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.
Parr was born in Surrey in 1952, growing up in Epsom. Inspired by his grandfather, a keen amateur photographer, he decided on his career path by his teenage years. 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.
Parr’s work could provoke multiple reactions – humour, empathy, disgust – often within the same image. The director of Autograph, Mark Sealy, said: “Some people read the work as cruel, but you see the warts when you’re close to things. It wasn’t about ridicule, there was an intimate distance. He treated people through his lens with a sense of equality, if you were about to shove a pie in your face, he was going to capture it regardless of who you were.”
