NORTHERN SURVEY

MARTINE FRANCK

GALLERY

Born in 1938, Martine Franck was slow to pick up a camera. It wasnt until the later stages of her art history studies that she realised she wanted to go out and create something herself: I think I was shy as a young woman and realised that photography was an ideal way of expressing myself, or telling people what was going on without having to talk. In 1966 she met Henri Cartier-Bresson, acknowledged by many to be the greatest photographer of the 20th Century and father of modern photojournalism. They married in 1971. Henri was both critical and inspirational as well as warmly supportive of me as a photographer. She was nevertheless resolute in refusing to profit professionally from her marriage, cancelling her first solo exhibition at Londons ICA when she learned that the invitation talked of CartierBressons presence at the private view. In 1970 Franck joined Vu, the Paris photographic agency which broke up within a year of her arrival. She then went on to co-create a new agency Viva, in 1972: We had the same kind of ethos as at Magnum, except that we all lived in Paris and all did the same type of black and white photography. Viva also collapsed and it was not until 1980 that Franck joined Magnum, the celebrated agency which Cartier-Bresson had helped to found. She was one of the few women to be accepted Magnum and served as vice-president from 1998 to 2000. Eschewing the war/human tragedy reportage that characterised Magnums reputation, she continued her projects on marginal or isolated lives. Franck understood the need for strong composition, linking form and content. She would solve compositional problems on the spot, never improving an image by cropping in the darkroom. What I like about photography is precisely the moment that cannot be anticipated. One must be constantly on the alert, ready to claim the unexpected.

In the summer of 1978, Side Gallery commissioned Martine Franck to photograph in the North of England and the borders. The photographs in this exhibition are her own selection from the work she made at that time. During this period, her husband Cartier-Bresson was also exhibiting work at Side Gallery and would accompany her on the commission outings. Although they never worked together on the project, this exhibition does include photographs that he took during that time along with snippets of correspondence between both photographers and gallery staff, allowing a small insight into the relationships involved, the friendships made and the procedure of making the work. Martine Franck died in August this year at the age of 74. Side Gallery has programmed this exhibition from its archive in memory of a great photographer and a fruitful residency.

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