Focus Gallery, London, United Kingdom

Ian Berry Biography

Ian Berry was born in 1934.

Berry first attracted international attention in 1960, with his photo reportages of violent events in Africa, for the Daily Mail and later Drum magazine. At this time he also began to win respect among other photographers for his quieter pictures of everyday life, achieving a perfect harmony between the documentary and the aesthetic.

While based in Paris he was invited to join Magnum Photos in 1962 by Henri Cartier-Bresson. He moved to London in 1964 to become a photographer for the Observer Magazine.

He has undertaken worldwide assignments including: Russia's invasion of Czechoslovakia, conflicts in Israel and Ireland, wars in Vietnam, Zaire and Rwanda, famine in Ethiopia and apartheid in South Africa. Some of his works have led to two of his books - Black and Whites L'Afrique du Sud, with a foreword by the then French President, Mitterrand, and later, Living Apart, published by Phaidon.

Important editorial assignments have included works for National Geographic, Fortune, Stern, GEO, Esquire and other international magazines. He has also reported on the political and social transformations evident in China and the former USSR. Two recent projects involved retracing the steps of the original Silk Road through Turkey, Iran, and Southern Central Asia to Northern China for Conde Nast Traveller and photographing Berlin for a Stern supplement.

He has been the recipient of the following Awards: the first ever Nikon Photographer of the Year, Picture of the Year award from the National Press Photographers of America, British Press Magazine Photographer of the Year and the first Arts Council Grant which led to his acclaimed book,The English.

Ian Webb has held exhibitions in Tokyo, Perpignan, Paris, Hamburg, London, Belgium, Aix-en-Provence and the Museum of Photography in Bradford.