Uncharted Street:
Photographers from the Hyman Collection

17 January to 8 March 2024

Ben Uri Gallery
108A Boundary Road
NW8 ORH

Includes work by Charlie Phillips

For more information about the Exhibition: Click Here

Press release: Click Here

Photo: Tavistock Square, 1965

Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s-Now

6 December 2023 to 1 April 2024

Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada

Work by Charlie Phillips included

Making its way across the Atlantic to the AGO from Tate Britain, Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art, 1950s-Now examines the relationship between the Caribbean and Britain and reconsiders British art history in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries from a Caribbean perspective. Featuring more than 30 artists, including Frank Bowling, Aubrey Williams, Donald Locke, Horace Ové, Sonia Boyce, Claudette Johnson, Peter Doig, Hurvin Anderson, Barbara Walker and Alberta Whittle, the presentation spans a range of mediums, from paintings to documentary photography, film, and sculpture. Life Between Islands addresses timely and relevant themes such as the role of culture in decolonization, the meaning of home, the reclaiming of ancestral traditions, the nature of Caribbean and diasporic identity, as well as racial discrimination and sociopolitical conflict. The artworks and themes presented in the exhibition reflect decades of Caribbean culture and thought, and celebrate the vibrancy, solidarity and creativity behind this artistic legacy.

Organized by the AGO and originated by Tate Britain. Co-Curated by David A. Bailey, Director, International Curators Forum, and Alex Farquharson, Director, Tate Britain. The AGO presentation is overseen by Julie Crooks, Curator, Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora.

For more information about the Exhibition: Click Here

Review in The Globe and Mail (5 January 2024): Click Here

Photo: The Piss House Pub - This was the local name for the pub on the corner of Blenheim Crescent and Portobello Road, 1969. Smaller artwork: Sonia Boyce, Missionary Position II, 1985

Cafe Royal Books Exhibition

10th November 2023 to 10th February 2024

Stills: Centre for Photography
23 Cockburn Street
Edinburgh

Café Royal Books – established in 2005 – publish utilitarian, affordable and accessible zines, highlighting and preserving post war documentary photography that has links to Britain and Ireland. This exhibition presents nearly 170 prints alongside 800 CRB publications. They recently published their sixth archive box, marking 600 titles in the series. All of these books, and some images from them, will be include in this exhibition. After the exhibition, the books will be available as part of Stills library.

For more information about the Exhibition: Click Here

Visit the Café Royal Books Website: Click Here

Centre for British Photography focuses on communities for autumn exhibitions

Charlie Phillips – How Great Thou Art: 50 Years of African Caribbean Funerals in London
4 October – 17 December 2023
(Main Gallery, one of six exhibitions)

The 50th anniversary of Daniel Meadows’ Free Photographic Omnibus and Charlie Phillips’s 50-year work on Afro Caribbean funerals in London will be the two lead exhibitions considering communities opening at the Centre for British Photography on Thursday 5 October 2023. Community-focussed work of three other photographers will also be on show: Grace Lau’s Chinese portrait studio; Dorothy Bohm’s photographs of London street markets; and Arpita Shah’s portraits of young British Asian women.

The Centre for British Photography, 49 Jermyn Street, London, SW1Y 6LX

For more information visit the gallery website: Click Here

For the Press Release: Click Here

Image: Frank Critchlow’s funeral, Charlie Phillips, 2010, (© Charlie Phillips)

IN CONVERSATION:
Charlie Phillips, Vanley Burke and Armet Francis, chaired by Marlene Smith

THURSDAY 26TH OCTOBER: 6.00 - 8.00PM

Centre for British Photography
49 Jermyn Street
London
SW1Y 6LX

We are pleased to present a special event, an ‘in conversation’ with three major photographers Vanley Burke, Armet Francis and Charlie Phillips, chaired by Marlene Smith, curator, researcher and member of the BLK art group. The evening will include discussion of their important decades-long engagement with their communities. This occasion marks an important historical moment when each photographer is the subject of a major exhibition: Charlie Phillips, How Great Thou Art at the Centre for British Photography; Armet Francis, Beyond The Black Triangle at Autograph; and Vanley Burke, Between Two Worlds at the V&A.

