Shirley Baker: Women, Children and Loitering Men, The Photographers' Gallery

Pioneering artist Shirley Baker is believed to be the first female photographer to have documented the streets of post-war Britain, which memorialized the humanitarian crisis facing urban communities.

Shirley Baker photographer & technique

Baker’s work received little attention at the time it was produced, but she is now credited for portraying both the poverty and the resilience of Britain’s fractured postwar society. She maintained that all of her photographs were unposed, in an effort to reveal honestly the situation as it was.

The Photographers' Gallery exhibition 

This major show’s focus is Baker’s images capturing the urban clearance programmes of inner-city Manchester and Salford between 1961 - 1981. The works are grouped loosely  on a thematic basis, showing mothers and their babies; groups of children playing in the streets; and ending with a series of broken cityscapes, half-built of rubble and carrying the mark of war’s destruction.