“My way into photography was through family snaps in the mid-1960’s. I had no formal training, but after the snaps came portraits, reportage, and finally, through my love of walking, landscape photography, all in black and white. A Fellowship with the National Museum of Photography in Bradford led to urban landscape in colour, and very personal close-up work in colour has followed. Although I have never taught formally in the academic system, I have lectured and tutored workshops widely, both in UK and abroad.”
Ten years of working on walkers’ guide books, amongst others, and commissions from arts associations, led to the publication of Land, a survey of Fay Godwin’s first ten years of landscape work in 1985, which was reprinted four times and sold 25,000 copies. Other publications include:Remains of Elmet, with poems by Ted Hughes, in 1979; a completely new edition, with new poems and photographs, called Elmet was published in October 1994; The Secret Forest of Dean in 1986; and Our Forbidden Land in 1990, for which she wrote her own text.
She wrote an essay for Charter 88 The Copyrighting of our Heritage: Who Owns the Land? 1994. The Edge of the Land, with many recorded conversations with people living near the sea was published by Cape in April 1995.
In 1999 she self-published a small `artist’s book’ Glassworks and Secret Lives. During 1997she worked on a commission from Northern Arts: “Art and the Managed Landscape:
Challenging the Romantic Stereotype” as part of 1996 UK year of Visual Arts, based on the Wordsworth Trust in Grasmere.
She has had many one-person exhibitions in UK and abroad: including Land at the Arts Council’s Serpentine Gallery in 1985; as well as at Yale and Stanford Museum of Art, USA; a British Council international touring exhibition from 1984 to 1994; other one-person exhibition venues include the Photographers Gallery, London, 1985, the National Museum of Photography in Bradford, 1986 and 1988, and The Royal Photographic Society, Bath in 1990.
Her exhibition of colour work, Glassworks & Secret Lives was toured nationally by the Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre from 1995 until 1997
Numerous Prizes and Awards include a Major Arts Council of Great Britain award in 1978; 1986/7 Fellow at the National Museum of Film, Photography and Television in Bradford where she worked on an extended project on Bradford in colour, shown on their giant Imax screen; Bursary from Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, to photograph the Forest of Dean, 1985/6; the first Green Book of the Year Award from Books for a Change for her book, Our Forbidden Land, 1990; Award from Erna & Victor Hasselbad Foundation, 1995.
Fay Godwin’s work is in public and private collections worldwide, including the National Museum of Photography, Bradford; the British Council; the National Portrait Gallery, London; the British Library, London; the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the Stanford Museum of Art and other museums in USA.
She was the first photographer to have a full-length feature on the South Bank TV Arts Show; to have work purchased by the Contemporary Arts Society; to exhibit with the British Council’s Fine Art Department, and at the Yale Center for British Art.
She was President of the Ramblers’ Association, 1987-90, and is now life vice-president; Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society, 1990; Fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, 1992.
Fay Godwin joined Network Photographers, photographic agency, in 1991, and Collections in 1994. She is represented by Zelda Cheatle Gallery, London and The Photographers’ Gallery Print Room, London.
She is now working towards a retrospective exhibition at the Barbican Centre in London for 2001, with an accompanying retrospective publication.