About the exhibition
Paddy Summerfield (1947–2024) was a photographer who developed a new psychological vision of photography, turning the camera on the innermost workings of the human mind and heart.
Despite an ongoing battle with bipolar disorder, leading the photographer to continue living with his parents in Oxford, Summerfield rose to prominence in the 1980s. Later, his five critically acclaimed publications depicted Summerfield’s most intense and enduring photographic obsessions: desire and alienation.
This substantial retrospective of the photographer’s work shows the stages of Summerfield’s creative evolution through comprehensive installations inspired by his five major publications as well as other significant bodies of work.
The exhibition also offers a glimpse of both the physicality and mastery of Summerfield's unique and idiosyncratic relationship with the craft of photographic print making.
This exhibition is part of Photo Oxford.
A small display – Paddy Summerfield: Order out of chaos – will be open from the end of August until 30 November in Blackwall Hall. It previews Summerfield's working process and serves as a forerunner to the full exhibition
