel Meadows

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952)
The Free Photographic Omnibus
1974
From the Free Photographic Omnibus, 1973-1974
© Daniel Meadows

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952)
From the Free Photographic Omnibus portrait series, photographed in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria
1974
Gelatin silver print
© Daniel Meadows

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952)
From the series National Portraits: Now & Then, mother and son Susie and Peter Gatesy, Brighton, Sussex 1974 and London 2000
Gelatin silver print
© Daniel Meadows

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952)
From the series National Portraits: Now & Then, twin brothers Michael (left) and Peter McParland, Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, 1974 and 1995
Gelatin silver print
© Daniel Meadows

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952)
Untitled
From Butlin’s Filey, Yorkshire, July – August 1972
© Daniel Meadows

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952)
The Dome of Fun and Fortune
1972
From the series Butlin’s by the Sea, Filey, Yorkshire
© Daniel Meadows

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952)
Falling
1972
From the series Butlin’s by the Sea, Filey, Yorkshire
© Daniel Meadows

The National Science and Media Museum presents the first retrospective of the career of Daniel Meadows – photographer, documentarian, digital storyteller and unofficial co-founder of a uniquely British photography movement. Daniel Meadows was one of a group of photographers who spearheaded the independent photography movement in the early 1970s, breaking with tradition and infusing the medium with new energies and ways of seeing. His practice is complex, passionate and sometimes deeply autobiographical.

Between 1971 and 1987, he produced an astonishing record of urban society in Britain, working in a uniquely collaborative way through his interviews with – and writing about – his subjects. Meadows is a documentarist and an exceptional storyteller. He reveals historic and culturally significant aspects of people’s lives, dating from the 1970s to the present day. This exhibition displays photographic works alongside oral testimonies by some of the people featured in the photographs and Digital Stories.

Meadows’ practice developed at Manchester Polythechnic, where he trained alongside fellow photographers Martin Parr, Brian Griffin, Charlie Meecham and Peter Fraser. Together they spearheaded a new documentary movement intent on establishing an independent method for making and disseminating photographs, outside the existing conventions of commercial practitioners and photojournalists. Meadows’ resulting work displays complexity and passion, and confers a personal and sometimes deeply autobiographical imprint. During his career he has produced an astonishing record of urban British society, working in a uniquely collaborative way, through photography, digital stories and recorded interviews, to capture extraordinary aspects of everyday life.

His career began in 1972, when he opened a photographic studio in a former barber’s shop in the Moss Side area of Manchester. The Shop on Greame Street features residents from the district who posed for a portrait which they then received free of charge. None has been previously exhibited, and a selection will be on public display for the first time from October.

Two further early projects are also included in the exhibition, both undertaken in partnership with Martin Parr. June Street, 1973, is an intimate portrayal of working class households in an area of Salford, which have since been demolished. Butlin’s by the Sea, 1972, presents a fascinating record of the holiday camp in Filey, North Yorkshire, just after the heyday of this style of British resort.

In 1973, Meadows, aged 21, also bought a 25-year-old Leyland PD1 double-decker bus for £360.20. He removed the seats to make space for a darkroom and living quarters and named it the Free Photographic Omnibus. He spent 14 months taking his Greame Street studio philosophy of free portraits on tour around England. Original photographs from the journey appear in the retrospective, along with a selection from a follow-up project in which Meadows sought out his Photobus subjects more than 20 years later to re-photograph them for National Portraits: Now and Then, 1995-2000.

Other notable works displayed include Decline in the Cotton Industry, 1975-1978, Welfare State International, 1976-1983, and Nattering in Paradise, 1984-1987. The gallery will also screen a selection of Meadows’ Digital Storytelling films. Condensing personal stories into two-minute features of approximately 250 heartfelt words and 12 images, he created “multimedia sonnets from the people”, leading American commentator J.D Lasica to call him “one of the icons of the Digital Storytelling movement.”

This exhibition and the accompanying publication is the product of research by Professor Val Williams as part of an ongoing study into British photography of 1970s and 1980s at the University of the Arts London. It is preceded by the research project, The New British Photography, 1968-1981, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Together Val Williams and Daniel Meadows have brought to light the photographer’s incredible archive of prints and negatives, along with ephemera and audio recordings. They have unearthed unpublished and sometimes forgotten treasures which add to a remarkable document – a dramatic, moving and empathetic evocation of a recognisable, yet increasingly alien era.