For more information visit the gallery website: Click Here

The Missing Thread: Untold Stories of Black British Fashion

Somerset House, London

21 September 2023 to 7 January 2024

Spanning from the 1970s to the present day, The Missing Thread, curated by the Black Oriented Legacy Development Agency (BOLD), charts the shifting landscape of Black British culture and the unique contribution it has made to Britain’s rich fashion design history. Set against a backdrop of politics and culture, the show examines how Black style and creativity has evolved across the decades and in turn influenced the world of fashion through music, photography, art, and design.

Work by Charlie Phillips is included.

For more information about the exhibition (Somerset House Website): Click Here

For the exhibition press release: Click Here

The Wedge Collection
Dancing in the Light

MOCA Toronto, 158 Sterling Rd, Toronto, Canada

7 September 2023 to 4 February 2024

Drawn from Dr. Kenneth Montague’s Wedge Collection, this exhibition and accompanying book feature works by Black artists from Canada, the Caribbean, Great Britain, the US, South America, and Africa – providing a timely exploration of Black identity on both sides of the Atlantic. Work by Charlie Phillips is included.

For more information about the exhibition: Click Here

For more information about the book: Click Here

Charlie Phillips included in:
Taking Care of Business: Migrant Entrepreneurs and the Making of Britain

Opens: 9 April 2022

The Migration Museum explores how the movement of people to and from Britain across the ages has made us who we are – as individuals and as a nation.
From the food we eat & the clothes we wear, the apps on our phones & the products in our homes, our lives wouldn’t be the same without migrant #entrepreneurs. Explore how migrant entrepreneurs have shaped our lives in our new immersive exhibition.

More information at: migrationmuseum.org

The English at Home
Opening exhibition at the Centre for British Photography

Includes this lesser known image by Charlie Phillips.

Further details on the Centre's website: Click Here

Feature in The Big Issue: Click Here

The Black Triangle: Documentary to Accompany the Exhibition
Produced by ATLAS Gallery

Includes interview and work by Charlie Phillips.

See below for further details of the exhibition.

Click Here to view on Vimeo.

The Black Triangle:
Photography of the Civil Rights and Anti-Racist Movements in the UK. USA and South Africa
ATLAS Gallery
7 October to 29 November 2022
Exhibition includes work by Charlie Phillips.

For more information visit: Click Here

See feature in The Guardian, 7 October 2022: Click Here

The exhibition was reviewed in The Times, 30 September 2022.
Click Here for a PDF document containing the review.

The Eye of Photography Website has a feature on the exhibition.
Click Here to read the article.

Extract from the documentary produced by Atlas Gallery.
Click Here to view on Vimeo.

Charlie Phillips — In Plain Sight
Fullersta Gård, Huddinge, Stockholm, Sweden
12 November 2022 to 12 March 2023.

Following on from the successful 2022 UK tour of the show Freedom Road Re-Imagined, Olby’s Soul Cafe in collaboration with Freedom Road Project presents an evening ‘In Conversation with Charlie Phillips’ with Sabina Desir on 14 October 2022..

For more information visit: Click Here

Photo credit: © Aliyah Otchere, 2021

Community Images Exhibition

A great recent collaboration with Denise Hector & Lyanta Callender @HogarthRoots, Hogarth Worldwide along with photographer, Charlie Phillips, curating site-specific exhibition(s) of Community images reflecting life in Notting Hill, London from Charlie’s extensive portfolio across three of their London offices. The collaboration also included a 5-minute film I Was Always Here.

To watch the film and read more about the project: Click Here

Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear

V&A, London. On now until Sunday, 6 November 2022

At a moment of unprecedented creativity in men’s fashion and reflection on gender, this exhibition explores how designers, tailors and artists – and their clients and sitters – have constructed and performed masculinity, and unpicked it at the seams. Includes work by Charlie Phillips.

