Closed

28.10 – 18.12 2020

Paul Graham:A1 – The Great North Road

3–5 Swallow St

Paul Graham:A1 – The Great North Road

28.10 – 18.12.2020

Closed

Hours

Monday to Saturday

10:00 am – 5:30 pm

Gallery

3–5 Swallow St
London
W1B 4DE

Huxley-Parlour gallery are pleased to announce an exhibition of vintage photographs from Paul Graham’s 1983 series A1 – The Great North Road. A transformative series in the history of photography, A1 spanned the full length of England and into Edinburgh. Graham travelled repeatedly along the ‘Great North Road’ with a large format camera, to record the people, buildings, and landscape of early 1980’s Britain.

The exhibition is in collaboration with Anthony Reynolds Gallery and coincides with the launch of the latest MACK edition of the book.

The A1 was the first major road to run the entire length of England. Conceived as the central artery of the 1930s road system, the A1 travels from London, through the industrial Midlands and the north east of England, to Edinburgh. The 400 mile route was once the busiest road in the country, quickly receiving the title the ‘Great North Road’. In the late 1950s, however, the road was usurped by the fast and efficient motorway system.

In 1981 and 1982 Paul Graham travelled repeatedly along the A1 to record the people, buildings and landscape of Britain, with a large format camera. The resulting colour photographs were published by the artist in what is generally acknowledged to be one of the most influential photography books not least because of its exclusive use of colour. The works were exhibited widely at the time including in a British Council exhibition which travelled internationally.

Huxley-Parlour in collaboration with Anthony Reynolds Gallery are proud to present the first comprehensive exhibition of these works featuring the original vintage prints from the artist’s own collection.

THE EXHIBITION

5

The Works

22

1

Paul Graham

Café Waitress, John’s Café, Sandy, Bedfordshire

May 1982

C-print, printed c. 1982

2

Paul Graham

Interior, John’s Café, Bedfordshire

1981

C-print, printed c. 1981

3

Paul Graham

Ashtray on Table, Morley’s Café, Markham Moor, Nottinghamshire

February 1981

C-print, printed c. 1981

4

Paul Graham

Bible, Drivers’ Rest Room, Blyth Services, Blyth

March 1981

C-print, printed c. 1981

5

Paul Graham

Café Assistants, Compass Café, Colsterworth, Lincolnshire

November 1982

C-print, printed c. 1982

6

Paul Graham

Interior, Blyth Services, Blyth, Nottinghamshire

June 1981

C-print, printed c. 1981

7

Paul Graham

Little Chef in Rain, St. Neots, Cambridgeshire

May 1982

C-print, printed c. 1982

8

Paul Graham

Woman at Bus Stop, Mill Hill, North London

November 1982

C-print, printed c. 1982

9

Paul Graham

Mac’s Café, Alconbury, Cambridgeshire

February 1981

C-print, printed c. 1981

10

Paul Graham

Interior, Tyne House Café, Catterick, North Yorkshire

September 1981

C-print, printed c. 1981

11

Paul Graham

Burning fields, Melmerby, North Yorkshire

September 1981

C-print, printed c. 1981

12

Paul Graham

Lorry Driver in Cap, Yorkshire

1981

C-print, printed c. 1981

13

Paul Graham

Company Representative, Leeming Services, North Yorkshire

September 1982

C-print, printed c. 1982

14

Paul Graham

Ferrybridge Powerstation, West Yorkshire

November 1982

C-print, printed c. 1982

15

Paul Graham

Young Executives, Bank of England

November 1981

C-print, printed c. 1981

16

Paul Graham

Looking North, Newcastle by-pass, Tyne and Wear

November 1981

C-print, printed c. 1981

17

Paul Graham

Café Interior, Londonderry

September 1981

C-print, printed c. 1981

18

Paul Graham

Drivers Discussing Redundancies, Morley’s Café, Markham Moor, Nottinghamshire

November 1981

C-print, printed c. 1981

19

Paul Graham

Interior, Rainton Services, North Yorkshire

November 1981

C-print, printed c. 1981

20

Paul Graham

BP Station at Dusk, Bedfordshire

1981

C-print, printed c. 1981

21

Paul Graham

Bus Converted to Café, Lay-by, West Yorkshire

November 1982

C-print, printed c. 1982

22

Paul Graham

Drivers’ Bedroom, Newcastle upon Tyne,

1982

C-print, printed c. 1982

‘Uniting the tradition of social documentary with a fresh approach to colour, this ground-breaking work paved the way for a new generation of British colour photographers to emerge.’

Paul Graham

B. United Kingdom 1956

B. United Kingdom 1956

Biography

In 1981, Graham completed his first body of work, A1 – The Great North Road. The series of colour photographs captured life along England’s ageing arterial road, the A1. The pioneering series went on to receive critical acclaim, and was followed by Beyond Caring (1984-1985), which was a visual record of unemployment in Britain under Thatcher, and Troubled Land (1984-1986), which depicted landscapes in Northern Ireland during the years of the Troubles. Graham’s use of colour film in the early 1980s, at a time when British photography was dominated by traditional black-and-white social documentary, had a revolutionising effect on the genre.

Graham has since gone on to produce over 12 further bodies of work that include New Europe (1986-1992), Television Portraits (1986-1990), Empty Heaven (1989-1995), Ceasefire (April 1994), End of the Age (1996-1998), Paintings (1997-1999), American Night (1998-2002), a shimmer of possibility (2004-2006), Films(2011), The Present (2011), Does Yellow Run Forever? (2011-2014), and Financial Landscape (2017-present). Graham has produced dedicated monographs to nearly every series of work, his most celebrated, perhaps, was his twelve-volume collection, a shimmer of possibility, created in collaboration with steidlMACK. The book won the 2011 Paris Photo Book Prize for the most important photography book published in the past 15 years.

Paul Graham was born in the UK in 1956. Paul Graham’s work has been the subject of more than eighty international solo exhibitions. Works from Graham’s series Paintings were included in the exhibition, Plateau of Humankind, as part of the 49th Venice Biennale in 2001. In 2011, a twenty-five year survey of Graham’s work, Paul Graham: Photographs 1981-2006, was held at the Museum Folkwang, Essen and the Whitechapel Gallery, London. Graham has been awarded a number of prestigious awards, including the Hasselblad International Award for Photography (2012), the Royal Photographic Society Award, the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize (both 2009) and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2010). His works in held in the collection of Arts Council of Great Britain, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Tate Gallery, London and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

He lives and works in New York.

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