The next Artist You Need To Know is Tish Murtha (1956 – 2013).
Patricia Anne Murtha was a British photographer who documented the communities around her with an eye to social documentary : she often focused upon more marginalized communities – especially working class communities in Newcastle upon Tyne and the North East of England during the divisive Margaret Thatcher era of British history. Murtha’s work is a contrast between works that are joyful and happy (especially her images of youth and children) and others that are bleak and haunting, even decades after the moments captured. Murtha is perhaps the best British social photographers of the last half century but she garnered more recognition after her death than during her too short life.
From here : “She gained recognition for her poignant and empathetic portrayal of marginalised communities, capturing their struggles and resilience through her lens. Murtha’s work often focused on social issues, emphasising the lives of individuals and groups who were often overlooked by mainstream society.
Her photography was characterised by a commitment to authenticity and a deep understanding of the subjects she portrayed. This approach allowed her to create powerful narratives that highlighted the complexities of social issues such as poverty, gender, and community dynamics. Murtha’s work not only served as a visual documentation but also aimed to foster empathy and understanding among viewers.”
“My use of photography and my approach to it is based on the conviction that the fundamental value of the medium is its capacity to provide direct, accurate, and vital records of the conditions, events and experiences that shape our lives.”
The images below are from her series Elswick Kids. An article about this body of work can be read here.
She was born in 1956 in South Shields, North East England, the third of ten children in a family of Irish heritage. Murtha grew up in a council house in Elswick in Newcastle, which speaks to her interest in those sites and her focus upon children in those environments as an artist.
Murtha – when she was twenty years old in 1976 – would study at the School of Documentary Photography at The University of Wales (Newport) : this was a space that was created by Magnum Photos member David Hurn. Upon her graduation in 1978, Murtha returned to Newcastle : she wanted to document (in her own words) “marginalized communities from the inside” and so she lived in the area. This was a more authentic approach than many who only visited the Elswick area (which at the time was described as one of the worst areas in England in terms of poverty and deprivation) to record peoples’ lives while going to their own homes afterwards. The people in her photographs comprised Murtha’s friends and community and this empathy and understanding is clear in her work.
The words of her daughter Ella Murtha : “She invested her time building relationships of trust, which allowed her access to different parts of the communities that she photographed. Her approach was informal, generating an understanding of what she was doing by giving copies of her photos to the people in them. The young people she photographed as part of her Youth Unemployment and Juvenile Jazz Band exhibitions showed how tenacious, resourceful, clever and resilient they were (and had to be) – Tish was always fiercely protective of them. She had plenty of experience of what it was like to be young and on the dole herself and wanted to try and help others who saw no real future for themselves. Tish felt she had an obligation to the people and problems within her local environment, and that documentary photography could highlight and challenge the social disadvantages that she herself had suffered.”
Two bodies of work she produced at this time were powerful – and controversial enough – that they became subjects of debate in the British House of Commons : Juvenile Jazz Bands (1979) and Youth Unemployment (1981). Murtha also was hired to document the Save Scotswood Works campaign in 1979 and also contributed photographs for the THAC (Tyneside Housing Aid Centre) publications Do you know what this is doing to my little girl? – Home Truths in the Year Of The Child (1979) and Burying The Problem (1980) where she turned her lens again to the issue of poverty, this time in Tyneside.
Murtha’s words : “Young people, already experiencing the problems of adolescence, are left to cope alone with a situation that their educational training has not prepared them for – forcing them into a state of premature redundancy the minute they pass through the school gates for the last time.
What is becoming clear to the generation now approaching maturity is that our society has no solutions for their problems, can give no direction to their lives. Unemployment and all its associated deprivations are not only getting worse, but new technologies threaten to make the situation permanent. Behind empty pathetic talk of increased leisure opportunities and freedom from repetitive labour, stands the spectre of enforced idleness, wasted resources and the squandering of a whole generation of human potential.
This is vandalism on a grand scale.”
The images below are from the series Youth Unemployment.
She would relocate to London in 1982 : during this period, in collaboration with Bill Brandt, Brian Griffin and Peter Marlow, Murtha produced London By Night. These works – documenting Soho and the commercial sex trade in that area – were presented in a group exhibition at The Photographers’ Gallery in London. Murtha, during this period, also worked on commission for Edward Arnold Publishers photographing celebrities and other notable individuals.
Her work was featured in a number of exhibitions during her lifetime. Notable shows include No Such Thing as Society: Photography in Britain 1967–1987, Unpopular Culture – Grayson Perry Selects from the Arts Council Collection and Observers: British Photography and the British Scene. A more extensive listing of exhibitions can be seen here.
Murtha’s photographs can be found in the collections of the Arts Council of Great Britain, the British Council, The AmberSide Collection, the UK UNESCO Memory of the World Register and the National Portrait Gallery in London (UK).
In 2013 – on the cusp of Murtha’s 57th birthday – she was struck with a sudden brain aneurysm and passed away.
The posthumously published books of her work are Youth Unemployment (2017), Elswick Kids (2018) and Juvenile Jazz Bands (2020). She also produced a number of Zines over her lifetime and a listing of those can be seen here.
The images below are from the series Juvenile Jazz Bands.
In 2023, a film was produced about Murtha’s artwork and life titled Tish. From the site for the film : “Driven by a commitment to document the impact of deindustrialisation on working class communities in Northeast England in the 1970s and 1980s, Tish Murtha used her camera to expose societal inequality. She felt she had an obligation to the people and problems within her local environment, and that documentary photography could highlight and challenge the social disadvantages that she herself had suffered. However, despite early acclaim for her work, she was unable to make a living from photography and died in poverty.
The film is a journey of exploration for Ella Murtha as both daughter and custodian of the Tish Murtha archive, a chance to elevate and preserve a legacy that has been lost and to tell the story of an artist and woman outside of the ‘mother’ that existed for her – or the version of Tish claimed within dominant narratives of the 70s and 80s photography – from the people who knew Tish and the images she left behind.”
Much more about her life and work can be seen here at a site maintained by Murtha’s daughter that has been instrumental in keeping the legacy of her mother’s work – and the larger ideas of photography and art as a means to social change – alive.
“Her photographs continue to inspire — reminding us of the power of documentary photography to give voice, dignity, and visibility to working-class life.” (from the British Cultural Archive)