Press release from the National Science and Media Museum website

Daniel Meadows: Early Photographic Work

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952)
Foster mother and children
1972
From the free photographic studio on Greame Street, Moss Side, Manchester, February – April 1972
Gelatin silver print
© Daniel Meadows

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952)
Portrait of Angela Loretta Lindsey, aged 8, with her brother Mark Emanuel Lindsey
1972
From the free photographic studio on Greame Street, Moss Side, Manchester, February – April 1972
Gelatin silver print
© Daniel Meadows

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952)
Hell’s Angels
1972
From the free photographic studio on Greame Street, Moss Side, Manchester, February – April 1972
Gelatin silver print
© Daniel Meadows

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952)
Untitled
1972
From the free photographic studio on Greame Street, Moss Side, Manchester, February – April 1972
Gelatin silver print
© Daniel Meadows

Daniel Meadows (British, b. 1952)
From The Shop on Greame Street portrait series, Moss Side, Manchester
1972
Gelatin silver print
© Daniel Meadows

National Science and Media Museum
Bradford,
West Yorkshire,
BD1 1NQ

Opening hours:
Daily 10.00 – 17.00

National Science and Media Museum website

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Exhibition: ‘Don McCullin – In England’ at the National Media Museum, Bradford

Exhibition dates: 8th May – 27th September, 2009

A passionate and personal view of England by one of our greatest living photographers, In England reflected on England from the 1950s to the present day. For half a decade McCullin recorded images of England, highlighting issues surrounding wealth, race, class and social justice. This was the first ever exhibition dedicated exclusively to this aspect of his work.

The images, taken mainly from two books – Homecoming (1979) and In England (2007) – are often imbued with their social or political context. Several exhibited photographs were taken during McCullin’s trips to Bradford and around his own home city, London, as well as Liverpool and the North East. The exhibition also included McCullin’s first ever published photograph, The Guv’nors.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the National Media Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Don McCullin (British, b. 1935) 'Early morning, Steel Foundry, West Hartlepool, County Durham, U.K.' 1963 from the exhibition 'Don McCullin – In England' at the National Media Museum, Bradford, May - Sept, 2009

Don McCullin (British, b. 1935)
Early morning, Steel Foundry, West Hartlepool, County Durham, U.K.
1963
Gelatin silver print
© Don McCullin

Don McCullin (British, b. 1935) 'Kids on Bradford estate' c. 1970s from the exhibition 'Don McCullin – In England' at the National Media Museum, Bradford, May - Sept, 2009

Don McCullin (British, b. 1935) 'Bradford, early 1970s' c. 1970s

Don McCullin (British, b. 1935) 'Blackpool, early 1970s' c. 1970s

A passionate and personal view of Britain by one of our greatest living photographers is being showcased in a major free-to-enter exhibition at the National Media Museum from 8 May – 27 September 2009.

Don McCullin – In England reflects on Britain from the 1950s to the present day. For half a decade McCullin, in addition to travelling the world photographing war ravaged countries to great acclaim, has been recording England and highlighting issues surrounding wealth, race, class and social justice.

The National Media Museum is hosting the first ever exhibition dedicated exclusively to this aspect of his work. Curator Colin Harding said: “Although Don is probably best known for his war photography, he is not purely a war photographer and does not class himself as such. However, many of the 70 black and white images displayed in this new show are clearly influenced by his experiences abroad. Don’s vision of England is not a pretty one. He photographed what he saw and what he saw was often harsh – poverty, unemployment, discrimination, but he always photographs with passion and empathy.”

Many of the images have a political or social context and are taken extensively from two books – Homecoming (1979) and In England (2007); coincidentally published in the same years Margaret Thatcher came to power and Tony Blair left power respectively. Some of the images will be publicly displayed for the first time.

Don McCullin – In England gives audiences the chance to see his first ever published photograph – of The Guv’nors, a 1950s gang from his neighbourhood around Finsbury Park, London. The picture appeared in The Observer newspaper after a policeman was murdered by one of the gang members.

Several exhibited photographs were taken during McCullin’s trips to Bradford (the National Media Museum’s home city) and around his own home city, London, as well as Liverpool and the North East. Other aspects of English life are featured – a series of landscapes, including a study of Hadrian’s Wall taken earlier this year, a 1968 shoot with The Beatles, and trips to the seaside and Royal Ascot.

To complement the exhibition a new area will be produced on the Museum’s website offering exclusive video interviews, images, further information, and links to other relevant websites.

Text from the National Media Museum website Nd [Online] Cited 12/09/2009 no longer available online

National Media Museum Don McCullin exhibition archive web page.

Photographer Don McCullin on his early years
In 2009 Don McCullin spoke to us about his early years as part of his In England exhibition at the museum.

Don McCullin (British, b. 1935) 'Windsor Baths, Bradford, early 1970s' c. 1970s

Don McCullin (British, b. 1935) 'Mayfair, London' 1965

Don McCullin. 'Towards an Iron Age hill fort, Somerset' 1991

Don McCullin (British, b. 1935) 'The Guv'nors, Finsbury Park, London' 1958

Don McCullin (British, b. 1935) 'Snowy, Cambridge, early 1970s' c. 1970s

According to McCullin, a postcard of this photograph sold ‘like hotcakes’ in Australia. McCullin found Snowy, the man in the portrait, standing by the side of the road with an ice-cream barrow in Cambridge, in the early 1970s. He pulled the mouse out of his pocket and put it into his mouth as McCullin took pictures.