Happy 10th birthday to Photo London, which returns to Somerset House with an impressive curation of established and emerging photography galleries presenting some of the best photography from around the world. Returning to Photo London for the 10th anniversary edition are several galleries who have exhibited at the fair since its inception including; Robert Hershkowitz Ltd, Flowers Gallery, Purdy Hicks Gallery and CAMERA WORK.
Photo London Director, Sophie Parker comments: “While we are a photography specific Fair, the works exhibited go far beyond images hung on walls. Photography can include sculpture, painting, performance, fabric, moving image, and even sound, and at Photo London we celebrate photography as an art object in all its forms. For our tenth anniversary edition I’m incredibly excited to see such a strong group of presentations by galleries from all over the world and I look forward to welcoming a mix of old friends and new faces to Somerset House.”
This year the Positions section dedicated to unrepresented photographic artists is curated by Maria Sukkar, arts patron and founder of the ISelf Collection. A theme of the devastation caused by ongoing global conflicts runs through Positions, which features emerging artists including Robert Conde, Mieke Douglas, Karim El Hayawan, Aikaterini Gegisian, Babak Kazemi, Kalpesh Lathigra, Bibi Manavi, Ippolita Paolucci and Adam Rouhana.
Critic and author Charlotte Jansen has curated the Discovery section and selected 21 galleries including New Discretions, a New York City gallery exhibiting work by Jordan Eagles whose work documents the trans community of Times Square in the late 80s and early 90s, and Jesse Glazzard–supported by The Face Magazine–exhibiting for the first time in public a series of images documenting queer soldiers in Ukraine.
Photo London Discovery section Curator, Charlotte Jansen explains: “The Discovery section at Photo London has always been, for me, the most exciting area of the Fair. As the name implies, it’s where you might find things that you’ve never seen before, which is quite a rarity these days, given our image-saturated culture. I am excited to see a sharp shift away from portraiture towards semi-abstraction and abstraction across many booths this year and to witness the ways contemporary artists are using the camera in a painterly way, like a brush, with captivating results”.
The popular Photo London Talks Programme returns for the tenth edition and is curated for a second year by Thames & Hudson. Highlightws of the 2025 line-up include Dennis Morris discussing his time touring with Bob Marley and The Sex
Pistols, and his explorations of race and cultural identity in 1970s Britain; Don McCullin in conversation with Francis Hodgson; Zofia Kulik in conversation with Fiona Rogers, tracing the artist’s radical trajectory from avant-garde collective KwieKulik to her politically charged solo work; ‘Calling the Shots’ and a panel on queer photography, featuring Ajamu X, Jake Elwes, Rosy Martin, Bex Wade, and chaired by Zorian Clayton of the V&A; behind-the-scenes in fashion with Robert Fairer, Sonnet Stanfill, and Adélia Sabatini; and a deep dive into early colour processes with Cally Blackman and Alistair O’Neill.
Here are Six Culturalee Picks from the 10th Anniversary edition of Photo London.
Sebastião Salgado at Polka Galerie (Paris)
GENESIS © Sebastião Salgado / Courtesy Polka Galerie
Polka Galerie presents a special display of platinum prints from Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado’s groundbreaking photographic series Genesis. Salgado was the first Photo London Master of Photography in 2015, and his Master of Photography exhibition featured a selection of these prints. Sundaram Tagiore Gallery are also exhibiting Sebastao Salgado. Born in Aimorés, Brazil, Salgado trained as an economist before becoming a photographer in the early 1970s. In 1979 Salgado joined Magnum, the international photography cooperative founded in 1947 by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, George Rodger and Chim (David Seymour). One of the most critically acclaimed living photographers in the world, Salgado’s master of the craft, expert eye and quest to capture the beauty and poverty of a dying planet have won him many honours for his work, including the Eugene Smith Award for Humanitarian Photography, two ICP Infinity Awards for Journalism, the Erna and Victor Hasselblad Award, and the Arles International Festival’s prize for best photography book of the year for Workers.
Brassaï and Brandt at Grob Gallery (Geneva)
Grob Gallery are presenting a curated selection of vintage photographs by Brassaï and Bill Brandt, marking their recent acquisition of the complete vintage photographic stock of Marlborough Gallery. British photographer Bill Brandt was a leading mid-20th century photographer who crafted his images with a surrealist eye. Brandt’s photography is exhibited with Hungarian-born French photographer Brassaï, who lenses many iconic images of 1920s Parisian life.
The Lee Miller Archives
When Lee Miller’s son Antony Penrose discovered boxes of her photographs in the attic of her home in East Sussex after her death in 1977, he set about preserving her legacy as a trailblazing war photojournalist and Surrealist photographer by establishing The Lee Miller Archives. The Lee Miller Archives return to Photo London for its 10th anniversary with a curated selection of iconic Miller images, including an exquisite 1940 self portrait when she was a celebrated Vogue model. This year The Lee Miller Archives exhibition focuses on her time as a World War II correspondent, presenting original prints from Miller’s war reportage from the frontlines of World War II, which was the subject of LEE, a film about Miller starring Kate Winslet.
David Bailey at Dellasposa (London)
© David Bailey
Dellasposa have dedicated their booth to rare and iconic photographs by legendary British photographer David Bailey, with a focus on his combination of minimalism and visceral authenticity. Featuring iconic Bailey images curated from his six-decade career and celebrating his visual contribution to British culture, the Dellasposa presentation pays homage to the visionary photographer who was instrumental in shaping the view of 1960s ‘Swinging London’ and New York. Portraits of iconic cultural figures such as Dylan, Hockney and Basquiat are exhibition alongside some of Bailey’s celebrate fashion images. Bailey’s photography can also be found in the special exhibition ‘London Lives’, curated by critic and author Francis Hodgson and featuring thirty leading photographers celebrating London’s rich photographic heritage.
Robin Hunter Blake at Guerin Projects
Emerging British-American photographer Robin Hunter Blake is exhibiting a series of intimate monochrome portraits of couples embracing at Guerin Projects. Blake’s unique technique is inspired by 19th century photographer Eadweard Muybridge’s chronophotography, which enabled him to study figures in motion photographically. Blake’s photography is cleverly curated by Guerin Projects founder Marie-Claudine Llamas who juxtaposes the images with Rodin’s iconic sculpture The Kiss, on loan from Bowman Sculpture.
Ragnar Axelsson at Qerndu Gallery (Iceland)
Icelandic publisher and gallery Qerndu are exhibiting breathtaking photography by Icelandic photographer Ragnar Axelsson (b. 1958). Axelsson has dedicated four decades of his life to capturing the northernmost parts of the world with his camera. His commitment to documenting remote Arctic landscapes and their inhabitants, whilst immortalising the endangered landscapes with his lens, is illustrated through his poignant monochrome images. Starting out as a journalist, Axelsson was driven by a sense of extreme urgency to quit his job and focus on documenting the Arctic’s untold stories before they disappear.
Photo London is at Somerset House until 18th May 2025.
