The non-conformists
photographs by martin parr
14 March 2015 – 7 June 2015
This exhibition featured the first major body of work by celebrated documentary photographer and satirist Martin Parr.
Anniversary tea, Steep Lane Baptist Chapel, Calderdale, 1975-80 Martin Parr © Magnum Photos
About the
exhibition
Black and white photographs from the mid-1970s document the Yorkshire mill town of Hebden Bridge and the surrounding Calder Valley. This remarkable series predates the colour photographs for which Parr was to become so well known in the following decade.
Over a period of five years, Parr documented a community whose traditional way of life, organised around the church and hill-farming, were in decline. This affectionate portrait of the town’s coal miners, chapel-goers, gamekeepers, henpecked husbands and pigeon fanciers offers a unique perspective on a disappearing community.
