Remembering Martin Parr CBE
Manchester Met has paid tribute to influential documentary photographer and honorary alumnus, Martin Parr CBE.
Best known for his ironic and witty portraits of British life, Parr received an honorary award of Doctor of Arts from Manchester Met in 2008 for his ongoing contribution to photography and Manchester School of Art.
Parr passed away aged 73 at his home in Bristol on December 6, 2025, and is survived by his wife Susie, daughter Ellen, sister and grandson.
Born in Epsom, Surrey in 1952, Parr was inspired by his grandfather, a keen amateur photographer, and decided on his career path by the time he was a teenager.
He studied at Manchester Met’s Manchester School of Art – then known as Manchester Polytechnic – in the 1970s.
As a student he laid a marker of his genius when he ignored convention and designed a room set, decorated with his own framed photos, as a comment on personal taste. The project “Home Sweet Home” was later recreated for a major Barbican retrospective. Over the years, Parr returned to the University to give ‘masterclass’ lectures for photography students.
He rose to prominence in the mid-1980s, with his iconic photobook The Last Resort: Photographs of New Brighton 1986, a study of working class people on holiday in New Brighton in Merseyside.
His work captured the smallest details of everyday life from covered sunbathers and Conservative Clubs, village fetes and coffee mornings often using a colour-saturated palette that mimicked postcards from the 1950s and 1960s. His photographs were playful and had humour but also provoked debate and discussion.
In 2014, he launched the Martin Parr Foundation, which housed his own photo archive as well as his vast collection of British and Irish photography from other artists.
In 2020, Parr was recognised in the Queen’s 2021 birthday honours with a CBE for services to photography.
