Shirley Baker
Shirley Baker (9 July 1932–21 September 2014) was a British street photographer best known for documenting working class areas of North West England.[1][2][3]
Baker's photographs were published in two books and exhibited at The Photographers' Gallery, The Lowry and Salford Museum and Art Gallery.
Life and work
Born in Salford, Lancashire, Baker was one of identical twins. Her and her sister boarded at Penrhos Girls' School in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, from where they were evacuated during the second world war to Chatsworth House, in Derbyshire.[4] Baker went on to study photography at Manchester College of Technology, and subsequently at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London and the London College of Printing.[1] Later in life she gained an MA in critical history and the theory of photography at the University of Derby in 1995.[4]
Baker started working for fabric manufacturers Courtaulds before becoming a freelance photographer.[4] In 1960 she started a teaching post at Salford College of Art, and whilst there, for the next fifteen years, made unposed snapshots of people living in Salford and Manchester during a time of massive slum clearance.[4][3][5]
Baker had two books of her photographs published. Street Photographs: Manchester and Salford (1989) contains her photographs of people in Salford and Manchester in the 1960s and early 1970s, juxtaposed with photographs of graffiti. In the late 1990s she was commissioned by The Lowry to revisit the same places. The Lowry held an exhibition of her work and published a book, Streets and Spaces: Urban Photography - Salford and Manchester - 1960s-2000 (2000), with her older photographs juxtaposed against her new photographs, showing people in different periods, in a radically altered urban landscape, yet involved in similar activities.[4]
Baker's archive has been held by the Mary Evans Picture Library since 2008.[3][4]
Publications
- Street Photographs: Manchester and Salford. Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe, 1989. ISBN 978-1852240585. With an introduction by Stephen Constantine.
- Streets and Spaces: Urban Photography - Salford and Manchester - 1960s-2000. Salford: Lowry, 2000. ISBN 978-1902970127. Published to accompany an exhibition.
Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
- 2000/2001: Salford Revisited, The Lowry, Salford, Greater Manchester, 26 August 2000 – 1 January 2001.[6]
- 2006/2007: The Photographers' Gallery, London, 18 February 2006 – 31 December 2007.[7]
- 2011/2012: Salford Museum and Art Gallery, Salford, Greater Manchester, 19 November 2011 – 4 March 2012. A retrospective.[5]
Exhibitions with others
- 2012: A Lowry Summer, The Lowry, Salford, Greater Manchester, 7 July – 28 October 2012. Exhibition of work by L. S. Lowry accompanied by work from other artists who depicted leisure time, Baker and Humphrey Spender.[8]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Shirley Baker - obituary". The Telegraph. 11 October 2014. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
- ↑ Farquhar, Simon (24 October 2014). "Shirley Baker: Street photographer whose work chronicled the hardships of Northern working-class life in the postwar decades". The Independent (London). Retrieved 28 April 2015.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Coomes, Phil (1 October 2014). "Remembering the work of Shirley Baker". BBC News. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Phillips, Sarah (8 October 2014). "Shirley Baker obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 October 2014.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Phillips, Sarah (1 February 2012). "Photographer Shirley Baker's best shot". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 30 April 2015.
- ↑ "Galleries and Exhibitions". The Bolton News (Bolton). 4th December 2000. Retrieved 2 May 2015. Check date values in:
|date=(help) - ↑ "Shirley Baker". The Photographers' Gallery. Retrieved 30 April 2015.
- ↑ "The Lowry celebrates 125th anniversary of LS Lowry’s birth". The Lowry. 3 July 2012. Retrieved 2 May 2015.