You are warmly invited to the private view of ‘for ever Amber’ at the Laing Art Gallery on Friday 26th June from 6pm til 8pm
In 1978 Henri Cartier-Bresson celebrated his 70th birthday with Amber Film & Photography Collective and a retrospective at Side Gallery, the group’s then new documentary photography venue in Newcastle upon Tyne. As a thank you, he sent a photograph inscribed “for ever Amber. 37 years later his words come to life in the first major retrospective for Amber’s remarkable collection.
This exhibition, developed in partnership with the Laing Art Gallery, was made possible through the support of Arts Council England and Heritage Lottery funding.
We hope you can join us in celebrating the launch of this long awaited exhibition.
Oh my friends, the down-trodden operatives of Coketown! Oh my friends and fellow-countrymen, the slaves of an ironhanded and a grinding despotism! Oh my friends and fellow-sufferers, and fellow-workmen, and fellow-men! I tell you that the hour is come, when we must rally round one another as One united power, and crumble into dust the oppressors that too long have battened upon the plunder of our families, upon the sweat of our brows, upon the labour of our hands, upon the strength of our sinews, upon the God-created glorious rights of Humanity, and upon the holy and eternal privileges of Brotherhood!
Hard Times, Charles Dickens (1854)
The work of the American photographer Lewis W. Hine (1874-1940) has always looked so Dickensian to me. Half a century later, things across the Atlantic weren’t very different to Dickens’ novels. Yet, it’s even more scary (and shameful) the fact that today child labour is still a reality in some countries (not to mention the social conditions).
Btw, there’s an exhibition in Madrid that I’m very excited about devoted to Lewis Hine. Go if you have a chance!
Lewis Hine, 11:00 A.M. Monday, May 9th, 1910. Newsies at Skeeter’s Branch, Jefferson near Franklin. They were all smoking. Location: St. Louis, Missouri.
“In 1908 Lewis Hine accepted a position as chief investigator and photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), a private organization founded in 1904 to promote legislation to protect children from exploitation by American industry. Children as young as four years old labored in a variety of trades for up to twelve hours a day. During the sixteen years that Hine worked for the NCLC (often posing as an insurance inspector to gain access to the worksite), he made some five thousand photographs of children at work in mines, farms, canneries, sweatshops, and the street. Less troubling than many of Hine’s pictures of child labor, this casual portrait of a trio of newspaper sellers, or newsies, shows the young boys awkwardly assuming the roles and mannerisms of manhood.” (x)
“Era o melhor aluno, mas o pai trabalhava numa fábrica de ferragens e não tinha meios para o mandar para o Liceu, nem sequer para a Escola Comercial e Industrial. O professor Lencastre ainda foi falar com ele. Mas nada a fazer, o Júlio estava condenado à oficina.”
Manuel Alegre, “Alma”; fotografia de Lewis Hine, início do século XX.