Homer Sykes

I stopped shooting commissions some years ago, and now shoot only stuff that interests me. Mostly I spend too much time managing my extensive archive of around 20 thousand carefully edited, captioned and keyworded content rich images. Check out My British Archive, 50 years documenting Britain and occasionally elsewhere. 

My principal commissions in Britain during the 1970's - 1980's, were for what used to be called the "weekend colour supplements" such as The Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The Observer, You and the Sunday Express magazines. I covered weekly news for Newsweek, Time, and the former Now! Magazine; covering conflicts in Israel, Lebanon, and Northern Ireland, as well as general news in the UK. Over the last fifty years I have shot numerous magazine portraits of the famous and not so famous - at home, at work and at play. I have always worked on personal photographic documentary projects along side commercial magazine assignments.  In the 1970's I started on what has become an on going career project documenting traditional British folklore customs and annual events.  In 1977 my first book was published Once a Year, Some Traditional British Customs (Gordon Fraser). In 2016 Dewi Lewis Publishing re-published this volume with over 50 'new' images from my archive.  I am the author, and co-author-photographer of nine books about Britain as well as Shanghai Odyssey (Dewi Lewis Publishing) and On the Road Again (Mansion Editions). The latter, an American project, was started in 1969, while I was at college. The photographic road trip was repeated in 1971, the work was then put away for thirty years, and in 1999 and 2001 I travelled once again by Greyhound bus criss-crossing America documenting the ‘down home’ idiosyncrasy of everyday middle America. In 2002 I set up my one-man band self-publishing concern Mansion Editions. To date Mansion Editions has published On the Road Again and Hunting with Hounds. More recently Cafe Royal Books have published over 25 zines of my work. My British Archive: The Way We Were 1968-1983, was published by Dewi Lewis Publishing in October 2018.

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EXHIBITIONS

Solo exhibitions:- 

Homer Sykes: England 1970- 1980. Kaunas Photography Gallery, Kaunas, Lithuania. 6 April - 6 May 2017.
My Britain, 1970 - 1980’s - Homer Sykes. Les Douches La Galerie, Paris.  5 September - 31 October 2015.
Homer Sykes: England 1970- 1980. Maison de la Photographie Robert Doisneau, Paris. 26 June - 12 October 2014.
Green Man and Friends 1970's: WPS Gallery, Hastings. 2009.
Shanghai Odyssey. Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool. 2003.
The English Season. The National Theatre, London. 1987.
Traditional British Calendar Customs. Side Gallery, Newcastle. 1977.
Traditional British Calendar Customs. Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol. 1977.

Recent group exhibitions:-  

Creating the Countryside: Compton Verney Art Gallery, Warwickshire.  March - June 2017.
The Male Gaze: The James Hyman Gallery, London. 21 May - 7 July 2014.
Country Matters: The James Hyman Gallery, London. 11 September - 11 October 2013. 
Picturing Derry: Portrait of a City. The City Factory, Derry-Londonderry NI. 2013.

Ossie Clark:The King of the Kings Road Reign Again. Proud Gallery, Chelsea London. 2013.
Photo 50. The London Art Fair. Islington. 2013.
Folklore & Photography; From Benjamin Stone to Flickr. Towner Gallery, Eastbourne. 2012.
Shanghai Odyssey; China Stories. Pimp the Timp, Volumn II, Cologne, Germany. 2012.
The Great British Public. The London Festival of Photography, London. 2012.
Mass Photography: Blackpool through the Camera. Grundy Gallery, Blackpool. 2011. 
Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain. Whitechapel Art Gallery, London. 2011.  
The Other Britain Revisited: The New Society Collection of Photographs, 1972 to 1982. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 2010. 
Good Bye London - Radical Art + Politics in the Seventies.  Kunstverein "Neue Gesellschaft fur Bildende Kunst" Berlin, Germany. 2010. 
Unpopular Culture. Grayson Perry selects works of art from the Arts Council Collection. A touring exhibition. 2008.  
No Such Thing as Society. An Arts Council Collection and British Council Collection touring exhibition. 2008.  
Viva: une agence de photographes: 1972-1982. Jeu De Paume. Paris, France. 2007.
How We Are: Photographing Britain. Tate Britain. London.  2007.

Early group exhibitions:-

Recontres Internationales de la Photographie. Arles, France.1976.
Young British Photographers. Photographers Gallery, London. 1975.
Four Young Photographers. Photographers Gallery, London. 1972 [with Dinah, Chris Killip, Stephen Shore.]
Personal Views 1850–1970. A British Council Touring exhibition, 1972. [with Sir Cecil Beaton, Ian Berry, Bill Brandt, George Davidson, Roger Fenton, Bert Hardy,  Thurston Hopkins, David Hurn, Paul Martin, Tony Ray-Jones, George Roger, Sir Benjamin Stone, John Thomson, Patrick Ward.]
Festivals Customs and Pagents. The ICA, London. 1971. [with Sir Benjamin Stone]

A small selection of  Modern Fine Art Collectors and Vintage Prints are represents by the James Hyman Gallery in London and by Francoise Morin at Les Douches La Galerie in Paris. Vintage Book Dummies and a wide selection of vintage and modern exhibition prints can be sourced by making contact with me.