The Hyman Collection is the most important collection in the world of exhibition prints by Daniel Meadows. The collection includes substantial holdings of many of key bodies of work.
Daniel Meadows was born in Great Washbourne, Gloucestershire on 28 January 1952.
With Peter Fraser, Brian Griffin, Charlie Meecham and Martin Parr, Meadows studied at Manchester Polytechnic (1970-73). While a student he was particularly inspired by a lecture by Bill Jay (editor of Creative Camera and Album) and an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery of work by Bill Brandt.
A photographer, documentarian and digital storyteller Daniel Meadows has spent a lifetime recording British society, challenging the status quo by working in a collaborative way to capture extraordinary aspects of ordinary life through pictures, audio recordings and short movies.
In 1973-74 Meadows toured England in the Free Photographic Omnibus running free portrait studios in towns and cities across the country. Daniel Meadows's account of that journey: Living Like This - Around Britain in the Seventies (Arrow Books) was published in 1975.
In 2019 Daniel Meadow's archive found a new home, The Bodleaian Library, Oxford.
Other Photo-Documentary Work includes:
1972
Stockport Gypsies.
1975-77
Photographer-in-Residence, Pendle District, Lancashire
1975-83
New Society commissions
1976-81
Welfare State International
1978
Clayton Ward, Prestwich Hospital, Manchester (for the Observer Magazine)
1979-80
Factory Records
1981 and 1983
Co. Durham Social Services dept.
1984-87
Suburbia, Bromley, Kent
1995-2000
National Portraits, Now & Then
SHOWS
2013
You Are The Company In Which You Keep
Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens: 19 Oct 2013 - 23 Feb 2014.
2012
Daniel Meadows' Free Photographic Omnibus Northern Arts Exhibition 1974
Side Gallery, 9 Side, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 3JE, 20 October - 22 December.
Observers: Photographers of the British Scene from the 1930's to now
Galeria de Arte do Sesi, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 25 September - 25 November.
The World in London
The Photographers' Gallery, London.
2011
A Record of England
MAC, Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, 28 May - 17 July.
2010
Anyhow, Anywhere
Knowle West Media Centre (KWMC), Bristol, 7 December - 31 January 2011.
FOTONOW: Cameras in the Community
Plymouth, 23 October - 23 December 2010. Plymouth Arts Centre.
The Other Britain Revisited: Photographs from New Society
London, 14 May - 26 September. V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum).
Projections of Reality
Moscow, 6 March - 4 April, 2010.
2008
Knight of the Camera - The Photographs of Sir Benjamin Stone
Centenary Square, Birmingham: 20 September - 30 October.
Radical Mayhem: Welfare State International and its followers
Mid Pennine Gallery, Burnley: 26 April - 7 June.
No Such Thing As Society
Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Wales: 15 March - 27 April.
A Hayward Gallery, London, international touring show.
Tuille House, Carlisle: 10 May -13 July
Leeds City Art Gallery: 19 July ? 31 August
The Exchange, Penzance: 12 September ? 1 November
Centre for Contemporary Arts, Ujazdowski Castle, Wawsaw, Poland: 24 November 2008 - 11 January 2009
Arbatets Museum, Norrkoping, Sweden: 31 January ? 31 May 2009 (see newspaper report)
National Museum Wales, Cardiff: 4 July ? 4 October 2009
Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne: 31 October 2009 ? 24 January 2010
On Time, East Wing Collection VIII
2007
YOU_ser: das jahrhundert des konsumenten
ZKM (Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie), Karlsruhe, Germany: 21 October - 31 December 2008.
Story Box section curated by Michael Mangold.
The Centre for Art and Media celebrated its tenth anniversary with a large exhibition entitled The Century of the Consumer which looked at the effect of net-based global creation on art and society. Meadows contributed his Digital Story Polyfoto alongside stories from BBC Capture Wales.
How We Are - Photographing Britain from the 1840s to the Present
Tate Britain, London: 22 May - 2 September.
Curated by Val Williams and Susan Bright.
This was the first time Tate had addressed Britain's photographic history. The work of more than 130 photographers was shown, including a sequenced high-definition screening of the 41 portraits in National Portraits: Photographs from the 1970s by Daniel Meadows (Viewpoint & Montage, 1997).
