Martin Parr: The People’s Artist

Lexie Patterson

These photos aren’t about the wealthy, the glamorous, or the posh city folk. Mr Whippys melting on the beach, dodgy sunburns, early mornings on the school run, and cod and chips served in a polystyrene box. Martin Parr’s photographs wryly captured British beauty where most would look away, in saturated colour. Through Parr’s eyes, even grandma’s florals take on a kind of kitsch glory.

The Last Resort 23, 1983–86, New Brighton, England. © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos.

Born in suburban Surrey, in 1952, after attending Manchester Polytechnic, Parr was hired to take photographs for Butlins, the place where British holiday culture flourished. Since 1994, he has become a member of Magnum Photos and featured in around 90 exhibitions worldwide, also setting up his Martin Parr Foundation, founded in 2015. 

Among Parr’s oeuvre, his collection from New Brighton, England, The Last Resort, 1983-85 stands out most vividly. An older man in a white shirt, black shoes, beige blazer. A couple, somehow familiar, as if we’ve seen them before, his wife seated next to him in a floral frock. The couple eat their fish and chips while an overflowing bin in the foreground hints at the messy aftermath of a British summer’s day. He presents life warts and all, simply documenting it as it is.  Parr doesn’t step into the frame to move the rubbish aside. It troubles us, not them. They maintain a quiet, stoic dignity, sitting in their own small oasis, content in each other’s company despite the setting. The ordinary sunny day feels unexpectedly beautiful, windswept and sticky. I’ve been here before. Blackpool, Margate, Dymchurch, but Parr makes us see it anew. This is Britain away from the metropolis. 

Parr’s lens turned to a culture found in the North of England, capturing working-class life in popular holiday destinations and drenching each scene in a sun-kissed glow of nostalgia. As Grayson Perry noted  in an interview with The Guardian, Parr was ‘an equal opportunities piss-taker’ and is considered by Perry to be ‘our national photographer’.

From The Last Resort, 1983–85, New Brighton, England. © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos.

The work goes beyond portraiture, capturing the very spirit of British, and global, culture through food. Parr’s Real Food series, published in 2016, featured 250 vibrant colour images of dishes from around the world, turning the everyday meals into something wondrously colourful and naïve. Slices of bread cut into triangles slathered in butter, a giant pink donut smothered in sprinkles, and the full fry-up from the caff down the road. Mouths water behind the lens, the seductive nature of the simplest foods through the brightest pallet. 

Untitled (Merthyr Tydfil), 1995, Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. © Martin Parr / Magnum Photos.

It’s quirky, witty, affectionate, and hinting at Parr’s love-hate relationship with his own subjects, whom he described, in an interview with CNN, as ‘a very quirky bunch of people’, ‘eternally fascinating’. Yes, we eat fish and chips. Yes, we love the sea. Yes, we tuck into a Warburtons slice. 

Parr went on to further explain that his work was never meant to be overtly political, he sought simply to document what he sees. ‘Everyone comes with their own baggage to the pictures’, he says, and ‘what matters is your relationship to the subject’. 

Parr invited viewers to see something more political beneath all the wit and playful energy of his work. In an interview with The Talks, he revealed his personal stance, describing himself as a classic Remainer and expressing anger over Brexit, which he associated with ‘bigotry and racism.’  What he channelled through his lens, was a keen insight into suburban worlds, capturing their own narrow routines while quietly highlighting class distinctions across the UK. Parr invites the viewer into a world far removed from Pret and Gails, welcoming us with a warm hearty hug to something genuinely personal and comforting.

Parr’s recent collaboration with art director Nadia Lee Cohen resulted in the photobook Julie Bullard, which follows a semi-fictional character inspired by Cohen’s real-life childhood babysitter. The series blended Cohen’s narrative staging with Parr’s high saturation documentary eye, creating an intimate collection of photos reflecting suburban life. Cohen takes the lead, full glam, leaning into suburban traditions while maintaining a dreamlike distance, as if imagining escape. The series features boiled eggs and sandwiches, forming a kind of cultural reference book of everyday life. In one image, she wears a dressing gown, smoking a cigarette in one hand, laundry under the other arm, while children play in the background. She looks exhausted and fed up. She dreams big. Up, out and away from suburbia, yet grounded in the relentless realities of daily life. 

 Julie Bullard, n.d. From the photo book Julie Bullard. © Nadia Lee Cohen and Martin Parr. Image credit: Nadia Lee Cohen × Martin Parr.

Sadly, Martin Parr passed away on 6^th December. He will forever be remembered for the way he magically transformed ordinary moments into bright, vibrant vistas, democratising art in the process. Parr was fearless, generous, and possessed a singular eye for the aspects of life that often go unnoticed. A trailblazer, he celebrated the everyday with wit, compassion and unflinching honesty. In a later interview with The Talks, he reflected, ‘I knew what I was up to, and my own conscience was clear’. Parr was confident in what he was about, and through his lens, he gave the world permission to see the beauty, the absurdity, the joy and the wonderfully kitsch moments in the lives we too often overlook. 

Portrait of Martin Parr, photograph by Justin Slee