Derby marks mid point of Peter Marlow exhibition

The late Magnum photographer, Peter Marlow’s ambitious photographic exhibition of all 42 naves of our English cathedrals reaches its halfway mark when it opens in Derby Cathedral next week.

Derby marks mid point for late Magnum Photographer Peter Marlow exhibition

Derby is the 21st cathedral to host this unique work, Peter Marlow: The English Cathedral, which showcases all 42 naves of England’s Anglican cathedrals photographed at dawn in natural light and taken throughout 2010 during what Peter himself described as ‘a kind of reflective pilgrimage’.

Organised by the Peter Marlow Foundation, the charity set up in recognition of his work and legacy, the goal is that this collection of images will exhibit at each of the individual 42 cathedrals Peter visited on his photographic pilgrimage across England.

Fiona Naylor, Peter’s partner and Chair of the Peter Marlow Foundation, said,

“To have reached the half-way point in this extraordinary tour across England of Peter’s cathedral portraits is certainly something to be celebrated.

“It is important to share Peter’s work and the ongoing work of the Peter Marlow Foundation and introduce both to so many new audiences.

“ We are looking forward to the coming years as the tour shows in all 42 of the English Anglican cathedrals Peter documented on his photographic road trip.

“These iconic buildings are superbly flexible and make wonderful galleries as well as being places of religion, peace and the deep history of England.”

Peter Marlow was commissioned in 2008 by Royal Mail on the 300th year anniversary of the completion of St Paul’s Cathedral to photograph six Anglican Cathedrals that were issued as commemorative stamps.

So taken was he by what he found that he set out to photograph all 42, guided over the next three years by a copy of English Cathedrals (1989) by Edwin Smith and Olive Cook and a pack of ‘Anglican Cathedrals of England’ Top Trumps Cards.

‘What I thought was going to be incredibly simple became intricate, complicated and utterly absorbing. The journey was memorable and wonderfully hypnotic, a kind of reflective pilgrimage. My cathedral days involved hours of driving and thinking, with my reference Polaroids drying in the sun on the dashboard. England passed by.’ Peter Marlow ‘The English Cathedral’

The photographs were published as a book by Merrell, with a foreword written by Martin Barnes, Senior Curator of Photographs at the V&A. The first edition in 2012 and second edition in 2015. A full set of the prints are held in the V&A’s permanent collection.

With generous funding from the Victoria and Albert Museum and their Photographs Acquisition Group, a touring exhibition followed the book.

It is the ambition of the Peter Marlow Foundation to fulfil Peter’s desire for the exhibition to be hosted by all 42 cathedrals.The exhibition has so far been hosted by Coventry, Ely, Blackburn, Portsmouth, Carlisle, Winchester, Ripon, Southwell, Bradford, St Albans, St Pauls, Hereford, Newcastle, St Edmundsbury, Wakefield, Lincoln, Wells, Manchester, Rochester and Peterborough. The tour dates for the rest of 2024 are:

• Derby: 23 July 2024 – 1 September 2024
• Chester: 10 September 2024 – 1 October 2024
• Worcester: 8 October 2024 – 17 November 2024