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Remembering Martin Parr
8 December 2025
Martin Parr, who once explained he was "creating fiction out of reality" has left the world that inspired him at age 73. He had been diagnosed with an incurable form of blood cancer in May 2021.
Born in the southeastern English county of Surrey in 1952, Parr grew up in Epsom. Inspired by his grandfather, who was an avid amateur photographer, Parr decided as a teenager to become a photographer. After studying at Manchester Polytechnic, he spent a couple of seasons shooting at Butlin's travel agency with his peer Daniel Meadows.
That was when he became intrigued by the highly saturated, nostalgic postcards taken by John Hinde that would inspire his later work.
After moving to Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire, Parr spent time photographing chapel communities there before meeting his wife, Susan Mitchell, whom he married in 1980. They moved to the west coast of Ireland where Parr published several works including 1982's Bad Weather, taken with an underwater camera.
When Parr and his wife moved to Wallasey in Merseyside, Parr produced what he would claim was his greatest work. Inspired by the color photographers of Joel Meyerowitz and Stephen Shore, The Last Resort included images from three summers spent on the beaches of New Brighton, photographing fish and chip wrappers, crying children and fairground rides.
The book was criticized for the way Parr depicted working-class families from a privileged vantage point. Some were turned off by his focus on sunburns and common vices passing as affordable pleasures. His defenders pointed out this only demonstrated Parr's documentary approach, capturing life as it was lived by most Britons.
Almost in answer, Parr turned his attention to the world of garden parties, shopping trips and public school open days that made up his 1989 photobook The Cost of Living.
Throughout the 1990s Parr's work documented the tourist industry in Small World and global consumerism in Common Sense. He stirred up more controversy when he joined Magnum in 1994 when he was admitted by a single vote. He would later serve as Magnum's president between 2014 and 2017.
"I like the craziness of the English, with all their hobbies and their interests," he told Esquire. "The race meetings, the agricultural shows, the summer fêtes. We are an eccentric lot."
In 2014 he launched the Martin Parr Foundation to house his own photo archive as well as his vast collection of British and Irish photography from other artists.
He is survived by his wife Susie, whom he married in 1980, his daughter Ellen, his sister Vivien and his grandson George.