Photographs by John Myers to be exhibited in Stourbridge

Myers took the photographs between 1972 and 1983 in and around Stourbridge, having bought a five by four inch Gandolfi plate camera.

He said: “There was no plan to the kind of people that I photographed; they were people that I knew, or people I met in the daily round.”

Some of the iconic black and white images taken by John Myers in Stourbridge in the 1970s and 80s

The black and white images, infused with social and historical clues rooting them in the 1970s and 80s, were taken in living rooms, workplaces, backyards and streets around Stourbridge - most within walking distance of his home.

The pictures have been shown around the world but never in the town in which they were captured.

Born in Bradford in 1944, John Myers was senior lecturer in fine art at Stourbridge College of Art from 1969 to 1989 and senior lecturer in painting, and head of the MA in painting, at the University of Wolverhampton from 1989 to 2001.

Images by Myers were first published in 1974 in the Arts Council funded book Middle England but only recently has his work has received renewed critical attention.

Since exhibiting at Birmingham’s IKON Gallery in 2012, his images have featured in numerous exhibitions and books. They are also held in collections at the Library of Birmingham, the Arts Council Collection, the James Hyman Collection, and the Martin Parr Foundation acquired a sizable collection in 2017.

One of John Myers' famed images taken in Stourbridge in the 1970s and 80s

His work will be on display at General Office, Hagley Road, Stourbridge, from Saturday April 9 to May 1 in an exhibition coinciding with the publication of his latest book Life as It Is (RRB Photobooks).

Copies of his books will be available at the gallery where he has a studio. A talk is also planned.