Homer Sykes, New Mexico Boys, 1971, Limited Edition Print (2024)

New Mexico Old Boys by Homer Sykes Aztec, New Mexico, June 1971. Men playing dominoes in a bar with a pool table. 1970s USA oversize 30 x 20 inches / 76 x 51 cm paper size signed limited edition print edition of 10 only this size printed 2022 Certificate of authenticity provided. England 31st December 1985. New Years Eve party at the Ritz Hotel. A dinner dance. New Years Eve, UK, London, December 31st, party, in a, on, man, playing, play, posh, people, wealthy, rich, Hogmany, celebrating, celebrations, interior, festive, season, person, smart, formal, evening, England, English, British, Britain 1986, Homer Sykes Sykes's father, Homer Warwick Sykes, was a Canadian-born American of English extraction who worked for the China National Aviation Corporation in Shanghai; his mother, Helen Grimmitt, was Canadian-born and raised in Hong Kong. The couple were married in August 1947, but in June 1948, in an early stage of his wife's pregnancy, Homer was killed in an accident at Lunghua airfield. Helen returned to her family home in Vancouver, and the son was born three weeks later, in 1949.[1][2] When the boy's mother remarried in 1954, the family moved to England.[3] Homer was a keen photographer as a teenager, with a darkroom both at home and at boarding school. In 1968 he started a three-year course at the London College of Printing (LCP),[1][3] while sharing a house in St John's Wood.[4] In the summer vacation during his first year, he went to New York, and was impressed by the work of current photographers – Cartier-Bresson, Davidson, Friedlander, Frank, Uzzle and Winogrand – that he saw at the Museum of Modern Art.[3] Solo exhibitions "Traditional British Calendar Customs", Arnolfini Gallery (Bristol), 1977;[14] Side Gallery (Newcastle), 31 August – 25 September 1977.[15] "Shanghai Odyssey", Open Eye Gallery (Liverpool), 24 May – 20 June 2003.[14][16] Festival of Photography and Contemporary Art (Biella), 2005.[14] "On the Road Again", Hereford Town Hall (Hereford Photography Festival), 2002.[17] "Green Man and Friends, photographs from the 1970s", WPS (Hastings), 2009.[18] "England 1970–1980", Maison de la photographie Robert Doisneau (Gentilly, Paris), 27 June – 12 October 2014.[10][11][19][20] "My Britain 1970–1980", Les Douches la Galerie, Paris. 5 September – 31 October 2015.[21][22][23] "Once a Year – Homer Sykes", Lucy Bell Gallery, St Leonards-on-Sea, May–June 2021[24] Other exhibitions "Personal Views 1850–1970", British Council touring exhibition, 1970.[3] "Traditional Country Customs" (with work by Benjamin Stone), ICA (London), 1971.[3][14] "Young British Photographers", Museum of Modern Art (Oxford), 1971.[14] Exhibition of photographs by Stone and Sykes of festivals, customs and pageants, Southampton and Birmingham, 1973.[7] "Reportage Fotografen", Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts (Vienna), 1978.[14] "Il Regno Unito si diverte". British Council, Milan, 1981. with Chris Steele-Perkins and Patrick Ward.[25] "The Other Britain", National Theatre (London), and touring in Britain, 1982.[26] "A British Eye on the World", Museum of Modern Art (Rio de Janeiro), 1986.[14] "Viva, une agence photographique", Jeu de Paume (Paris), 2007.[27][28] "How We Are: Photographing Britain." Tate Britain (London), 2007.[29][30] "No Such Thing as Society: Photography in Britain 1968–1987", Aberystwyth Arts Centre; Tullie House (Carlisle); Ujazdów Castle (Warsaw).[31] "Unpopular culture." De La Warr Pavilion (Bexhill), 2008.[32] "The Other Britain Revisited: Photographs from New Society", Victoria and Albert Museum, 2010.[26] "Goodbye London: Radical art and politics in the seventies", Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst (Berlin), 26 June – 15 August 2010. with Stuart Brisley, Victor Burgin, David Hall, Margaret Harrison, Derek Jarman, Peter Kennard, Jo Spence, and John Savage.[33][34] "Mass Photography: Blackpool through the Camera", Grundy Art Gallery (Blackpool), 6 August – 5 November 2011.[35][36] "A Record of England." MAC (Birmingham), 2011. with Daniel Meadows.[37] "Photo 50: A Cyclical Poem". Business Design Center (London), 2013. with Dorothy Bohm, Markéta Luskačová, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Brian Griffin, Chris Steele-Perkins, Ian Beesley and Paul Hill.[38][39][40] "Country Matters". James Hyman Gallery (London), 11 September – 7 November 2013. with Bert Hardy, Roger Mayne, Tony Ray-Jones, Colin Jones, Chris Killip, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Martin Parr, Mark Power, Anna Fox, Ken Grant.[41][42] "Picturing Derry". 2013 Derry~Londonderry City of Culture. The City Factory (Derry), 31 May – 7 July 2013. with Gilles Caron, Brian Gill, Clive Limpkin, Willie Carson, Larry Doherty, Barney McMonagle, A. W. Martin, Eamon Melaugh, Seán Hillen, Willie Doherty and Victor Sloan.[43] "The Male Gaze". James Hyman Gallery (London), 21 May – 7 July 2014. with Bill Brandt, Jacob Epstein, Lucian Freud, Henry Moore, Matthew Smith, Walter Sickert and Keith Vaughan.[44] Permanent collections Birmingham Central Library[45] British Council[46] British Government Art Collection[14] Victoria and Albert Museum (London)[47] Museum Folkwang (Essen)[48]