Martin Parr
The Non-Conformists
Will be published approx. on 7. October 2013
Book
Hardback
168 pages
978-1-59711-245-1 (ISBN)
Description
In 1975, fresh out of art school, Martin Parr found poor footing in the London photography scene, so he moved to the picturesque Yorkshire Pennine mill town of Hebden Bridge. Over a period of five years, he documented the town in photographs, showing in particular the aspects of traditional life that were beginning to decline. Susie Parr, whom he had met in Manchester, joined him in documenting a year in the life of a small Methodist chapel, together with its farming community. Such chapels seemed to encapsulate the region's disappearing way of life. Here Martin Parr found his photographic voice, while together he and Susie assembled a remarkable and touching historic document-now published in book form for the first time. The Non-Conformists takes its title from the Methodist and Baptist chapels that then char - acterized this area of Yorkshire and defined the fiercely independent character of the town. In words and pictures, the Parrs vividly and affectionately document cobbled streets, flat-capped mill workers, hardy gamekeepers, henpecked husbands, and jovial shop owners. The best Parr photographs are interleaved with Susie Parr's detailed background descriptions of the society they observed.
Reviews / Votes
Beginning in 1975, when he was just out of art school, Martin Parr started a five-year documentary study of a fast-disaperring culture in the Yorkshire mill town of Hebden Bridge, England, and the surrounding areas. He was soon joined by Susie Mitchell, an aspiring writer he'd met as a student in Manchester, and who eventually became his wife. As she explains in the introduction to the book "We started tentatively to document things that seemed to be deeply traditional, or in decline, or both." Nearly 40 years later, Martin Parr has finally compiled the images in a book. His photographs of farmers, mill workers, coal miners, game keepers, shop owners, henpecked husbands and other subjects are interspersed with stories Susie Parr wrote at the time about some of those same people.--David Walker"PDN" (12/01/2013) This is a lovely and melancholy book.--Luc Sante"The New York Times Book Review" (12/08/2013) Who knew Parr started his career taking thoughtful black-and-white pictures of small town life in England? "The Non-Conformists" was Parr's first body of work after graduating from art school in 1975. But among the images of sheep grazing, grouse hunting and churchgoing, are glimpses of the humor we now so strongly associate with Parr.--Stacey Baker"The New York Times Magazine" (12/19/2013)More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Illustrations
Illustrated in duotone throughout
Dimensions
Height: 249 mm
Width: 210 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
912 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-59711-245-1 (9781597112451)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Martin Parr is a key figure in the world of photography, recognized as a brilliant satirist of contemporary life. He has published over seventy photobooks of his photographs, including The Non-Conformists (Aperture, 2013), Black Country Stories (2014), and We Love Britain (2014). His work is also in the collections of museums worldwide, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum; and Tate Modern, London. Parr is a member of Magnum Photos. Susie Parr is a writer and researcher, and author of the critically acclaimed The Story of Swimming (2011); she and Martin Parr married in 1980.