Fay Godwin
b. 1931, United Kingdom
Internationally acclaimed photographer Fay Godwin (1931-2005) 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.