Reviewing the Tate show for BBC Radio 4's Front Row, novelist Esther Freud chose this work as her "stand out" piece. She said: "It was incredibly moving... [Daniel Meadows] took these incredible very straight-forward photographs of people in their 'seventies clothes and, at the time after he'd done it, no one felt that they were particularly interesting or strange enough but now, looking at them, they're fascinating and they are certainly strange."
The British Are Coming
Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto, Canada: 11 January - 10 February.
A selection of Meadows's prints from the Free Photographic Omnibus, purchased by the gallery from a collector, was exhibited alongside pictures by Chris Coekin and Tony Ray-Jones.
2006
First Person: International Digital Storytelling Exhibition
Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI), Melbourne, Australia: 1 February - 30 April.
Curated by Helen Simondson to accompany First Person: Digital Storytelling Conference 3 - 5 February. An exhibition of diverse narratives from the global digital storytelling network including stories by Daniel Meadows and the BBC Capture Wales project.
2003
A Seaside Album: Photographs and Memory
Museum and Art Gallery, Brighton: 10 May - 8 October.
Curated from his own collection by Philippe Garner.
Photographs of Brighton down the years, along with accompanying book by the same title, including two Daniel Meadows portraits from the Free Photographic Omnibus.
1999
Documents and Identities
KTaideteollisuuskeskus Verkaranta gallery, Tampere, Finland: 22 October - 8 November 1999.
The main exhibition of Backlight, the 5th International Photography Triennale, Tampere, Finland.
Meadows contributed a pair of pictures from National Portraits: Now & Then.
1998
Les Anglais Vus par les Anglais
Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie, Arles, France: 9 July.
Curator: Gabriel Bauret.
Open air screening before an audience of 2,000, a multimedia presentation about contemporary English photography. It opened with a series of portraits from the Free Photographic Omnibus, the work being seen as an exemplar for subsequent generations of independent pratitioners.
Look At Me
Kunsthal, Rotterdam, The Netherlands: 16 May - 9 August.
Curators: Brett Rogers and Val Williams.
1986
A Woman's Place: The Changing Picture of Women in Britain
GLC Royal Festival Hall, London: 2 - 30 April 1984
Curator: Diana Souhami
'The position of women in Britain is changing slowly but surely: a quiet revolution is taking place in every aspect of their lives.' A British Council touring show which travelled to 30 different countries. Work by many photographers including by Meadows from his artist-in-residence period in Lancashire: women in hairdresser's, weavers on a tea-break.
1985
Human Interest: Fifty Years of British Art about People
Cornerhouse, Manchester: 3 October - 17 November.
Curated by Norbert Lynton.
This inaugural exhibition of a new gallery explored the human image in painting, photography, sculpture and video in the work of 110 artists including Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Bill Brandt, Lucien Freud, Richard Hamilton, Don McCullin, Tony Ray-Jones and Stanley Spencer. Meadows's contribution was from the Arts Council of Great Britain collection: Pylon Painters, Great Washbourne, Gloucestershire, 1974.
1984
The Welsh Open
Ffotogallery, Cardiff: 13 September - 6 October.
Portraits selected by Angus McBean.
Meadows contributed a portrait of his three-year-old son Harry, sleeping.
Autographs
Cambridge Darkroom, Cambridge: January - February 1984.
Curators: Pavel Büchler and Mark Lumley.
In the opening show of the Cambridge Darkroom, 43 British photographers were invited to give a specimen of their professional 'handwriting'. With Keith Arnatt, Bill Brandt, John Davies, Brian Griffin, David Hurn, Barry Lewis, Angus McBean, Charles Meecham, Humphrey Spender and Chris Steele-Perkins.
1983
And The North
Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal: 15 October - 12 November.
A commission by Northern Arts.
Curator: Dave Watt.
Northern Arts commissioned 13 photographers - including Paul Graham, Martin Parr and Roger Palmer - to tackle a variety of themes. Meadows contributed Paid to Care, a set of pictures showing Spennymoor and district, Co. Durham, from the point of view of its social workers.
1982
The Other Britain
Olivier Foyer, the National Theatre, London: 18 October - 27 November.
New Society magazine 20th anniversary exhibition, later acquired for its permanent collection by the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), London.
Curator: Paul Barker.
1978
Northern View
Side Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne.