For more information Click Here

Image: Cue Club regulars, 1966. © Charlie Phillips. Included in V&A Museum & Black Cultural Heritage ‘Staying Power’ archive

Freedom Road Re-imagined - with Charlie Phillips

“Freedom Road Re-imagined” is an incredible immersive live music performance that combines music, photography and filmed footage to call attention to the resilience, determination and pride of Black British Communities. Drawing on music that is associated with the U.S Civil Rights Movement and images from the esteemed photographer Charlie Phillips who documented the U.K Black experience, for the last 60 years, Freedom Road Projects presents it’s first tour of the live show “Freedom Road - Re-Imagined”, co-created by Jessica Lauren. Presenting an intergenerational perspective on protest through the lens of esteemed photographer Charlie Phillips alongside the young photographer Shaïny Vilo. The show’s visuals draw you into times both past and present when the collective and individual voice became weaponised as a force for change. Central to the show is the exhilarating music. Music associated with the U.S and U.K Civil Rights Movement. Music that sustained, nurtured and educated ... music that became and remains some of the most important of the 20th Century.

Intercut with the music and stunning visuals is the recorded voice of Taariq Forder. Taariq brings his lived-in experience, enriching the telling of this intergenerational conflict. If it is at all possible to inject an energy of positivity amid turbulence, and movement for change, Freedom Road Re-imagined does this brilliantly. The artists from cross-cultural and multi-generational backgrounds bring incredible musicianship and storytelling and present a show that is moving, defiant and joyful all at once!

For more information Click Here

Glastonbury Festival: Old photos from 50 years rewind to the happy hippy spirit
Feature, by Jackie Butler, on the Glastonbury photographs by Ron Reid in Somerset Live

To read the feature visit: somersetlive.co.uk

Image: A Glastonbury 1971 version of a marching band. © Ron Reid Estate.

Café Royal Books, Documentary, Zines, and Subversion, at the Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol
14 April to 12 June 2022

Includes imagery by Charlie Phillips and Ron Reid

Café Royal Books – established in 2005 – publish utilitarian, affordable and accessible zines, highlighting and preserving post war documentary photography that has links to Britain and Ireland. This exhibition presents nearly 170 prints alongside 500 CRB publications.

For more information visit: www.martinparrfoundation.org

The Guardian 28 April 2022 included a heavily illustrated feature on Café Royal Books
Click Here to Read

Images:
Robert Blomfield photographer blowing bubbles, Glastonbury Festival in 1971. © Ron Reid Estate.
Man on Westbourne Park Tube Station, 1967. © Charlie Phillips.

Martin Parr Foundation has newly acquired for the MPF Collection a series of 10 prints by photographer Charlie Phillips.

These images are from Charlie’s series ‘How Great Thou Art’ documenting London’s African Caribbean funerals in the 1960s.

“What you notice at the funeral is the fashion, the style, the colours – the deceased usually have their own views on how you should dress. The last one I went to they instructed everyone to wear bright colours.” — Charlie Phillips.

The prints are 11.3x17 inches and printed on 16x20 inch paper.

For more information on Martin Parr Foundation visit: www.martinparrfoundation.org

For more information on this series: Click Here

Images: Charlie Phillips with Louis Little at the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol to work on the printing. From the series How Great Thou Art - London’s African Caribbean Funerals © Charlie Phillips.

Charlie Phillips included in: Art That Made Us (episode 8), BBC Two and BBC iPlayer

Art that Made Us is a landmark eight-part series for BBC Two and BBC iPlayer set to air in April alongside range of programming across BBC digital platforms and a festival that will run from 1-30 April 2022 across the UK.
The nationwide festival is celebrating creativity in partnership with around 200 museums, galleries, libraries and archives.

More information at: bbc.co.uk

For the series trailer: Click Here

Meet photographer Charlie Phillips with Tate Kids!

