Chris Clunn - A Lost London 

Mary Anne newslady

Disappearing aspects of London life photographed over 25 years

1983 was the year Margaret Thatcher began her second term, Docklands was still on the drawing board, the abolition of the GLC was announced and the IRA bombed Harrods. It was also the year Chris Clunn turned his lens on the people of London.

Sometimes it's worth taking a moment to reflect on what a different place the capital was back then. Chris's lens captures the moments of that London: A Lost London.

By the time Chris Clunn started documenting his city a quarter of a century ago he had already made a name for himself as an archival photographic printer working with greats like McCullin, Bailey and Donovan.

He'd also begun to develop his own career as a photographer, exploring London's music scene for the NME. But it was the city, London, and its people that had the strongest draw and from the late '80s that's what his photography has concentrated on.

Eugene Atget documented a changing Paris, Berenice Abbott did the same for New York. For Chris it was the lingering remnants of the old London that drew Chris most. The embers of the city that inspired Dickens and was the heart of Empire. In Chris’s photos it’s still a place of pea-soupers, Dixon of Dock Green and Woodbines. It’s clear the city has changed more than some of the people living in it. From the bummarees of Smithfield, to Pearly Kings and Queens, from the characters at Speakers Corner to the characters on every corner.

Alix Sharkey describes the way Chris approaches his work, and its importance:

"Clunn is old school. That means never faking it and always telling it like it is. He stares down the barrel and tells his subjects to be themselves.
Does he patronise his subjects? Never. Does he ask them to fake a look? Never.
Chris Clunn will come to be seen as one of the greatest portrait/reportage photographers Britain has ever produced. His archive alone - even if the work were not so technically proficient, so arresting, even if there were not some several hundred images of Great Britons that will blaze down the centuries - that archive alone, will glorify some great British institution when we're all cold in our graves.”

Chris's work has adorned many covers and has been published in newspapers and magazines worldwide. His images are held in the National Portrait Gallery, The Guildhall, The Museum of London, The National Monument archives and various private collections.
http://www.rathbonegallery.com