The Landscape

Product Information

I couldn’t be happier than when I am standing out on a cold winter morning waiting for the right light. In part, he thinks, it’s because his body is starting to break down – he is strong for his age but becoming frail nonetheless: he suffers from arthritis, the darkroom chemicals are starting to make his chest wheeze – but it’s also an after-effect of the major retrospective he staged at Tate Britain last year.

Batcombe Vale 1992-93Having been evacuated to the safety of Somerset during the blitz, McCullin has had a lifelong connection with the open farmland and hill country of the south-west, feeling at peace within the solitude of the expansive landscape. There is energy, the energy of history around this landscape here,’ McCullin tells me, as we look out of his living-room window, across the valley in front of his house. Though the woods and stream close to his house in Somerset have offered some respite, he has not sought out the quiet corners of rural England. A master printer, he tears up scores of prints he considers inferior, because ‘When I die I don’t want people to find prints that aren’t good enough.Because the light is pouring in here and it’s as if I’m being invited to go out there and pick up on it. The images carry a dramatic feel and a preference for stormy skies that reveal an intimacy with conflict and destruction. The copy in near fine condition has some slight toning to extremities of pages and a minor soft bump to top right corner of front cover.

McCullin first saw Goya’s Black Paintings on a visit to the Prado in Madrid in the early 1980s and was shocked to find a painter who ‘saw what I saw. Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. Looking forward to the valley of the tombs which Isis have destroyed, Palmyra, Syria 2016Don McCullin is one of the most important war photographers of the late 20th century, best known for his broad reportage and critical social documentation.

Canon Professional Network | Español - Película con Don McCullinViñedo cerca del pueblo de Laurens, región de Languedoc-Roussillon, Francia. His experience as a traveller reinforces the sense of a man on the edge of civilisation under siege. He has documented Roman ruins in North Africa and the Levant, including the recent deliberate destruction of the ancient site of Palmyra in Syria by ISIS. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. This new collection mixes recent with past work, showing how no one has ever been able to accuse McCullin of wielding a frivolous camera.

The largest body of work featured in the exhibition explores local areas within walking distance of the photographer’s home, including ‘Looking towards Creech Hill, near Bruton, Somerset’ (2019), ‘The Dew Pond, Somerset’ (1988) and ‘Batcombe Vale’ (1992-93).The morning I arrive at McCullin’s old limestone farmhouse, where he lives with his wife Catherine Fairweather, he has been up since dawn, looking out at the valley beyond his front windows to see if the sky will change. After a career documenting conflict for over sixty years, iconic war photographer Don McCullin now focuses on documenting the landscape. The presence of sacred mounds, hill forts, ancient roads and the nearby monuments of the prehistoric era have shaped his sense of nationhood. On the first sight, fatal landscapes give you a hit with a bit of added contrast, some burning and dodging and perfect subject composition.

One of the reasons McCullin remembers his childhood years in Somerset with such fondness is that soon after he left, his mother ‘shipped me out again’, this time to Manchester. We were surrounded by McCullin’s signature black-and-white images, none of which depict starving children or shell-shocked marines. McCullin is a striking person to spend time with, still consumed by photography, good-humoured and reflective about the craft and ethics of his profession – but the conflict that has shaped his life is never far from the surface.

The physical landscapes are not usually awesome in themselves but McCullin's treatment makes them inspiring subjects for us to enjoy. McCullin’s West Country is not far removed from the East Anglia of Constable’s Dedham Vale two centuries earlier. The Landscape ] comes as a timely reminder of the photographer’s darkness of touch … the large-scale pictures take the reader with McCullin on a landscape journey both at home and abroad.