Boy outside headmaster's office, Moreton, c2000
The Hyman Collection is one of the major collections in the world of the work of Ken Grant.
Ken Grant was born in Liverpool in 1967. At 12, Grant purchased his first camera, a little polaroid, which he took with him when he went to work with his father, a carpenter with a workshop on the River Mersey. At his father's workshop, Grant photographed the labourers - tradesmen, carpenters and machinists- as they waited for employment in Liverpool's transient industry. Although at the time he was unaware of the economic circumstances, Liverpool's turbulent economy became the underlying current running through Grant's photographic work.
Grant studied photography at UCA Farnham in Surrey, one of the first fine art photography courses in the UK. While a student, he trained and studied with the most innovative photographers and academics in Britain including Martin Parr, Paul Graham and Yve Lomax. Farnham, unlike many Fine Art Institutions, did not have a guiding philosophy. Even though many photographers began experimenting with colour photography in a fine art context, Grant continued to photograph almost exclusively in black and white in his characteristic square format creating timeless, poetic images that feel autobiographic, but also explore the greater intervening political forces shaping contemporary Britain.
Since the 1980s, Grant has photographed his contemporaries in the city and engaged in sustained projects both in the UK and more widely, in Europe. A monograph of the Liverpool pictures, The Close Season, was published by Dewi Lewis Publishing in 2002. In Spring 2014, Grant published a second monograph, drawing from the same body of work entitledNo Paint Whatsoever. Ken Grant's photographs are held in important collections of photography, including those of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Folkwang Museum Essen and other international public and private collections.
Grant studied photography at UCA Farnham in Surrey, one of the first fine art photography courses in the UK. While a student, he trained and studied with the most innovative photographers and academics in Britain including Martin Parr, Paul Graham and Yve Lomax. Farnham, unlike many Fine Art Institutions, did not have a guiding philosophy. Even though many photographers began experimenting with colour photography in a fine art context, Grant continued to photograph almost exclusively in black and white in his characteristic square format creating timeless, poetic images that feel autobiographic, but also explore the greater intervening political forces shaping contemporary Britain.
Since the 1980s, Grant has photographed his contemporaries in the city and engaged in sustained projects both in the UK and more widely, in Europe. A monograph of the Liverpool pictures, The Close Season, was published by Dewi Lewis Publishing in 2002. In Spring 2014, Grant published a second monograph, drawing from the same body of work entitledNo Paint Whatsoever. Ken Grant's photographs are held in important collections of photography, including those of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Folkwang Museum Essen and other international public and private collections.