Dimbola Museum & Galleries in Freshwater will exhibit decades of photography by renowned 97-year-old Sussex photographer Marilyn Stafford from Friday 10th June.
This will be the first ever retrospective exhibition of US-born, Sussex-based Marilyn. Works come from an international archive spanning 4 decades, including celebrity portraits, fashion shoots, street photography, humanitarian stories, and newspaper reportage.
This exhibition provides a reflective and engaging look at a period of 20th century history through the photographer’s unique gaze. It features many of the stories from her career, which remain untold, with images never seen before by the public.
Marilyn Stafford’s photography career got off to a remarkable start when she was invited, as a young woman, to take stills of Albert Einstein. Since then, she has accumulated an eclectic body of work, spanning from 1948-1980, including portraits of famous and influential figures such as Edith Piaf, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Mulk Raj Anand, Indira Gandhi, Albert Finney, Twiggy, and Joanna Lumley. She has also photographed many ordinary people like the illiterate Sicilian peasant woman, Francesca Serio, who took the Mafia to trial for murdering her son.
Marilyn has also engaged in street photography, mainly in the 1950s, documenting the Parisian children of the Cité Lesage-Bullourde neighbourhood, living in slum housing conditions, as well as the bustling, and sometimes downtrodden, street life of Boulogne-Billancourt.
Marilyn’s work has been included on magazine and newspaper front covers, including the Observer. In 2020, Stafford was awarded the Chairman’s Lifetime Achievement Award at the UK Picture Editors’ Guild.
Marilyn Stafford says:
“I think of myself as a storyteller, speaking through the lens of my camera. I have always endeavoured to find a way to bring awareness to the public eye, to tell stories that are socially relevant and to create change for the better.”
Article continues below this advertisement
Nina Emett, Curator of Marilyn Stafford: A Life in Photography, has said:
“It has been a wonderful privilege and adventure to curate the exhibition ‘Marilyn Stafford – A Life in Photography’ and to compile/edit the accompanying retrospective book of the same name. At times, I truly felt like I was behind the lens with her, indulging in poignant vignettes of life from a bygone era.“
Dimbola’s summer show, Marilyn Stafford: A Life in Photography, opens on Friday 10th June and runs until 16th October.
Up-to-date opening hours can be found on the Dimbola Museum & Galleries website: www.dimbola.co.uk . An accompanying retrospective book, Marilyn Stafford: A Life in Photography, is available from the Dimbola shop.
