| Dates: | 1952 - | | Active: | Global | | Gender: | Male |
His use of color to capture the strangeness of English society in the 1980s was quite exceptional. He has become a trickster using his collections of boring postcards and self-portraits taken during his travels to make fun of photography at the same time as producing quite remarkable work of his own.Preparing biographies
Biography provided by Focal Press
Parr has become the documentarian of Great Britain’s middle class over the last three decades, working in black and white and color, publishing numerous books. Born in Upsum, England, he attended Manchester Polytechnic in the early 1970s. One of his first books was Bad Weather (1982), about the palpable curtain of mist, rain, and snow flurries that envelopes the British Isles; he purchased an underwater camera and flash attachment so he could defy the elements. Parr has been associated with Magnum since 1994. His newer work, almost always in super-saturated colors, takes stock of the public and semi-private life of the English; characters not so stodgy that they won’t tolerate his incessant picture snapping, not too removed from distant claims to royalty or a dukedom that they totally lose all pretense of having that stiff upper lip. In the sum of Parr’s work we see an archive of things and people Aglaise — fish and chips stands, New Brighton beach bathers, Tupperware parties, Tudor style suburbia, the horse and hunt crowd, Piccadilly punks, and shoppers. Visually, his images often provide looming close-ups of hands, arms, or advert signage against a middle ground populated by a dense assortment of figures on holiday or shopping at Ikea. He uses fill-flash in daylight to throw a democratized illumination into all the important crevices of each scene. Writer Susan Kismaric has said that Parr’s off-beat reportage is in harmony with many British authors, like Jonathan Swift, who portrayed society with a tinge of dry humor.
(Author: Ken White - Rochester Institute of Technology)
Michael Peres (Editor-in-Chief), 2007, Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, 4th edition, (Focal Press) [ISBN-10: 0240807405, ISBN-13: 978-0240807409]
(Used with permission)
Readings on, or by, individual photographers
Parr, Martin, 1989, The Cost of Living, (Manchester: Cornerhouse Publications) [Δ]
Parr, Martin, 1999, Common Sense, (Dewi Lewis Publishing) isbn-10: 1899235078 isbn-13: 978-1899235070 [Δ]
Parr, Martin, 2001, Langweilige Postkarten: Boring Postcards Germany, (Phaidon Press Ltd) isbn-10: 0714840629 isbn-13: 978-0714840628 [Δ]
Parr, Martin, 2004, Boring Postcards, (Phaidon Press Ltd) isbn-10: 0714843903 isbn-13: 978-0714843902 [Δ]
Parr, Martin, 2004, Boring Postcards USA: Insights into American social, cultural and architectural values, (Phaidon Press Ltd) isbn-10: 0714843911 isbn-13: 978-0714843919 [Δ]
Parr, Martin, 2004, Think of England, (Phaidon Press Ltd) isbn-10: 0714844543 isbn-13: 978-0714844541 [Δ]
Parr, Martin, 2006, Mexico, (Chris Boot) isbn-10: 0954689488 isbn-13: 978-0954689483 [Δ]
Parr, Martin, 2007, Small World, (Dewi Lewis Publishing) isbn-10: 1904587402 isbn-13: 978-1904587408 [Revised edition.] [Δ]
Parr, Martin, 2009, The Lost Resort, (Dewi Lewis Publishing) isbn-10: 1904587798 isbn-13: 978-1904587798 [Revised edition. The first edition was published in 1986 Merseyside: Promenade.] [Δ]
Parr, Martin, 2010, Retratos Pintados, (Nazraeli Press) isbn-13: 978-1590052676 [Δ]
Williams, Val, 2002, Martin Parr, (New York: Phaidon) [Δ]
If you feel this list is missing a significant book or article please let me know - Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com | |
Family history
If you are related to this photographer and interested in tracking down your extended family we can place a note here for you to help. It is free and you would be amazed who gets in touch.
alan@luminous-lint.com |
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| Wikipedia has a biography of this photographer. | Show on this site | Go to website | | Getty Research, Los Angeles, USA has an ULAN (Union List of Artists Names Online) entry for this photographer. This is useful for checking names and they frequently provide a brief biography. | | Go to website |
Magnum Photos
http://www.magnumphotos.com ...
Probably the world‘s most famous photo agency for photojournalists. Use this site to access the portfolios, biographies of the many notable Magnum photographers. Where there are books by the photographers the website frequently includes the photographs used.
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The following books are useful starting points to obtain brief biographies but they are not substitutes for the monographs on individual photographers. |
• Evans, Martin Marix (Executive ed.) 1995 Contemporary Photographers [Third Edition] (St. James Press - An International Thomson Publishing Company) [Expensive reference work but highly informative.]
• Lenman, Robin (ed.) 2005 The Oxford Companion to the Photograph (Oxford: Oxford University Press) [Includes a short biography on Martin Parr.]
• Weaver, Mike (ed.) 1989 The Art of Photography 1839-1989 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press) p.464 [This exhibition catalogue is for the travelling exhibition that went to Houston, Canberra and London in 1989.]
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If there is an analysis of a single photograph or a useful self portrait I will highlight it here. |
• Bauret, Gabriel (ed. and text) 2001 Color Photography (New York: Assouline) [Includes example color photographs by Martin Parr]
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