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Arts Intel Report

Dark Tales: British Documentary Photography and the Gothic

Don McCullin, Woman with pram, Consett, 1974.

Sept 24 – Dec 20, 2026
Paintworks, 316, Arno's Vale, Bristol BS4 3AR, United Kingdom

The term Gothic conjures mysterious scenes from the early-19th-century Romantic period—misted castles and gargoyles, cathedrals and ruins. The curator Isaac Blease instead believes that eerie Gothic intimations continue to live in plain sight. In this exhibition at Martin Parr, Blease looks to the bleak everyday of postwar British society, a time defined by declining industrial influence, a fraught political climate, and potent civil unrest. That anxiety produced uncanny domestic images from photographers like Don McCullin and Derek Ridger. The prints on view, which include the work of Parr himself, span over 80 years and place images familiar yet unsettling on full display. —Maggie Turner

© Don McCullin. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.