Eamonn McCabe (28 July 1948 – 2 October 2022) was a British photographer. He began as a sports photographer and later worked in editorial

portrait photography Portrait photography, or portraiture, is a type of photography aimed toward capturing the personality of a person or group of people by using effective Photographic lighting, lighting, Painted photography backdrops, backdrops, and poses. A portr ...

. Many of his portraits are held in the collection of the

National Portrait Gallery, London The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London that houses a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. When it opened in 1856, it was arguably the first national public gallery in the world th ...

Early life

McCabe was born in

Highgate Highgate is a suburban area of N postcode area, north London in the London Borough of Camden, London Boroughs of Camden, London Borough of Islington, Islington and London Borough of Haringey, Haringey. The area is at the north-eastern corner ...

North London North London is the northern part of London, England, north of the River Thames and the City of London. It extends from Clerkenwell and Finsbury, on the edge of the City of London financial district, to Greater London's boundary with Hertfordshi ...

on 28 July 1948, to Celia (née Henchy), a hotel receptionist, and James McCabe, a taxi driver. He briefly attended film school in San Francisco, but was otherwise self-taught in photography.

Career

McCabe started working for ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...

'' in 1976, following a brief spell in the music industry. He began his career as a sports photographer, winning Sports Photographer of the Year four times between 1978 and 1984. He then turned his attention to general editorial portraiture for ''The Observer'' and ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''. He made photographic contributions to the weekly Guardian Profile. McCabe's work encompasses a variety of subjects and topics, but he has largely concentrated on portraits of those in the arts. These include actors, writers, poets, artists, and musicians. It was as a sports photographer that he was attending the 1985 European Cup Final between

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

and

Juventus Juventus Football Club (; from , ), commonly known as Juventus or colloquially as Juve (), is an Italian professional Association football, football List of football clubs in Italy, club based in Turin, Piedmont, who compete in Serie A, the ...

, but he ended up being a news photographer as he found himself taking the famous but tragic images of the

Heysel Stadium disaster The Heysel Stadium disaster ( ; ; ) was a crowd disaster on 29 May 1985, when Juventus fans were escaping from an attack by Liverpool fans while they were pressed against a wall in the Heysel Stadium in Brussels, Belgium, before the start of ...

. He was honoured as news photographer of the year for the photos he took of the disaster. McCabe also photographed matches between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe,

Brendan Foster Sir Brendan Foster (born 12 January 1948) is a British former long-distance runner, athletics commentator and road race organiser. He founded the Great North Run, one of the sport's most high profile half-marathon races. As an athlete, he wo ...

winning the 10,000-metre race at the 1978

AAA Championships The AAA Championships was an annual track and field competition organised by the Amateur Athletic Association of England. It was the foremost domestic athletics event in the United Kingdom during its lifetime, despite the existence of the offi ...

in the rain, Li Zhenshi and his extremely high serve, and The Boat Race 1978 that saw the sinking of Cambridge's boat. From the late 1980s McCabe moved more into landscape and portrait photography. McCabe served briefly as picture editor of ''SportsWeek'', before being recruited as picture editor of ''The Guardian'' by Peter Preston. He went on to be recognized as picture editor of the year a record six times. From 2000 McCabe focussed more on artistic portraiture. In 2001 he returned to freelancing, supplying the ''Guardian'' and other newspapers and magazines. One series of photographs for the ''Guardian Review'' was a study of writers desks, his work included the desks of

Beryl Bainbridge Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge (21 November 1932 – 2 July 2010) was an English writer. She was primarily known for her works of psychological fiction, often macabre tales set among the English working class. She won the Whitbread Awards priz ...

Seamus Heaney Seamus Justin Heaney (13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013) was an Irish Irish poetry, poet, playwright and translator. He received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature. Among his best-known works is ''Death of a Naturalist'' (1966), his first m ...

and

Hilary Mantel Dame Hilary Mary Mantel ( ; born Thompson; 6 July 1952 – 22 September 2022) was a British writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories. Her first published novel, ''Every Day Is Mother's Day'', was releas ...

. McCabe later worked as the picture editor for ''Decade'', Phaidon's photographic review of the first ten years of the new Millennium. McCabe was visiting senior fellow in photography at the

University of Suffolk The University of Suffolk is a public university situated in Suffolk and Norfolk, England. The university was established in 2007 as University Campus Suffolk (UCS), founded as a collaboration between the University of East Anglia and the Unive ...

, held an honorary doctorate of the

University of East Anglia The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a Public university, public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a campus university, campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and twenty-six schools of ...

and Staffordshire University, and was an honorary professor at

Thames Valley University The University of West London (UWL) is a Public university, public research university in the United Kingdom with campuses in Ealing, Brentford, and Reading, Berkshire. The university has roots in 1860 when the Lady Byron School was founded, ...

Personal life

McCabe was married to journalist Rebecca Smithers until his death. Together, they had one child. He also had another child from a previous marriage. McCabe died at his home in

Saxmundham Saxmundham ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the East Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England. It is set in the valley of the River Fromus about north-east of Ipswich and west of the coast at Sizewell. The town is bypassed ...

, Suffolk, on 2 October 2022. He was 74 years old.

Publications

*''Eamonn McCabe: Sports Photographer''. London: Aurum, 1982. Compiled by Geoffrey Nicholson. . With a foreword by Hugh McIlvanney. *''The Pope in Britain: the Official Record''. London: Bodley Head, 1982. . With forewords by

Basil Hume George Basil Hume (born George Haliburton Hume; 2 March 1923 – 17 June 1999) was an English Catholic prelate who served as Archbishop of Westminster from 1976 until his death in 1999. A member of the Benedictines, he was made a cardinal i ...

and Gordon Gray. *''Eamonn McCabe: Photographer''. London: Kingswood, 1987. . With text by Simon Barnes and a foreword by Edward Lucie-Smith. *''The Making of Great Photographs: approaches and techniques of the masters''. Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 2005; 2008. *''Artists and their Studios''. Battle: Angela Patchell, 2008. Photographs by McCabe and text by Michael McNay. . *''Decade''. Phaidon, 2010. Edited by McCabe. . With text by Terence McNamee. *''From Above: The Story of Aerial Photography''. Laurence King, 2019. By McCabe and Gemma Padley. .

Collections

McCabe's work is held in the following permanent collection: *

: 29 prints (as of 28 January 2022)

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:McCabe, Eamonn 1948 births 2022 deaths Academics of the University of Suffolk British portrait photographers English people of Irish descent Sports photographers People from Highgate Photographers from the London Borough of Camden