Hauser & Wirth is pleased to present the first Los Angeles solo exhibition by British photographer Sir Don McCullin, CBE, Hon FRPS, whose indelible images of war from around the world and of social strife in his home country generate constant international acclaim. A prelude to McCullin’s 2019 retrospective at Tate Britain — the museum’s first ever survey for a living photographer — the LA exhibition comprises more than 30 works. A selection of the works on view speaks of the erection of the Berlin Wall, the conflict in Northern Ireland, and of the Vietnam War, shown here on the 50th anniversary of the bloodiest year of that infamous conflict. Most photographs, shown in the form of rare platinum prints, address the complexity of McCullin’s human experience, notably in Africa and India, or depict hauntingly beautiful English landscapes and still life. ‘When human beings are suffering, they tend to look up, as if hoping for salvation,’ McCullin has often stated. ‘And, that’s when I press on that button.’ The exhibition will be accompanied by a Book and Printed Matter Lab installation made up of archival materials from the six decades of the photographer’s uniquely long career, including video footage, ephemera, and the camera, still lodged with a bullet hole, that literally saved his life.
