Martin Parr, the British documentary photographer who captured the peculiarities of the nation with clarity and hilarity, has died aged 73. He had been diagnosed with cancer in May 2021.
A statement from the Martin Parr Foundation on Sunday said: “It is with great sadness that we announce that Martin Parr died yesterday at home in Bristol.
“He is survived by his wife Susie, his daughter Ellen, his sister Vivien and his grandson George. The family asks for privacy at this time.
“The Martin Parr Foundation and Magnum Photos will work together to preserve and share Martin’s legacy. More information on this will follow in due course. Martin will be greatly missed.”
Known for his acute observations of the English class system, Parr’s images covered sunbathers and Conservative clubs, village fetes and coffee mornings, often in vivid colour and with more than a dash of humour. His iconic 1986 photobook The Last Resort: Photographs of New Brighton captured working-class holidaymakers in Wirral, Merseyside, and helped mark a sea change in British documentary photography, from the gritty, black and white style of the past towards a cheekier and more colourful style.
“I make serious photographs disguised as entertainment,” Parr once said by way of a mantra.
He was born in Surrey in 1952, growing up in Epsom. Inspired by his grandfather, a keen amateur photographer, Parr had decided on his career path by the time he was a teenager. After training at Manchester Polytechnic he spent a couple of seasons shooting at Butlin’s, initially with his peer Daniel Meadows. It was there that he observed the highly saturated, nostalgic postcards taken by John Hinde that would shape his later work.
After moving to Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, Parr spent time photographing chapel communities there before meeting his wife, Susan Mitchell, and moving to the west coast of Ireland where he published several works including 1982’s Bad Weather, taken using an underwater camera.
It was when the couple moved to Wallasey in Merseyside, however, that Parr produced what he later claimed was his greatest work. Inspired by colour photographers from across the Atlantic such as Joel Meyerowitz and Stephen Shore, The Last Resort was the product of three summers spent on the beaches of New Brighton, photographing fish and chip wrappers, crying children and fairground rides.
It made his name but The Last Resort was not entirely well received. Parr faced significant criticism for the way he depicted working-class families from his privileged vantage point, with some decrying an unflattering focus on his subject’s sunburnt flesh and cheap vices. But for his admirers, this was all part of Parr’s unflinching gaze: he wanted to capture normal life as it was for most Britons, not shy away from it.
Besides, Parr could be even more biting when it came to documenting the middle class of which he was himself a member. As Thatcher reshaped the country during the 80s, Parr moved to Bristol with Susan and their new daughter, Ellen. There he turned his attention to the other end of society, a world of garden parties, shopping trips and public school open days that made up his 1989 photobook The Cost of Living.
Thanks to his sharp, anthropological eye, Parr’s work could provoke multiple reactions – humour, empathy, disgust – often within the same image. It mirrored his own love/hate relationship with his homeland; Parr was a self-confessed “remoaner” who nevertheless loved the nostalgic past of village greens and local fairs. His work was not overtly campaigning, although he once told the Observer that “all photojournalists are left wing, you can’t do this job unless you care about people”.
Throughout the 1990s Parr’s work became more international with his critiques of the tourist industry (Small World) and global consumerism (Common Sense). There was also more controversy when he joined the prestigious photography agency Magnum in 1994.
The agency’s founder and guiding light, Henri Cartier-Bresson, had dismissed Parr’s work as being “from another planet” compared with the artists on the roster at the time. The Welsh Vietnam war photographer Philip Jones Griffiths campaigned against his admission, saying: “Anyone who was described as Margaret Thatcher’s favourite photographer certainly didn’t belong in Magnum.” In the end, Parr was admitted by one vote, a sign that the agency was slowly modernising: Parr would go on to serve as Magnum’s president between 2014 and 2017.
In 2014 he launched the Martin Parr Foundation, which housed his own photo archive as well as his vast collection of British and Irish photography from other artists. Parr was not just a photographer but a collector too, of photobooks as well as postcards and strange items of memorabilia. His 2019 book Space Dogs: The Story of the Celebrated Canine Cosmonauts involved his array of paraphernalia devoted to the likes of Laika, Belka and Strelka. His collection of Saddam Hussein watches also became a book in 2004.
But photography itself was always Parr’s greatest obsession. “You have to be fearless if you’re to be a photographer,” he once said. “There’s no time for being intimidated.”
