Graham Smith (born 1947) is a photographer from Middlesbrough, England, who was particularly active in photographing Middlesbrough and the north-east of England in the 1970s and 1980s. Smith curtailed his career as a photographer in 1990, since when he has been a professional woodworker.

Life and work

Smith studied at the

Middlesbrough College of Art The Northern School of Art is a further and higher education art and design college, based in Middlesbrough and Hartlepool in the north-east of England. The college was called Cleveland College of Art and Design after the former non-metropol ...

and later the Royal College of Art (London). In the 1970s he was among the photographers central to the

Side Gallery Side Gallery is a photography gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne, run by Amber Film & Photography Collective. It opened in 1977 as Side Gallery and Cinema with a remit to show humanist photography "both by and commissioned by the group along with ...

, and created a series of photographs that showed working-class people in the north of England that were in a documentary style but were in fact montages.Mellor, David Alan. ''No Such Thing as Society: Photography in Britain 1967–87: From the British Council and the Arts Council Collections.'' London: Hayward Publishing, 2007. . Work from the 1980s would show people within townscapes, and in the words of

David Alan Mellor David Alan Mellor is a British curator, professor and writer. He has been awarded the Royal Photographic Society's J. Dudley Johnston Award and Education Award. Life and career David Mellor — as he was called before he wanted to avoid con ...

, were "atmospheric, steeped in popular (and personal) memory — dark, romantic places with all the melancholy attributed to Eugène Atget's familiar locations". ''Another Country,'' a joint exhibition with Chris Killip held in London in 1985, was generally well reviewed but to some appeared ''passé'' in the light of the new "postmodern" work of

Martin Parr Martin Parr (born 23 May 1952) is a British documentary photographer, photojournalist and photobook collector. He is known for his photographic projects that take an intimate, satirical and anthropological look at aspects of modern life, in p ...

and others.Badger, Gerry. ''Chris Killip.'' London: Phaidon, 2001. . Page 11. Smith curtailed his career as a photographer in 1990, since when he has been a professional woodworker. His writing has appeared in '' Granta.'' Smith's photographs are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art (New York), and the Victoria and Albert Museum (London).

Exhibitions

* ''Documents of the North East.'' With Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, James Cleet, and Robert Carling.

(Newcastle), 1977.Side Gallery Exhibitions 1977–1994
, Amber Online. Archived by the Wayback Machine on 3 March 2016. *''Three Perspectives on Photography: Recent British Photography.'' Hayward Gallery, London, June–July 1979. With Thomas Cooper,

Brian Griffin H. Brian Griffinas shown in Brian Griffin's House of Payne is a fictional character from the American animated television series ''Family Guy''. An anthropomorphic white labrador retriever voiced by Seth MacFarlane, he is one of the show's mai ...

, Raymond Moore, Roger Palmer,

, Aileen Ferriday, Christine Hobbeheydar, Yve Lomax, Sarah McCarthy, Jo Spence, Valerie Wilmer,

Victor Burgin Victor Burgin (born 1941) is a British artist and writer. Burgin first came to attention as a conceptual artist in the late 1960s (Harrison & Wood, 1992; Walker, 2001) and at that time was most noted for being a political photographer of the le ...

, Robert Golden,

Hackney Flashers The Hackney Flashers were a collective of broadly socialist-feminist women who produced notable agitprop exhibitions in the 1970s and early 1980s. Working in the United Kingdom during second wave feminism (1960s–1980s), the Hackney Flashers ...

Alexis Hunter Alexis Jan Atthill Hunter (4 November 1948 – 24 February 2014) was a New Zealand painter and photographer, who used feminist theory in her work.Gifford, Adam"Feminist art buys a fight" ''The New Zealand Herald'', 4 April 2007. Retrieved 26 Febr ...

. * ''North Tyneside.'' With Isabella Jedrzejczyk, Markéta Luskačová, and Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen. Side Gallery (Newcastle), 1981. *''Consett Steel.'' Side Gallery (Newcastle), 1982. *''South Bank.'' Side Gallery (Newcastle), 1984. *''Another Country.'' With Chris Killip.

Serpentine Gallery The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Central London. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Gallery, ...

(London), 1985. *''Quayside.'' With Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen. Touring exhibition from the Side Gallery (Newcastle), 1994. *''No Such Thing as Society: Photography in Britain 1968–1987.'' Aberystwyth Arts Centre; Tullie House, Carlisle; Ujazdów Castle, Warsaw; Smith is one of a number of photographers shown. *''Three from Britain.'' With Chris Killip and Martin Parr. Rose Gallery, Santa Monica, March–May 2008.Rose Galler
press release
for ''Three from Britain'' exhibition, Artnet.com. Accessed 11 April 2008.

Writing

*"Albert Smith." ''Granta'' 95: ''Loved Ones.'' Granta, 2006. .

Notes

References

*Schad, Ed.
A Look at Three from Britain
. ''Artslant.com,'' 2008. Review of the exhibition. Accessed 11 April 2008. *. ''Photoinduced.com,'' 2008. As accessed by the Wayback Machine on 3 June 2008. A description of the exhibition ''Three Photographers from Britain''; includes an article based on an interview with Smith. {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Graham 1947 births Living people People from Middlesbrough Photographers from Yorkshire Alumni of the Royal College of Art