GPF: Fables of Faubus by Paul Reas

Guernsey Photography Festival and Guernsey Museum are proud to present this exceptional retrospective (1982-2012) by one of the most respected and influential British documentary photographers, Paul Reas.

Paul Reas was born into a working class family in Bradford, UK. Leaving school at the age of 15, he trained as a bricklayer for five years, before leaving to study documentary photography at the Newport College, Wales in 1982.

“Fables of Faubus” tells the story, in 6 different chapters, of the British working class from, as Paul Reas himself explains “the years of decline of industry and the fall out from that, communities being de-centred and levelled”. But behind the details you will find in each photograph hides another story, The story of Reas’s own journey – in particular through photography and how, throughout the years, his various personal and commercial projects shaped gradually his artistic vision.

This is an extraordinary body of work, presented chronologically, that reveals the social and economic context of the time, and Reas’ personal artistic development.