Part of the Windrush Generation, Charlie came to England when he was eleven years old. He taught himself photography as a child, and grew up capturing everyday life in London in the 1960s and 70s. He took photographs of people he knew, as well as people he met walking around in his area or attending community events, political rallies and funerals. He says he wanted to capture Black working-class life in London, to show people back in Jamaica what life was like in England.

Find Charlie Phillips’ photography on display in Life Between Islands at Tate Britain
(closing 3 April 2022)

To watch the full film: Click Here

Telling Stories. Picture Post and its Legacy

James Hyman Gallery. From 29 March 2022.

The exhibition presents some of the key photographers of Picture Post magazine as well as a curated selection of some later British photographers who built on this storytelling or documentary tradition. Includes work by Charlie Phillips.

For more information Click Here

Image: Photo: Portobello Road, 1971. © Charlie Phillips.

Soul Revivers – Charlie Phillips’ photograph becomes covers of “On the Groove” L.P.

After being in production for several years, the debut Soul Revivers album, “On the Grove”, will be released on 11th March 2022.

The roots of project lie in film. In late 2017, David was asked to act as music and creative consultant for Idris Elba’s Yardie. A year or so after the film was completed, David and Nick returned to some unused sessions they had recorded for it. These unused sessions then became the seeds of this album and we were fortunate enough to collaborate with Jamaican legends Ernest Ranglin, Ken Boothe and Earl 16, and contemporary luminaries Ms. Maurice (Kokoroko and Nubya Garcia) and West London’s Alexia Coley. “On the Grove” was produced at Yard Studios, under the Westway, in the shadow of Grenfell Tower. It is a tribute to the music's long connection to West London, and in particular Ladbroke Grove and Notting Hill. This history is distilled in the sleeve image, which features Charlie Phillips photograph of Lepke (founder of Dread Broadcasting Company and brother to Ranking Miss P.) setting up his sound for a Notting Hill Carnival in the late ’70s.

On the Grove will be available on 11th March as a 12-track double vinyl LP, CD and digitally.

Click Here for the Soul Revivers on the Bandcamp Website

New work ‘Tre’ – (sculpture window) by artist Abigail Reynolds permanently installed at Kresen Kernow (‘Cornwall Centre’)

The figure on the bottom right with his arm extended and palm of his hand turned towards him is by Ron Reid from his Glastonbury 1971 series.

For more information about the installation Click Here

For Abigail Reynolds’ Website Click Here

Why Charlie Phillips takes a grass roots approach with photography ...

Martin Parr is joined on the sofa by Charlie Phillips. Their wide-ranging discussion engages with the role of cultural elites in the artworld, how Charlie started photographing in Notting Hill in the late 1960s and how his career changed path when he hitch-hiked across Europe.
This sofa session was filmed in October 2021.

Tate Britain
Life Between Islands – Caribbean-British trail across London

Highlighting London’s rich Caribbean-British culture with over 40 stories told across the city. To celebrate Life Between Islands, an exhibition of Caribbean-British art at Tate Britain, they invited artists, community leaders and colleagues from Tate’s BAME network to share their stories about the places and spaces across London that mean the most to them.

“I remember the pub on the corner of London’s Portobello Road and Blenheim Crescent. As a child I did a paper round, and I would meet my father here after I finished. I had my first alcoholic drink here, a shandy. In the 60s it was referred to by the locals as ‘The Piss House Pub’. It’s known as The Distillery now. I photographed it in 1968 and ‘69.”

Charlie Phillips, Photographer

For more information on the stories and the printed map visit:
Tate Gallery Website (www.tate.org.uk)

Main Photo: The Piss House Pub, 1969 - This was the local name for the pub on the corner of Blenheim Crescent and Portobello Road 1969 © Charlie Phillips

Left Photo: The Distillery – 186 Portobello Rd, W11 1LA

Rare Vintage Prints by Charlie Phillips

The Hyman Collection have acquired a group of rare vintage silver gelatin prints by Charlie Phillips documenting life in Notting Hill.

