Paul Trevor

Photographer Paul Trevor has amassed a large, detailed archive of pictures documenting the lives, work, and relationships of townspeople throughout the UK over the past 45 years, much of it focused on the period of intense social, political, and economic changes between the 1970s and 1990s. Nonetheless, Trevor’s work is not strictly anthropological: his work, as well as that of his collaborative partners (Chris Steele-Perkins and Nicholas Battye, who worked with Trevor as the group Exit), is highly aestheticized. Many of Trevor’s images therefore exhibit a kind of visual depth, careful composition, and sense of dramatic action, not unlike traditional art-historical painting.

Trevor’s work has been shown at Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery, the Museum of Liverpool, and the Museum of London. His work is also the basis for a major multidisciplinary research project at London Metropolitan University.