From the 1960s, Don McCullin (b.1935) forged a career as one of the world's leading photographers of conflict. He has spent his life covering war, famine and displacement around the world. His unforgettable and sometimes harrowing images are accompanied by his brutally honest commentaries of the atrocities he witnessed.
When at home, McCullin often turned his attention to the lives of people in Britain that had been left impoverished by policies of deindustrialisation. The exhibition will feature images depicting life and industrial scenes in Liverpool and other northern towns and cities during the 1960s and 70s. McCullin saw similarities between the lives of the people he photographed and his own childhood.
As a respite from conflict and suffering, McCullin has an interest in landscape photography. Visitors will be able to see images of his home county, Somerset.
Every photograph in this exhibition has been printed by McCullin himself. He is an expert printer, working in his darkroom at home, returning time and time again to produce the best possible results. In doing so, he revisits painful memories of his assignments; of people and places that are impossible to forget.
A version of this exhibition has previously been shown at Tate Britain.
Don McCullin Liverpool 8 in the early 1960's. 1963 © Don McCullin
Don McCullin, Local Boys in Bradford 1972. Photo courtesy of Don McCullin
Don McCullin, Protester, Cuban Missile Crisis, Whitehall, London 1962. Photo courtesy of Don McCullin
Don McCullin, Fishermen playing during their lunch break, Scarborough, Yorkshire 1967 © Don McCullin
Don McCullin, Early shift, West Hartlepool steelworks, County Durham 1963 © Don McCullin
Sir Don McCullin CBE
Shell-shocked US Marine, The Battle of Hue
(1968, printed 2013)
ARTIST ROOMS Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
Don McCullin, Consett, County Durham 1976 © Don McCullin
