Paul Reas

Paul Reas (born 1955) is a British social documentary photographer and university lecturer. He is best known for photographing consumerism in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s.

Reas has produced the books I Can Help (1988), Flogging a Dead Horse: Heritage Culture and Its Role in Post-industrial Britain (1993) and Fables of Faubus (2018). He has had solo exhibitions at The Photographers' Gallery and London College of Communication, London; Cornerhouse, Manchester; and Impressions Gallery, Bradford. His work is held in the collection of the British Council.

Life and work Reas grew up in a working class family on the Buttershaw council estate in Bradford. He was born and lived with four siblings in a house on Brafferton Arbor (since demolished) and was mostly raised by his mother, who also worked at Baird Television Ltd. assembling televisions, (He would later remember his father as "Only ever there on Sundays and even then a sleeping, silent figure in an armchair." David Hurn was course head and among his tutors were Daniel Meadows, John Benton-Harris and Martin Parr. After six years as an undergraduate and then a college photography technician, he became a freelance photographer. Reas began with humanistic, fly on the wall, documentary photography in black-and-white using a 35 mm camera. He photographed working people, taking inspiration from both August Sander and Lee Friedlander's portrayal of working people, that he considered gave them the grace and dignity he experienced working in industry. He soon moved into more subjective photography and in colour. He was aware of the colour photography of Paul Graham and Martin Parr, Charlie Meecham and Bob Phillips, but it was seeing the work of North American colour photographers William Eggleston, Joel Sternfeld, Stephen Shore and Joel Meyerowitz that convinced him to change to colour for his own work and put him into an influential group of British colour documentarists including Graham and Anna Fox. and to using a flashgun.

As influences and inspirations, Reas has also cited David Byrne and Talking Heads,

Reas's first book, I Can Help, shows supermarkets, superstores and the like, photographed from 1985 to 1988. Val Williams writes that "The people who Reas photographed emerged from its pages . . . as lost souls, modern Ancient Mariners adrift in an ocean of endless choices." For a period he worked as an advertising photographer for clients such as BT and Volkswagen. He is course leader of documentary photography at the University of Wales, Newport.

In 2011/2012 Reas completed From a Distance, a year-long commission on the regeneration of the Elephant and Castle in South London, part of The Elephant Vanishes project, directed by Patrick Sutherland, for London College of Communication. He photographed people candidly, showing fraught and tense emotions (with the aid of an assistant with a boom mounted flashgun); portraits; cans of incense intended to provide help under specific social pressures; and discarded furniture. The photographs were exhibited in 2012 and published by Photography and the Archive Research Centre (PARC) in Fieldstudy 16: From a Distance.

Reas has said of his work that "I would say I photograph people but I think the pictures are more about systems people find themselves in, people shopping in supermarkets, but it’s about consumerism and how we are caught up in that. I never set anything up. Everything I photograph is as it happens".

Publications

Publications by Reas I Can Help. Manchester: Cornerhouse, 1988. . With a foreword by Rod Jones and a text ("Hey big spender") by Stuart Cosgrove. Flogging a Dead Horse: Heritage Culture and Its Role in Post-industrial Britain. Manchester: Cornerhouse, 1993. . With text by Stuart Cosgrove and an afterword by Val Williams. Fables of Faubus. London: Gost, 2018. . With essays by Stuart Cosgrove, David Chandler, Ken Grant and Val Williams.

