About Peter Mitchell

Move to Leeds

Peter Mitchell was born in Eccles, near Manchester, in 1943. Shortly afterwards his family moved to Catford, south-east London, where Mitchell spent his formative years. Even in his youth mitchell was a keen collector and diarist, beginning the archive that would later form part of his autobiographical publication Some Thing Means Everything to Somebody.

Leaving school at 16, Mitchell moved to Hampstead heath and began training as a cartographic draughtsman with the civil service where he learned to make architectural maps and drawings, an interest he has maintained, most notably in the self-published Memento Mori.

By 24, Mitchell was seeking new challenges and won at place at Hornsea College of Art where his interest in photography and typography developed.

First Solo Exhibition

Peter's first solo exhibition of 1975, entitled An Impression of the Yorkshire City of Leeds, was funded by the Yorkshire Arts Association and Arts Council of Great Britain formed a part of Leeds' contribution to the European Architectural year.

It was a success, with the curator encouraging Mitchell to focus on his photography over his screen-printing practice. The 1970s was a key time for photography in Britain, seeing photographers such as Martin Parr and Tom Wood rise to prominence, and Mitchell's practice was bouyed by this national cultural interest.

Mitchell's work stayed local to Leeds, and during this time he began the long term project on the city which would become A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission.

The demolition of the Quarry Hill Flats

By 1978, Mitchell had settled into his photography. He would walk everywhere, taking note of the places he passed, returning later with his camera, ladder and tripod to photograph them.

These walks regularly took him through the Quarry Hill estate in the centre of Leeds, but he had never photographed it, until the first signs of demolition appeared. The demolition of the ill-fated development provided Mitchell with the perfect subject matter to explore his interest in urban regeneration against the backdrop of Thatcher's Britain.

The project, not published until 1990 in the book Memento Mori, perfectly encapsulates Mitchell's practice, blending the personal and political stories of the site with his own photography and obsessively collected archive material.

A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission

Peter Mitchell's groundbreaking show, A New Refutation of the VIking 4 Space Mission, was shown at Impressions Gallery, York in 1979.

It was the first colour show in a British photography gallery and combined Mitchell's photographs with images of Mars taken by the Viking Landers, space charts and imagined co-ordinates.

‘This show was so far
ahead of its time that no one knew exactly what to say or how to react, apart
from with total bewilderment,’ Parr wrote for Photoworks in 2013.

While the show earned Mitchell recognition among the small world of collectors and the Leeds art scene, it did not lead to the type of national and international success enjoyed by some of Mitchell's contemporaries.

Continuing Practice

Peter continued photographing through the 1980s, scoring a handful of exhibitions in Leeds and the surrounding areas.

The majority of Mitchell's Scarecrows, that would form part of Some Thing Means Everything to Somebody, were taken around this time, as were some of his most recognisable images of Leeds.

The redevelopment of Leeds progressed at a lightning pace in this period, Mitchell would photograph a shop front or row of houses one week, only for them to disappear the next.

Mitchell's work remained resolutely personal, seeking out the people and places of local interest rather than seeking to reveal any great and gritty truth of 1980s British life to a wider audience.

First Book

In 1991 Mitchell published Memento Mori: The Flats at Quarry Hill Leeds, with the help of an Arts Council grant.

The book, full of diagrams, maps and photographs of crumbling rubble was far from a dreary catalogue of destruction, but instead gave the flats a last gasp at life with personal artefacts, poetry and the odd cheeky skeleton nestled in its pages.

Its publication came alongside a shift in British cultural consciousness, the country still reeling from the economic and social turbulence of the 1980s and a new millennium just appearing on the horizon. It reflected on the grand dreams of post-war Britain turned to ruin, asking what went wrong and what might we learn by remembering.

Rediscovery

Not much is known of Mitchell's practice through the 1990s and early 2000s. He did continue to photograph, filling his home with negatives, prints and artwork.

Mitchell's work came back to public attention in 2007 with its inclusion in How We Are: Photographing Britain, exhibited at Tate Britain. By this time, Mitchell's one-time co-exhibitor Martin Parr had become significantly influential not only with his own work, but in his championing of British Documentary photography as a whole. Parr identified Mitchell's significance to the development of British photography and with some cajoling, and the help of American publisher Nazraeli, Peter's first Monograph, Strangely Familiar, was published in 2013.

21st Century recognition

In 2013 Martin also introduced Peter to Rudi Thoemmes, a publisher and bookseller, a meeting which would result in the publication of seven new books, a successful instagram account and global recognition for Mitchell over the following decade.

Peter's work has since been exhibited worldwide, notably the full A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission at Rencontres d'Arles in 2016 and Facing Britain, a major retrospective of British photography at Museum Goch in 2020.

Mitchell remains a Leeds man at heart, with his first major retrospective exhibition Nothing Lasts Forever due to open at Leeds Art Gallery in May 2024.