Photography, Coffee, Cake - Martin Parr's The Last Resort - Ends Soon
Details
Join me for a look at Martin Parr's own exhibition The Last Resort, shot around the English seaside town of New Brighton between 1983 and 1985. afterwards we'll head for refreshments at the nearby Miro Lounge (Formerly Bocabar).
Cost: free + refreshments
Meet: we'll meet just outside the door to the Martin Parr Foundation. We don't use a meet up sign. I carry a silver backpack handbag. If you're late, you'll need to find us in the exhibition.
Please check the listing page on the night before and the morning of the event, just in case of any updates.
Meet in the inner foyer.
From the Martin Parr Foundation website:
"To honour Martin Parr following his death on 6 December, the MPF gallery has opened in 2026 with an exhibition of Martin’s iconic series, The Last Resort. Shot around the English seaside town of New Brighton between 1983 and 1985, The Last Resort was one of the pioneering bodies of work driving British colour documentary photography and established Martin as one of Britain’s most influential photographers.
‘This exhibition allows us to reintroduce visitors to one of Martin’s seminal bodies of work. The Foundation felt it was important to mark Martin’s death whilst celebrating his remarkable career and legacy.’ – Jenni Smith, Director of Martin Parr Foundation
The Last Resort exhibition includes the full set of photographs from the original photobook, first published in 1986 by Martin under Promenade Press; this new show coincides with the 40th anniversary of both the publication and the landmark exhibition at Serpentine gallery, London. Exhibition prints are on display alongside ephemera, including contact sheets, materials that influenced Martin at the time of making the work, and the original Plaubel Makina 67 camera Martin used, as well as a selection of photographs not included in the original book.
‘Having been very fond of Martin’s more elegiac black and white work in Hebden Bridge and Ireland, the brash colour of his images was a shock. But I could see that it was an extraordinary body of work. When the show opened at the Open Eye Gallery in Liverpool in the winter of 1985, guests dressed appropriately, with rain hats, swimming costumes, lilos and pac a macs. No one batted an eyelid at the images: that was what New Brighton was like. It is a well-documented fact that the response to the show at The Serpentine was rather different.’ – Susie Parr"