Peter Mitchell

Born in Manchester, United Kingdom in 1943, Peter Mitchell lives and works in Leeds. Originally a civil servant in the Ministry of Housing & Local Government, Whitehall, Peter Mitchell left for Hornsey College of Art (then in revolution) in London and set up as a fine art silkscreen print-maker with a studio in the northern city of Leeds. «European Architectural Heritage Year 1975» was his first solo exhibition in the Education Gallery, Leeds City Art Gallery of that year, and his first solo exhibition in a photography gallery was at Impressions Gallery of Photography, York (the second photo gallery in the UK) in 1979. He has published three books and is still working on «The Annals of a Life-Threatening Postcode» trilogy concerning the relationship of his flat of 34 years to Time & The City Both. Basically his work is about Leeds and himself.

In the 1970s, Mitchell  was working as a truck driver in the English city of Leeds, and he photographed the city during his rounds. This work depicts the factories and small shop owners of Leeds, all photographed in a very formal manner with the aid of a stepladder. In 1979, the photographs were shown at Mitchell’s one-person exhibition at Impressions Gallery in York; this was the first landmark color photography exhibition in the UK. The work was later included in the seminal exhibition «How We Are: Photographing Britain» at Tate Britain in 2007 and last summer at Arles festival in France in 2016 under the name «A new refutation of the Viking 4 space mission». 

 

Solo Show

2024 Nothing Lasts Forever, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds, UK

2020 A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission, Musée de la Photographie de Charleroi, Belgique

2018 A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission, Wirtz Art, Oakland, United States

2017 Nouveau Démenti de la mission spatiale Viking 4, Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière, Paris, France

2016 Planet Yorkshire, Impressions Gallery, Bradford, Royaume-Uni

2016 Wirtz Art, Oakland, États-Unis

2016 Nouveau Démenti de la mission spatiale Viking 4, Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles France, Arles, France

1979 A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission, Impressions Gallery, Leeds, Royaume-Uni

1978 Now You See Them, Soon You Won’t, Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, Royaume-Uni

1975 An Impression of the Yorkshire City of Leeds, Education Gallery, Leeds, Royaume-Uni

 

Group Show

2020 Untitled, 2020, Palazzo Grassi, Pinault Collection, Venice, Italy

2020 Facing Britain, Museum Goch, Goch, Germany

2020 The End of Industry, Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière, Paris, France

2018 North : Fashioning Identity, Somerset House, London, United Kingdom

2015 Drawn By Light: Drawn By Light: The Royal Photographic Society Collection, National Media Museum, Bradford, Royaume-Uni

2015 Throught the Looking Glass – Photographic Art in Britain 1945-1989, Barbican Art Gallery, Londres, Royaume-Uni

2008-2010 No Such Thing As Society: Photography in Britain 1967-1987, British Council/Arts Council England, exposition itinérante

2008 Artist and Camera, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds, Royaume-Uni

2008 Project Space Leeds,  Strangely Familiar, Leeds, Royaume-Uni

2007 How We Are: Photographing Britain,Tate Britain, Londres Royaume-Uni

2007 Coulour Before Color, Hasted Hunt gallery, États-Unis

 

Bibliography

Early Sunday Morning, RRB, 2020

A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission, coéd RRB/éditions Clémentine de la Féronnière, 2017

Some Thing Means Everything to Somebody, RRB, 2015

Strangely Familiar, Nazraeli Press, 2013

Memento mori, teh Flats at Quarry Hill, Leeds, Smith Settle Ltd, ré. RRB, 1990 ré.2016