At an early age, Stephen was introduced to photography by his father. Combining his interests in birds, animals and music, he began to take photographs.
In 1985, while still at school, Stephen worked with a Bristol-based photographer, copying and restoring old photographs and helping to take family portraits. Two years later, he began working full-time in a one-hour photo lab in the city.
In 1992 he enrolled in the Photography foundation course at Filton College in Bristol and, a year later, began to work at Magnum Photos in London, firstly as an intern and then full-time. He left Magnum in 1997 to become a freelance photographer.
Gill’s photographic series are now held in various private and public collections and have also been exhibited at many international galleries and museums including London's National Portrait Gallery, The Victoria and Albert Museum, Agnes B, Victoria Miro Gallery, The Photographers' Gallery, Palais des Beaux Arts, Leighton House Museum, Haus Der Kunst and has had solo shows in festivals including - Recontres d’Arles, The Toronto photography festival and Photo Espania.
His photographs appear regularly in major international magazines including Guardian Weekend, I-D, Granta, The New York Times Magazine, Tank, The Telegraph Magazine, The Observer, Le Monde, Blind Spot and Colors.
"Stephen Gill is emerging as a major force in British
photography.
His best work is a hybrid between documentary and conceptual
work. It is the repeated exploration of one idea, executed
with the precision that makes these series so fascinating
and illuminating. Gill brings a very British, understated
irony into portrait and landscape photography."
Martin Parr
"Stephen Gill’s photographs have all the naïve
gusto of the field studies series of old. Mercifully lacking
in sarcasm and malevolent irony, they are also wise and modern and beautifully
laden with tiny, understated details about the way we live today."
Jon Ronson
"Stephen Gill has learnt this: to haunt the places that haunt him. His photo-accumulations demonstrate a tender vision factored out of experience; alert, watchful, not overeager, wary of that mendacious conceit, ‘closure’. There is always flow, momentum, the sense of a man passing through a place that delights him. A sense of stepping down, immediate engagement, politic exchange. Then he remounts the bicycle and away. Loving retrievals, like a letter to a friend, never possession… What I like about Stephen Gill is that he has learnt to give us only as much as we need, the bones of the bones of the bones…"
Iain Sinclair
Books available online from Nobody's Bookshop or in selected bookshops around the world.
For trade enquiries please contact Nobody.
"A Series of Disappointments"
To exhibit this book, remove the book block from the outer cover, expand the pages and hang from nails or small hooks using the holes provided.
New Special Edition available
These single collectors prints are limited to 50 of each and are from selected project series including - Billboards, Invisible, Trolley Portraits, Hackney Wick, Hackney Flowers, Archaeology in Reverse and Warming down.
The prints are signed and numbered and printed to the highest quality on Fuji Crystal c type paper.
The images will be shipped in April / May 2008.
Click here to
pre-order
"Hackney
Flowers"
Click here to
order a copy for £30.
"Hackney Flowers"
Special version with c type print,
signed and numbered in slipcase
Edition of 100
This copy is unfortunately no longer available directly from this site. Please go to selected bookshops to obtain a copy.
"Archaeology in Reverse"
To order a copy please click here
"Archaeology in Reverse"
Special version with c type print,
signed and numbered in a box
Edition of 100
This copy is unfortunately no longer available directly from this site. Please go to selected bookshops to obtain a copy.
"Anonymous Origami"
To order a copy please click here
"Anonymous Origami"
Special version with bromide print,
signed and numbered in slipcase
Edition of 100
To order a copy please click here
"Buried"
Published 15th November 2006
32pp / Hard Back
Edition of 750 Books all with c type
print and slipcase
190 x 135mm
ISBN – 0-9549405-4-7
This title is no longer available from this website. Please
check with book shops.
