Martin Parr: Work and Leisure

Firstsite is currently presenting the largest Martin Parr exhibition in the UK since 2002 coming direct from The Hepworth Wakefield and tailored especially for Firstsite with additional content including Martin Parr’s own extraordinary personal collection of postcards. Martin Parr: Work and Leisure comprises more than 300 photographs that span the past 40 years, presenting a chronological overview of Parr’s most celebrated works.

From his early Yorkshire-based black and white photographs of rural communities through to his more recent vivid explorations into consumerism, this exhibition includes rarely seen images from his series The Non-Conformists taken at the beginning of his career reflecting his experiences of living in Yorkshire, and The Last Resort, one of the most significant bodies of British photography, documenting leisure time in the seaside town of New Brighton, as well as a universal shift from monochrome to colour photography.

In addition to this Hepworth Wakefield touring exhibition, Parr has also, in 2016, exhibited at the Guildhall Art Gallery and curated an exhibition at the Barbican. 

Unseen City: Photos by Martin Parr at the Guildhall Art Gallery celebrated Parr's tenure as the City of London’s photographer-in-residence, a position he took up in 2013. He has documented life in the City ever since – from private ceremonies, processions and banquets to high-profile public occasions. Granted unprecedented access to these events, he has been able to capture moments that would usually go 'unseen'; on display in the exhibition were behind-the-scenes shots of unguarded moments featuring Lord Mayors, dignitaries and even the Queen. His photographs provided a unique visual account of contemporary London.

For Strange and Familiar at the Barbican, Parr brought together over 250 compelling photographs and previously unseen bodies of work, in order to present a vibrant portrait of modern Britain. From social documentary and portraiture to street and architectural photography, the exhibition celebrated the work of leading photographers, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Rineke Dijkstra, Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand, and considered how international photographers from the 1930s onwards captured the social, cultural and political identity of the UK.

Martin Parr has been described as 'arguably Britain’s greatest living photographer.' These exhibitions make that argument.

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