Under a turbulent sky is an exhibition of prints by Fay Godwin, one of the most respected and significant British photographers of the 20th century. Zelda Cheatle, gallery owner and friend of Fay Godwin, describes her as having been ‘an independent, intelligent and courageous photographer’ and Roger Taylor, in his essay for the retrospective publication Landmarks (2002), referred to her ‘mastery of the elusive grammar of greys.’
Fay Godwin (1931-2005) is an internationally acclaimed photographer who began her professional career as a portrait photographer in the 1970s. During this period she collaborated on books with a number of writers; perhaps the best known is Remains of Elmer (1979), a book of poems and photographs produced with Ted Hughes. It was these poetic interpretations of the British landscape that established her reputation as one of Britain’s most accomplished photographers.
Her approach was distinct from that of other landscape photographers at the time; essentially descriptive, recording the specific and objective: the man-made landmark, the characteristic lines of a particular stretch of worked land.
While Fay walked the land, her interrogation of those people who made their living from the land and her challenges to those who despoiled it or owned and controlled unfair proportion of it, informed and amplified her practice as a photographer. Her environmental campaigning through both her landscape photography and her writing, singles her out and gives the work in this exhibition added meaning today
This exhibition represents a selection from what photo-historian Ian Jeffrey has described as a unique photographic ‘survey’ of the landscape of Britain, carried out by Fay Godwin for exhibitions and books between 1972 – 1994 and particularly celebrates her pioneering attention to environmental issues.
Today, as landscape continues to be a subject photographers turn to when contemplating the ways we relate to where we live and the impact humans have on the land, Fay Godwin’s work continues to influence.
In 2016, Peter Cattrell, landscape photographer, teacher and fine printer, who printed for Fay Godwin’s books and exhibitions throughout the 1980s, made eighteen new Fay Godwin prints from the original negatives held in The British Library archive. These were first shown in 2017 at MoMA Machynlleth, in mid-Wales, curated by Diane Bailey and Geoff Young.
The prints have been personally selected by people who knew or worked with and were influenced by Fay Godwin; by curators, collectors and historians of photography as well as by close friends and members of her family who were invited by Diane Bailey and Geoff Young to make their selection.
The exhibition includes the eighteen analogue prints from the initial exhibition, along with another nine new digital prints; again from the original negatives held in The British Library archive and accompanied by an additional nine contributors’ captions.
Fay Godwin : Under a turbulent sky
9 September – 28 October 2023
Kestle Barton
Manaccan
Helston
Cornwall TR12 6HU
01326 231 811
www.kestlebarton.co.uk