"Hackney
Wick"
Published by Nobody 2005
120pp, with 24 page special section, hardback, 100 Colour
photographs
216 x 216 mm
ISBN 0-9549405-1-2
Order here
Shorlisted in Arles Book Award 2005 and a Winner of
Photo Eye - Best Books of 2006
"Hackney
Wick" (Out of print)
Published by Nobody 2005
Special Edition with C-Type print and record sleeve
slip case
216 x 216 mm
ISBN 0-9549405-2-0
Edition of 100
"Invisible"
Published by Nobody 2005
ISBN 0-9549405-0-4
Shortlisted for Photography book of the year, Alres
2005
Photo District News
Best Books of 2006
Buy here
"A
Book of Field Studies"
Winner - John Kobal Book Award
Best Books 2004 - Photo District News
Published by Chris Boot 2004
ISBN 0-9542813-6-5
Buy this book here
"Unseen
UK"
Photographs by Postmen and Women edited by Stephen Gill,
published by The Royal Mail.
Buy online here
For trade enquiries
phone 08457 640 640
or email business.enquiries@royalmail.com
Yoga snaps
8 self published albums containing photographs taken
by my dad of his dad in 1978 in different yoga positions.
Prints Single prints from most portfolios are available
to buy. Prices are available on request.
Boxed Sets
Complete series portfolios are available for sale.
Prices on request.
Hackney Flower Poster
Limited edition blue backed posters avaiable now.
More details here.
Cash Points
(Out of print)
Please send an e mail with your postal address if you
would like to receive a free cash point machine print.
Invisible, 2006
Special Print, 12" x 16" C Type print in paper
folder.
Edition of 100
- £100 plus P+P
Order here
Trolley Portrait
Special Print made for the Arles Photography Festival
2004.
C-Type Print edition of 200.
- £40 plus P+P
Order here
The Wick Record
(Out of print)
12” Record sourced from Hackney Wick containing
C Type photograph taken at Hackney Wick.
- £20 plus P+P
Solo Exhibitions 2001. Audience, solo exhibition, Pentagram Gallery
London. 2001. Edible exhibition, photographs printed
on cakes with food dyes, East London. 2001. British
Artists Exhibition, National Portrait Gallery, London 2003. The Wick, solo exhibition, The Photographers’ Gallery,
London 2004. May / June. Billboards on Billboards Exhibition,
London. 2004. July / August. Recontres d’Arles
Photography festival, solo show. 2004. September. The
State Centre of Architecture, Moscow, Field Studies
Solo show. 2005. The Architectural Association, London,
solo exhibition, 28th April 2005 - 27th May 2005. Photo
Espania: 1st June - 17th July in Madrid, solo Show, 2006. ICIA, Bath, Stephen Gill Photographs, 3rd - 31st March 2006. Billboard Exhibition, Newcastle for Great North Run
Cultural Programme 2006. Toronto Photography Festival,
Canada, May 1st - 31st 2007. Hackney Flowers, The Photographers’ Gallery
Print Sales London 2007. Anonymous Origami and Buried,
Leighton House Museum, London, 31st May – 18th
June 2007. Hackney Flowers, Street Exhibition, East London, 21st September - 4th October 2007. Narodni Dom Cultural Centre, Novo Mesto, Slovenia, 6th – 31st August 2008.New York Photography Festival, May 14th – 18th /
Group Exhibitons 2000. Sentimental, contemporary photography
exhibition, Lille France 2000. Contemporary Arts exhibition,
Aurel, France 2002. Day Return, Contemporary arts exhibition
Aurel, France. 2003. Photo London, The Photographers’ Gallery,
London. 2004. A Gentle Madness, Tony
Ray Jones, National
Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford.
15th October 2004 – 9th January 2005 2004. Paris
Photo – Eric Franck Fine - Billboard
photographs 2004. Through British Eyes, Leica
Gallery, New York 2005. Victoria Miro Gallery,
Photography 2005 2005. Fotomuseum, Rotterdam:
A Gentle Madness, 14th May - 3rd July. Selected Hackney
Wick photographs 2005. Noorderlicht Photo
Festival 2005, The Netherlands, Traces & Omens 2006. Courtauld
Institute of Art, Somerset House, London December 2005 – December
2007 2006. G&A Studios, Sydney
Australia, February - March 2006. UK JACK, OK !
