The Photographers' Gallery was founded in London by Sue Davies opening on 14 January 1971, as the first public gallery in the United Kingdom devoted solely to photography.[1]
It is also home to the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize,[2] established in 1996 to identify and reward photographic talent and innovation, and the Bar-Tur Photobook Award.
History
Founder and director Sue Davies established the original home of the Photographers' Gallery in a converted Lyon's Tea Bar at No. 8 Great Newport Street in London's Covent Garden. Initially free to the public, the gallery offered a dedicated space for photography and photographers—the first of its kind in the UK.
The inaugural exhibition on 14 January 1971 was The Concerned Photographer, an exhibition first shown in New York and curated by photojournalist Cornell Capa.[3]
In 1980 the Gallery acquired a neighbouring space at No. 5 Great Newport Street, extending its exhibition spaces and providing room for a bookshop and café. It was also able to accommodate an area for print sales, which focused on promoting and selling the work of photographers with proceeds going towards supporting the public programme.
Davies was director of the gallery for two decades and retired in 1991. She was followed by Sue Grayson Ford,[4] for two years who left for family reasons in March 1994.[5] In 2005, Brett Rogers was appointed director,[6] succeeding Paul Wombell who had been in the position since 1994[7] and oversaw the purchase, with a £3.5m Arts Council grant, of a new venue at 16–18 Ramillies Street, Soho.[8]
In May 2012 after a major capital campaign and redevelopment, The Photographers' Gallery opened at its new and current home in a former textiles warehouse.[9][10] Designed by Irish architects O'Donnell and Tuomey, this building in the West End has three exhibition spaces, a print sales gallery, an education and learning studio, digital media screen, bookshop and café.
In July 2022, Rogers announced that she would leave her role as director at the end of 2022,[11] succeeded, from January 2023, by Shoair Mavlian.[12][13] Mavlian was assistant curator at Tate Modern and later director of Photoworks in Brighton from 2018.[14][15]
The Bar-Tur Photobook Award was created in 2014 in memory of British artist, Lesley-Ann Bar Tur. It supports (previously unpublished) photographers and artists in realising a photobook project through provision of a £20,000 production fee and partnership with an independent publisher. The inaugural award went to Angus Fraser who published Santa Muerte[18] with Trolley Books in 2014. In 2015, Jack Latham won with Sugar Paper Theories,[19] which was published by Here Press.
Publications
The Photographers' Gallery publishes books for some of its exhibitions.[20]
Loose Associations is a quarterly publication from The Photographers' Gallery which commissions and publishes essays, images and artist projects related to but not defined by its programme.
^Bair, Nadya (Summer 2022). "The International Origins of "Concerned Photography"". American Art. 36 (2). University of Chicago Press. doi:10.1086/720917.
^Lowe, Shirley (3 May 1992). "How we met". The Independent. p. 91.
^Ellison, Mike (25 June 1994). "Arts: The battle of the snappers - The Photographers' Gallery was set up in the seventies to promote photography as an art form. But is that still necessary?". Guardian. London, England. p. 26.
^"The Photographer's Gallery in London, UK has announced the appointment of Brett Rogers as its new Director". Afterimage. 33 (2): 9. October 2005.
^Norman, Geraldine (11 February 1996). "ART MARKET : A positive development : With two contenders for a new gallery in London lining up, photography may finally be accepted in Britain as a collectable art". The Independent. p. 132.
^Jury, Louise (14 February 2002). "How photography came out of the dark room". The Independent. pp. 12–13.