Penguin Press pays tribute to photographer Martin Parr's 'creative daring and lightning-fast wit'

Penguin Press has paid tribute to photographer Martin Parr who has died at the age of 73.

The publisher said it was “deeply saddened” to hear of the his death. Parr died on Saturday at his home in Bristol, aged 73. He had been a photographer for over 50 years and known for colourful images which captured British life.

Penguin Press published his autobiography earlier this year, which featured 150 of his photos.

The publisher said: "When Martin Parr was 14, 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 published over 100 photobooks on many different subjects, from seaside resorts to smoking, over his career. In September – for the first time – Martin produced an autobiography, telling his own story, in his own words.”

The publisher added: “Utterly Lazy and Inattentive (Penguin Press) combines over 150 of Martin’s photographs – from his earliest snapshots to recent work – with his recollections and reflections on each image. His distinctive voice is captured in the book by his friend, the writer Wendy Jones.”

“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 1980s 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.”

Jones said: “Martin was fun, invariably right, and never actually the slightest bit lazy or inattentive. It is Martin’s photographs that our great-great-grandchildren will think of when they look back to our time. Martin has left us with a catalogue of our century, our times, our society and the trends that shaped us. He has made us laugh with his images, and he has shown us back to ourselves. We were lucky to have him to photograph us and bear witness to our complexity, our comedy, our reality and our humanity. He was fascinated by us and, in turn, has left us a fascinating and invaluable record of who we are.”

Parr’s editor at Penguin Press, Chloe Currens, said: “It’s hard to put words to Martin’s gifts as an artist and as a person. He wasn’t keen on being called a genius but, sitting next to him as he worked – choosing between photographs, thinking up chapter titles – it was hard not to marvel at his intuition, his creative daring, and his lightning-fast wit. He was also, quite simply, a fantastic collaborator: kind, unpretentious and at least as curious about all of us as we were about him. We are lucky to have known him.”