Feb to April at Colette, Paris 2006. Click, Double Click:
8th February –
23rd
April, Haus Der Kunst, Munich, Germany and Palais des
Beaux Arts, 25th June - 3rd September, Brussels 2007. Buried, Art Cologne, Presented by Schaden.com 2007. Being Beauteous, White Space Gallery, London 2007. State
of Work, Fotohof Gallery, Salzburg, Austria, 3rd May 2007. Photography and Cinema, Tri Postal, Lille 2007. Something That I’ll Never Really See,
The V & A, London. 1st May – 24th June 2007. G8 Heiligendamm Street exhibition www.art-goes-heiligendamm.net 2007. 'Says the Junk in the Yard', Flowers East, 2nd August - 8th September 2007. Terrains D’Entente, Paysages Contemporains, Rencontres d'Arles 2008. European Eyes on Japan, April - October, Kagoshima Museum of Art
2008. Haus Der Kunst, Munich - Parrworld
07 May - 17 Aug
Awards 1986. Kodak Pet Portrait Award 1996. John Kobal Portrait
Award 1996. Ernst Haas Golden Light Award,
USA 1997. World
Press Master Class, The Netherlands 2001. John Kobal
Portrait Award 2002. John Kobal 10th Anniversary, National
Portrait Gallery, London. 2003. Field Studies, Shorlisted
in Arles Book Award 2004. Field Studies, Photo District
News Award, Best Books of 2004 2004. Winner of John
Kobal Book Award for “A
book of Field Studies” 2005. Invisible, Shorlisted
in Arles Book Award 2006. Invisible, Photo District
News Award, Best Books of 2006 2006. Hackney Wick, Shorlisted
in Arles Book Award 2006. Winner of Vic Odden Award 2007. Buried, Photo
District News Award, Best Books of 2006 2007. Hackney
Wick – Winner of Photo Eye best
books of 2006 2007. Buried, Shorlisted in Arles Book Award
Thomas Sutcliffe
Framed, The Independent Magazine, 10.03.01 Sarah Kent
Hackney Wick, Time Out, 20.08.03 Elaine Paterson
Straight out of the ordinary, Metro Newspaper, July 2003 Paul Wombell
Eye Catching, Design Week, 09.10.03 Martin Murray
The Wick, Source Magazine, Autumn 2003 Jon Ronson
Confessions of a vino virgin, The Guardian Weekend 31.05.03,more...
The Kindness of Strangers, The Guardian Weekend, 15.05.04,
read it here
Now you see them, The Guardian Weekend, 15.01.05, read
it
A keen observer of life, Creative Review, June 2004
Le Monde, September 2004
Message au dos, Liberation newspaper, 25.08.04 Jane Fletcher - A book of field studies,
Source Magazine, Autumn 2004 Sophie Malexis Hommes Invisibles, Le Monde 2, 18.06.2005 Michel Guerrin
Le photographe en anthropolgue de la ville, Le Monde 12.06.05 Photonews Invisible, July/August 2005 Tim Clark - PhotoEspaña, NextLevel
Magazine: Issue #8 The Queen - on receiving a copy
of Hackney Wick, read
the response and see the
picture, January 2006 Gerry Badger -Hackney Wick,
Ag Magazine, March 2006 MH - Hackney Wick, Foto8 Magazine,
Spring 2006, read
it Iain Sinclair - Lost Treasure, The Guardian
Weekend, 18.03.2006, read
it too Christoph Schaden - Invariably Eden – Stephen
Gill’s Hackney Wick, to read - click. Geoff Dyer - Unseen UK review / Aperture
Magazine, Spring 2007 Times Photography Book of the year - Click to see
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