Publications with contributions by Reas Pivot: Sixteen Artists Using Photography in Wales and Philadelphia. Llandudno, Wales: Oriel Mostyn, 1991. . By Chris Colclough. Catalogue of an exhibition held in Wales and Philadelphia, 15 June – 14 September 1991. Photographs by S Packer, Helen Sear, Paul Reas, Alistair Crawford, C. Colclough, Peter Finnemore, Suzanne Greenslade, Keith Arnatt and others. Texts by Paula Marincola and Susan Beardmore in English and Welsh. Positive Lives: Responses to HIV. London: Network Photographers; Cassell, 1993. . Part of the Cassell AIDS Awareness Series. Edited by Stephen Mayes and Lyndall Stein. Reas contributes photographs for a chapter, "Rupert - A Life Story". Also includes photographic essays from Denis Doran, John Sturrock, Mike Abrahams, Mike Goldwater, Judah Passow, Mark Power, Jenny Matthews, Barry Lewis and Christopher Pillitz, Steve Pyke, Paul Lowe and Gideon Mendel. Foreword by Edmund White. Introduction by Stephen Mayes. Each chapter also includes a written essay. Who's Looking at the Family? London: Barbican Art Gallery, 1994. Edited by Val Williams, Carol Brown and Brigitte Lardinois. . Accompanying an exhibition. Documentary Dilemmas: Aspects of British Documentary Photography, 1983–1993. London: British Council, 1994. . Catalogue of the exhibition, edited by Brett Rogers. The House in the Middle; Photographs of Interior Design in the Nuclear Age. Brighton: Photoworks, 2004. Accompanied an exhibition; also with work by Anne Hardy, Danny Treacy, Dirk Wackerfuss, Jo Broughton, John Kippin, Richard Billingham, and others. From Talbot to Fox. 150 Years of British Social Photography. London: James Hyman, 2012. Edition of 50. An overview of British social photography published to accompany an exhibition by James Hyman Photography at The AIPAD Photography Show New York in 2011. Includes photographs by William Henry Fox Talbot, David Octavius Hill & Robert Adamson, Roger Fenton, Horatio Ross, Julia Margaret Cameron, Thomas Annan, Bill Brandt, Bert Hardy, Roger Mayne, Cecil Beaton, Caroline Coon, Paul Reas, Jem Southam, Ken Grant, Karen Knorr, Anna Fox and others.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions 1988: I Can Help. Photographers' Gallery, London; Olympus Gallery, Amsterdam. Stills Gallery, Edinburgh. 1988: Fotobienal, Vigo. 2012: From a Distance. The Gallery, London College of Communication, 12–25 October 2012. Photographs of the Elephant and Castle, made as part of the project The Elephant Vanishes. 2013/2014: “Day Dreaming about the Good Times?”, December 2013–March 2014, Impressions Gallery, Bradford. March–May 2014, Ffotogallery, Penarth, Wales. A retrospective of his personal, editorial and advertising work.

Joint exhibitions 1985: Image and Exploration: Some Directions in British Photography 1980–85. Photographers' Gallery, London. With Chris Belcher, Chris Colclough, Berris Conolly, Mary Cooper, Peter Gale, Damian Gillie, Helen Harris, Paul Highnam, Sarah Morley, Paul Reas, Christopher Taylor and Mark Warne. 1989: Condemned to Making Sense. Perspektief Gallery, Rotterdam. 1989: Image and Exploration. The Photographers' Gallery, London 1990: Heritage Image and History. Cornerhouse, Manchester. 1992: Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France. 1994: Who's Looking at the Family? Barbican Art Gallery, London. 2006: From Brighton, Diaphane Editions, Montreuil sur Brèche, France. Work from photographers living in Brighton: Jim Cooke, Nigel Green, Marcus Haydock, Stephen Hughes, Magali Nougarède and Paul Reas. 2006: Memórias da cidade, Encontros da Imagem. D. Diogo de Sousa Museum, Braga, Portugal. Exhibition by 30 artists. 2007: How We Are: Photographing Britain. Tate Britain. Included contributions from numerous photographers. 2008/2009: ParrWorld, touring exhibition, Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2008; Breda Design Museum, The Netherlands, 2008; Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2009; Baltic, Gateshead, UK, 2009. 2010: Nothing is in the place. Photographs of the 1990s by AVI, Anonymous (Value Action), Donald Christie, Vicki Churchill, Brett Dee, Nigel Dickinson, Chris Dyer, Jason Evans, Anna Fox, Ken Grant, Nick Knight, Mark Lally, Clive Landen, Gordon MacDonald, Martin Parr, Vinca Petersen, Mark Power, Paul Reas, Richard Sawdon-Smith, Helen Sear, Paul Seawright, Nigel Shafran, Wolfgang Tillmans, Nick Waplington, Jack Webb, Tom Wood, and Dan Wootton; curated by Jason Evans. Gallery of Contemporary Art Bunkier Sztuki, Photomonth in Kraków, 2010; part of Fringe Focus, The Old Co-Op Building, Brighton, during Brighton Photo Biennial, 2010. 2013: Da Memória, part of Memórias da cidade, Festival da Criatividade GNRation ON, Braga, Portugal. Exhibition by Antoine D'Agata, Céu Guarda, Frédéric Bellay, Jim Dow, Luc Choquer, Luísa Ferreira, Luís Palma, Mariana Viegas, Martin Parr, Paul Reas, Paulo Catrica, and Vari Caramés.

Awards 1999: Silver Award, The OK! Magazine Award - Best Use of Photography, Campaign Press Advertising Awards 1999, for Wedding (Volkswagen advertisement for which Reas was the photographer). One of three adverts in a Volkswagen campaign. Wedding and the campaign itself also won other awards in the same ceremony. 1999: Yellow Pencil, D&AD for Wedding (Volkswagen advertisement).

Collections Reas's work is held in the following public collection: British Council