Current Exhibitions
The Camera Helps
11th Oct – 30th November
Mondays 9-5, Saturdays 10 – 5, Sundays 11-4pm
Weston Library, Broad Street, OX1 3BG
A HUGE glass case in the Weston Library’s Blackwell Hall, (the main entrance area of the “new” Bodleian Library) shows Paddy Summerfield’s working methods for his published books, the photo-essays. From thousands of negatives piled into plastic tubs, he selected, ordered, re-ordered, changed his mind & changed the order again…
Then he made maquettes, as the final stage of preparation before being sent to publisher, Dewi Lewis, guardian angel of photographers…
The Camera Helps is the first Paddy Summerfield retrospective, covering 50 years of work,and is based on the published books, with some additional material. The earliest work is The Oxford Pictures, which so many of you know, is included, as well as more unfamiliar pictures.
To see so much work gathered, so wonderfull presented, expands our understanding of Paddy’s mastery of photography, and his achievements.
The Camera Helps is part of Photo Oxford Festival
This exhibition also celebrates the Bodleian’s acquisition of Paddy Summerfield’s Archive.
Beginnings And Endings
23 Oct – 15 November
Tuesdays – Saturdays 11-5pm 34 Walton Street OX2 6AA
(very close to where Little Clarendon Street joins Walton St.)
This show offers some very early prints from when Summerfield was 20, in France, & other early works, as well as Paddy’s last essay: The Beginnings of Eternity.
Some vintage prints available, as well as limited edition prints of the colour work.
The main focus is Summerfield’s final book (Dewi Lewis Publishing) which is his first published colour work – a sort of journey…the world glimpsed from a moving car as he travelled to the Oxford hospitals during 4 years of treatment. Published four months before his death,it is also an emotional journey, travelling towards a sense of homecoming and peace.