The Hyman Collection is the private collection of Claire and James Hyman. It started in 1996 and consists of over 3000 works from across the world, in all media. The Hyman Foundation aims to promote and support photography in Britain in all its diversity. The charity aims to facilitate the work of contemporary artists, fund research and scholarship, and address issues of legacy and the preservation of archives.

Further details: Click Here

Family, Notting Hill, 1973-7. © Charlie Phillips

Andy Warhol on the Bowery
Walking with director Russ Karel past men hanging out on the Bowery in down-town New York and street-cleaner operator.

View segment on Getty Images: Click Here

Seen along with other footage in BBC2 3-part series: Andy Warhol‘s America, which makes for compelling viewing. His life story also inherently interesting as it is a reflection of his times.

Available on iPlayer: Click Here

© Nicky Akehurst represented by Getty Images

Congratulations to Ronald “Charlie” Phillips OBE (born 1944), also known by the nickname “Smokey”. Charlie Phillips was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to Photography and the Arts.

Charlie Phillips is a photographer and documenter of urban communities in London. He is well known for his photographs of Notting Hill during the period of West Indian migration to London. Arriving in London from Jamaica at the age of twelve, he grew up amidst a background of hostility and prejudice. He began taking photographs at the age of fourteen and later worked as a freelance photographer for magazines including Harper’s Bazaar, Life and Italian Vogue. While living in Notting Hill, he explored aspects of urban life in the 1960s, photographing friends and neighbours, creating a pictorial documentary of a community at a particular moment in time. Phillips has also chronicled the passion and style of African-Caribbean funerals in London over several generations. His images speak of the intimacy and familiarity with which he views his own community. “As far as I’m concerned, we haven’t been given a proper platform to show our culture, our side of the story,” he says. “It’s not Black history; this is British history, whether you like it or not.”

It would appear that this contribution to British History has now started to be addressed.

Congratulations also to some of the other 2022 creative award recipients: Sir Horace Ové for services to media and Mark Sealy MBE for services to Art

Photo credit: © Aliyah Otchere, 2021

'Notting Hill Couple' and other works by Charlie Phillips are included in Tate Britain’s upcoming show Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 1950s - Now an exhibition celebrating work by artists from the Caribbean who made their home in Britain.

1 December 2021 to 3 April 2022

For more information and to book tickets: Click Here

Image (left): 'Notting Hill Couple'- The sitters, Anita Santiago and Osmond (Gus) Philip, taken at a house party in London, 1967© Charlie Phillips.
Image (right): 'Jah Shaka' © Denzil Forrester, 1983

For a review in The Guardian (5 December 2021): Click Here
“It is living history, and not just,” as the photographer Charlie Phillips declares in a wall text, “black history, but British history”.

Charlie Phillips On Photography and Untold Stories

Feature article in Amateur Photographer 18 September 2021.

Click Here to Read Online

Image: Muhammad Ali © Charlie Phillips

Charlie Phillips spoke at the The Photography Show on 18 September. Later that day Charlie participated in a Q&A after the screening of Picture Stories: The Life and Legacy of Picture Post with the film’s director Rob West and Peter Dench.

Click Here for an interview with Charlie Phillips, filmed at the event.

Photo credit: © Getty Images Hulton Archive - Taken by Haywood Magee in 1942

Charlie Phillips
The forgotten photographer

'Super Stage' at The Photography Show / The Video Show

Saturday, 18 September 2021, 15:30 - 16:45

Click Here for Details

Photo credit: © Aliyah Otchere

The Charlie Phillips Archive

Exhibition at Southbank Centre, London
22 July to 17 October 2021
Archive Studio, Level 2, Royal Festival Hall
(free admission)

Click Here for Details

Photo credit: © Aliyah Otchere

Losing Loved Ones, Keeping Rituals, 2 March 2021, online at 7pm (UK)

Brought together from different communities, Rabbi Daniel Epstein, bereavement specialist Linda Magistris and photographer of the African Caribbean community Charlie Phillips share their thoughts on practices lost and gained through social distancing.

Online presentation hosted by House of Life. Click Here for Details

Dub London: Bassline of a City