Colin O’Brien photography exhibition comes to Pages of Hackney

Colin O'Brien, Four girls and a boy, 1988

For over 50 years, Colin O’Brien’s camera has recorded urban life. A selection of his work, on display this month at Pages Bookshop Gallery, is an exciting show which provides a glimpse of some of the renowned photographer’s lesser known work.

O’Brien’s photographs of working-class life in London in the 50s and 60s are perhaps the pictures for which he is best known. The run-down buildings and children playing in the streets have entered the visual lexicon of London. This is street photography at its finest – capturing and documenting, but also probing and narrating.

Born in 1940s Clerkenwell, O’Brien started taking photographs at the age of eight. For most of his life he has continued to live and work in the heart of London.

Though he is known for Picture Post-style documentary work, most of his output has been non-commercial. Like other great photographers, he has taken his best photos for himself and not for newspapers, books, or gallery walls.

It is perhaps for this reason that his work has a universal quality about it; it is very much of the concrete streets it depicts, but also of cities and their denizens in general.

From the Archives: Colin O’Brien Photographer
Until 30 October
Pages of Hackney Gallery
70 Lower Clapton Road  E5 0RN
020 8525 1452