In Flagrante

by Chris Killip (Photographer), John Berger (Contributor), Sylvia Grant (Contributor)

Chris Killip's In Flagrante is often cited as the most important photographic book on England in the 1980s. Published in 1988, this work portrays the steady decline of communities in Northern England - former manufacturing powerhouses that were gradually compromised by the policies of Margaret Thatcher and her predecessors from the mid-1970s onward. Killip's black-and-white photographs provide an unflinching look at these disenfranchised northern towns and the poverty visited upon them by deindustrialization.

Genres: Photography, Nonfiction

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Chris Killip is widely regarded as one of the most influential British photographers of his generation. Born in the Isle of Man in 1946, he began his career as a commercial photographer before turning to his own work in the late 1960s. His book, In Flagrante, a collection of photographs made in the North East of England during the 1970s and early 1980s, is now recognized as a landmark work of documentary photography. Other bodies of work include the series Isle of Man, Seacoal, Skinningrove and Pirelli.

In 1991 Killip was invited to be a Visiting Lecturer at the Department of Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University. In 1994 he was made a tenured professor and was department chair from 1994-98. He retired from Harvard in December 2017 and continued to live in Cambridge, MA, USA, until his death in October, 2020.

His photographs feature in the permanent collections of many major institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Museum Folkwang, Essen; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Tate Britain and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Reviews

[Derya · Rating 5 out of 5]

These are photographs that echo forever, stay with you forever and become part of you forever. The incredibly transparent reality of this book amazes me every time I turn its pages. As a hobby photographer, what has been achieved with these photos seems like a distant goal. A sort of highly impactful pureness, impossible to reach for me and that makes me sad.

[Raffaele · Rating 4 out of 5]

L'esplorazione del Nordest inglese abbandonato dal governo Thatcher negli anni '80.
Dolcissimo ed estremamente pessimista. coniuga perfettamente il documentario e l'occhio empatico del fotografo esperto.