A ʙʀᴀɴᴅ ɴᴇᴡ ʟɪғᴇ sᴛᴏʀʏ
(Aʀᴛ Pʀɪɴᴛ) ʙʏ Asᴊᴀ Bᴏʀᴏs
I was a student at Parliament Hill school, north London, from 1955, as it completed its transformation into a comprehensive, and where the textile artist Audrey Walker was head of the art department from 1959 to 1965.
Many of the staff had been there since before the second world war and were nearing retirement. Audrey was a blast of fresh air. She was an inspirational head of department, introducing large-scale modelling, drawing outside – the school adjoins Hampstead Heath – visits to exhibitions and, most memorably, to the new Royal College of Art building in Kensington Gore. I still have my end-of-term reports in her comfortable italic and a fulsome recommendation behind my application to go to art school.
Continue reading…Thousands of previously unseen photographs by Edward Chambré Hardman found to be ‘actively deteriorating’
The National Trust faces a “race against time” to save a historic collection of previously unseen photographs before they deteriorate.
RenownedLiverpool photographer Edward Chambré Hardman’s collection of 140,000 prints and negatives passed to the National Trust, along with his house, in 2003 but some negatives were found to be “actively deteriorating and emitting toxic gases”.
Continue reading…My wife’s work, to commemorate our love and relationship.
‘They’d had to have their car repainted because it got covered in blood when someone was shot’
I was staying with a friend in Los Angeles in 1983, documenting the punk scene when I saw a story in LA Weekly about this Mexican American gang the Hoyo Maravilla. Nobody much thought about East LA and the different communities there. I was fascinated by this culture that I, especially being British, wasn’t aware of.
I tracked down the story’s writer and he agreed to introduce me. I brought along a box of my prints of punks, mods and rockabillies that I’d been documenting in London for magazines such as the Face and Melody Maker and I said: “These are the gangs of London. I’d like to take photographs of you to show to the kids in London what’s going on in LA.” I spent much of that summer hanging out in a hot, dusty park that was the gathering spot for the Hoyo Maravilla.
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