Chris Killip / Graham Smith: 20/20

The catalogue for the exhibition 20/20: Chris Killip / Graham Smith at Augusta Edwards Fine Art 12 October-06 November 2022 now republished to accompany the exhibition 20/20: Chris Killip /  Graham Smith at Martin Parr Foundation

The black-and-white photographs in this book document the North East in a period when heavy industry was still thriving, followed by an unforeseen and devastating collapse. Killip and Smith each selected 20 images for the exhibition taken between 1975 and 1987 in locations from Skinningrove, just south of Middlesbrough to Lynemouth, just north of Newcastle. The images depict an environment that for centuries has evolved from the industrial revolution. The photographers documented the individuals and communities whose lives depended on heavy industry, people who were facing a politically forced change to the landscape and their ways of life that had been settled for generations.

Killip and Smith first met in the summer of 1975 when their paths converged through Amber Films, a film and photography collective in Newcastle upon Tyne. A close and lifelong friendship followed and in 1985 they created their seminal exhibition, ‘Another Country’. In 1991, their works were shown alongside three other photographers at MoMA, New York, under the controversial title ‘British Photography from the Thatcher Years’. Following a backlash from some UK newspapers andthe effect it had on individuals and their community portrayed in Smith’s images, he stepped back from the public arena ofphotography. As a consequence, Smith’s work is not as widely known as it merits. Killip, who was teaching at Harvard University in this period, went on to exhibit widely.

Title: 20/20: Chris Killip / Graham Smith
Publisher: Augusta Edwards, 2022
Authors: Graham Smith and David Campany
Photographers: Chris Killip & Graham Smith
Graphic Design: Chantal Fabres
Format: Hardback
Size: 26 x 20 cm, 76 pages