Ken Baird, Nick Hedges, Daniel Meadows and Derek Smith.
For Society
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London: 10 May - 18 June.
Contemporary British Art with a Social or Political Purpose.
Curator: Nicholas Serota, Martin Rewcastle and others.
Meadows, one of 100 artists in the show, contributed Against the Odds: photographs of John Virtue, painter, teaching handicapped people to draw, 1977. 9 black and white photographs each 10 x 8 inches.
1977
John Virtue: Against The Odds
Mid Pennine Arts, Burnley: 26 May - 2 July.
Meadows contributed a series of black and white photographs showing the artist at work.
1973
Serpentine Photography 73
Serpentine Gallery, London: 28 July - 19 August.
Curator: Peter Turner.
A young contemporaries show. Work by 43 photographers. Meadows contributed portraits shot in collaboration with Martin Parr showing residents of June Street, Salford; and a large (6ft high) picture of a boy at Butlin's Filey. He also shot some free portraits of gallery visitors, mostly on Polaroid (instant print) film.
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2014
Daniel Meadows: Early Photographic Works
The Library of Birmingham, Centenary Square, Broad Street, Birmingham, B1 2ND, 16 May - 15 August.
Meadows' major retrospective, curated by Val Williams.
This exhibition had its first showing at the National Media Museum (NMeM) where, between 30 September 2011 and 19 February 2012, it was seen by 39,633 visitors making it one of the most popular shows there in recent years. Its Cardiff opening at Ffotogallery, Turner House, Penarth, were it showed from 14 July - 8 September 2012, doubled as Meadows' retirement party from Cardiff University where he taught for 18 years (1994-2012).
"Daniel Meadows was one of a group of photographers who spearheaded the independent photography movement in the early 1970s, breaking with tradition and infusing the medium with new energies and ways of seeing. His practice is complex, passionate and sometimes deeply autobiographical. Between 1971 and 1987, he produced an astonishing record of urban society in Britain, working in a uniquely collaborative way through his interviews with - and writing about - his subjects."
The exhibition is funded and supported by a partnership between the National Media Museum, Bradford; Ffotogallery, Cardiff; The Library of Birmingham; Photography and the Archive Research Centre at the University of the Arts London; and Photoworks UK; with exhibition prints by Metro Imaging, London.
The show was accompanied by a book from Photoworks: Daniel Meadows: Edited Photographs from the 70s and 80s by Val Williams.
2013
Daniel Meadows
Fakenham Parish Church: 2 - 9 May.
Thirty prints in the possession of Fakenham and District Community Archive, commissioned for the Free Photographic Omnibus in August 1974 and first exhibited by Fakenham Festival in May 1975, were 'rediscovered' and shown for the first time in 38 years.
2001
National Portraits: Now & Then
Photofusion, Brixton, London: 18 May - 30 June.
A stripped down version of the Irish Gallery of Photography exhibition, shown to coincide with publication of book The Bus, The Free Photographic Omnibus 1973-2001, an adventure in documentary, Daniel Meadows (The Harvill Press, 2001).
2000
National Portraits: Photographs from the 1970s by Daniel Meadows shown together with National Portraits: Now & Then
Irish Gallery of Photography, Dublin: 6 - 29 April.
Curator: Tanya Kiang
1999
National Portraits: Now & Then
Tampere University as part of Backlight, the 5th International Photography Triennale, Tampere, Finland: 11 - 29 October.
International touring show of photographs and re-photographs of some of those who were pictured from the Free Photographic Omnibus. Portraits arranged in pairs: "then" (1970s) and "now" (1990s).
L'Association Photographie E, Tarbes, France: 4 to 29 March 2000
Fondazione Studio Marangoni, Florence, Italy: April 2000
Libreria Agorà, Turin, Italy: 2 July - 30 September 2000
Photography Festival, Hereford, England: 21 October - 18 November 2000
Cultural Precinct, Queensland University of Technology, Queensland, Australia: 27 October - 18 December 2001
1997
National Portraits: Photographs from the 1970s by Daniel Meadows
Viewpoint Gallery, Salford: 2 April - 11 May.
Curator: Val Williams.
A selection of 110 portraits from the Free Photographic Omnibus, re-presented a quarter of a century after their making. Shown to coincide with publication of book National Portraits - Photographs from the 1970s by Daniel Meadows, edited by Val Williams. (Salford: Viewpoint Photography Gallery, and Derby: Montage Gallery, 1997).
