Martin Parr in Words and Pictures

Utterly Lazy and Inattentive

Martin Parr is the quintessential anorak

Martin Parr is the ultimate chronicler of Englishness

Martin Parr is the Jay-Z of documentary photography

Like any successful spy, Martin Parr is the sort of guy you wouldn’t look at twice if you passed him in the street

Martin Parr is the emperor of bad taste

Like all great artists, Martin Parr has altered how we see the world

Martin Parr is a chronicler of our age … Parr enables us to see things that have seemed familiar to us in a completely new way

Martin Parr is one of the world’s most famous and successful photographers, particularly celebrated as a searing and witty documentarian of British life. He holds the Guinness World Record for the largest simultaneous photography exhibition: on 1st April 1999, Common Sense was shown simultaneously at 41 galleries around the world. Today, there is always at least one Parr show on somewhere in the world. 
 
 
Wendy Jones is a writer based in London. She is the author of seven books, including the bestselling Grayson Perry, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl. She has a PhD from Goldsmiths on writing interview-based biographies, and her books have been published in eleven languages.

By the age of 14, I decided I would be a photographer. ‘It’s what I will do for the rest of my life, until I drop dead.’ I knew when I was very young. It was a definite decision. Don’t ask me why. I just knew it was the right thing. 
 
When Martin Parr was fourteen, his teacher wrote that he was ‘utterly lazy and inattentive’ in a school report. He went on to become one of the most successful and sought-after photographers in the world. Martin has published over one hundred photobooks on many different subjects, from seaside resorts to smoking, over his career. Now, for the first and only time, Martin has produced a book about himself, telling his own story, in his own words. 
 
This autobiography combines over 150 of Martin’s photographs – from his earliest snapshots to the work he is doing today – with his recollections and reflections on each image. We meet a boy growing up in suburbia, who collects obsessively and notices everything. We see him exploding into the public consciousness in the late eighties with a series of startling, ultra-saturated colour images of the British seaside – and scandalising the photography establishment in the process. We see society changing over the decades, from the demise of steam trains, through the opening of the first McDonald’s in Moscow, to the transformations of the post-pandemic world. 
 
As Martin shares his story, his distinctive voice delicately captured by his friend, the writer Wendy Jones, he also reveals his approach to work and commissions; his tricks for gaining access and getting the shot; and he divulges his particular passions: for crowds and queues, fetes and placards, bad weather on beaches, and more. 
 
This is the definitive account of a great photographer’s career, curating the work that has defined his life. By looking at the world through his eyes and his lens, we come away seeing Martin Parr – and ourselves – a little differently.

Grayson Perry

Wendy Jones

The most remarkable aspect of Grayson Perry's biography is the resilience of the human spirit to which it testifies... There are lovely moments in this book and what really comes across is what a lovely man Grayson Perry is

Gripping and splinter-sharp account of the Turner prize-winning potter's early life and artistic growth

[A] delightful autobiography... this short charming book ought to be required reading for anyone with artistic ambitions. For everyone else, it can be enjoyed simply as one of those heartwarming tales of happiness and success wrested from the jaws of potential disaster

One of the most gripping and intelligent accounts of an artist's growth I have ever read

Charming... oddly reminiscent of Nigel Slater's recent book, Toast

Brave, moving and raunchy. Terrific stuff

Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Girl

Every inch of Grayson's childhood bedroom was covered with pictures of aeroplanes, and every surface with models. Fantasy took over his life, in a world of battles ruled by his teddy bear, Alan Measles. He grew up. And in 2003, an acclaimed ceramic artist, he accepted the Turner Prize as his alter-ego Clare, wearing his best dress, with a bow in his hair. 
 
Now he tells his own story, his voice beautifully caught by his friend, the writer Wendy Jones. Early childhood in Chelmsford, Essex is a rural Eden that ends abruptly with the arrival of his stepfather, leading to constant swerving between his parents' houses, and between boys' and women's clothes. But as Grayson enters art college and discovers the world of London squats and New Romanticism, he starts to find himself. At last he steps out as a potter and transvestite.

Wendy Jones

Praise for Grayson Perry

The most remarkable aspect of Grayson Perry's biography is the resilience of the human spirit to which it testifies... There are lovely moments in this book and what really comes across is what a lovely man Grayson ...

Gripping and splinter-sharp account of the Turner prize-winning potter's early life and artistic growth

[A] delightful autobiography... this short charming book ought to be required reading for anyone with artistic ambitions. For everyone else, it can be enjoyed simply as one of those heartwarming tales of happiness a ...

The most remarkable aspect of Grayson Perry's biography is the resilience of the human spirit to which it testifies... There are lovely moments in this book and what really comes across is what a lovely man Grayson ...

Gripping and splinter-sharp account of the Turner prize-winning potter's early life and artistic growth

[A] delightful autobiography... this short charming book ought to be required reading for anyone with artistic ambitions. For everyone else, it can be enjoyed simply as one of those heartwarming tales of happiness a ...

The most remarkable aspect of Grayson Perry's biography is the resilience of the human spirit to which it testifies... There are lovely moments in this book and what really comes across is what a lovely man Grayson ...

Gripping and splinter-sharp account of the Turner prize-winning potter's early life and artistic growth

[A] delightful autobiography... this short charming book ought to be required reading for anyone with artistic ambitions. For everyone else, it can be enjoyed simply as one of those heartwarming tales of happiness a ...

Books by Wendy Jones

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter