Stephen Gill

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

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