The National Museum of Photography, Film & Television (NMPFT), Bradford: 19 July - 25 August
Montage Gallery, Derby: 7 October - 7 December
Shoreditch Biennale, London: 7 May - 5 June 1998
1996
Set Pieces
Royal Photographic Society, Bath: 26 October - 24 November.
Curator: Carole Sartain.
About the work of a movie stills photographer, part of the RPS series Images of British Cinema.
1987
Nattering in Paradise
Photographers' Gallery, London: 10 September - 9 October 1987.
Curator: Alex Noble.
Photographs about life in contemporary suburbia.
Olivier Gallery, National Theatre, London: 21 March - 30 April 1988, shown to coincide with publication of book Nattering In Paradise - A Word from the Suburbs, Daniel Meadows (Simon & Schuster, 1988).
1983
Pure Gold
Posterngate Gallery, Hull: 16 July - 20 August.
Colour photographs of workers at Wolstenholme Bronze Powders, Darwen, Lancashire.
1982
Julian Bream, a Life on the Road
Impressions Gallery of Photography, York: 13 August - 11 September.
Curator: Frances Middlestrob.
An Impressions Gallery touring show. Photographs of a year in the life of classical guitarist Julian Bream.
Maxwell House, London: 30 September, shown to coincide with publication of book: Julian Bream - A Life on the Road, Tony Palmer (Macdonald, 1982).
1981
Daniel Meadows (aka Behind the Screens)
Uppermill Gallery, Oldham: 11 April - 5 May.
Curator: Charles Meecham.
Photographs about people making and watching television programmes.
1978
Clayton Ward
Impressions Gallery of Photography, York: July.
Curator: Val Williams.
Photographs taken at Prestwich Psychiatric Hospital, Manchester, of an experiment to rehabilitate long-term schizophrenics.
Shuttles, Steam and Soot - A Cotton Mill in Lancashire
Camerawork, London: 16 January - 15 February 1978.
Curators: Ed Barber and Jenny Matthews.
A Camerawork touring show. Photographs of people working in the cotton industry in north-east Lancashire.
St. Mary's Centre, Chester: 20 August - 11 September 1980
Other venues, including showings on the continent of Europe (no records exist)
1977
One-Eyed Place
Arndale Centre, Nelson, Lancashire: 2 - 28 October.
Touring show of photographs from Daniel Meadows' period as artist-in-residence in the Borough of Pendle, Lancashire.
Pendle Heritage Centre, Barrowford, Lancashire: November
Impressions Gallery of Photography, York: March 1978
1975
Living Like This
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London: 8 - 28 October.
Curator: Linda Lloyd Jones.
Exhibition to mark the end of the journey of the Free Photographic Omnibus. Shown to coincide with publication of book Living Like This, Daniel Meadows (Arrow, 1975).
Daniel Meadows: Free Photographic Omnibus
Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Nottingham: February.
A selection from the regional exhibitions of pictures from the Free Photographic Omnibus.
1974
Daniel Meadows: Free Photographic Omnibus
Impressions Gallery of Photography, York: 3 - 28 September.
Curators Andrew Sproxton and Val Williams.
An Impressions Gallery touring show. Photographs of Yorkshire from the travels of the Bus.
Public Library, Scarborough: December
Half Moon Gallery, London: 14 Feb to 10 March 1975
Daniel Meadows: Free Photographic Omnibus
Museum of Modern Art, Oxford: 21 May - 9 June.
Curator: Nicholas Serota.
Photographs of Yorkshire and the Midlands from the travels of the Free Photographic Omnibus.
1972
Butlin's by the Sea
Impressions Gallery of Photography, York: 4 November - 24 December.
Curators: Andrew Sproxton and Val Williams.
An Impressions Gallery touring show. Photographs by Daniel Meadows and Martin Parr from a summer spent documenting Butlin's Holiday Camp in Filey, Yorkshire.
Mid-Pennine Arts, Blackburn, Lancashire: February 1973
Free Photographic Studio
Alexandra Park, Moss Side, Manchester: 29 May.
Photographs from The Shop on Greame Street, Moss Side, exhibited on boards nailed to a tree.
source: Daniel Meadows website