Ella Murtha has been tirelessly maintaining and championing her mother – Tish Murtha – and her wonderful photographic archive for the last few years.
Tish died in March 2013 and yet, Ella, in her shock and grief, started to curate, mine and share the North East photographer’s collection.
Since then, Bluecoat Press have run two successful Kickstarter campaigns and published Tish’s ‘Youth Unemployment’ – a searing book on Thatcher’s discarded wastelands – and ‘Elswick Kids’ – an earlier series looking at the joy and lawlessness of childhoods spent on the streets.
David Hurn interviewed Tish for the Documentary Photography course in Newport and described it as the “shortest interview I had ever done”. He said “I asked her what she wanted to photograph and she said, “I want to take pictures of policemen kicking children”. He replied, “You’re in.”
Tish Murtha has recently come first in the RPS Photographic 100 Historical Heroines contest. Ella is continuing to work on her archive and she is excited about her beloved Mam’s work being shown in Berlin later this month.
Ella is naturally supportive of other photographers including Lens Think Yorkshire’s Jo Coates and Niall McDiarmid.
What propelled you to open up Tish Murtha's archive and could you tell me a bit more about who was instrumental in making this vision happen (curator, writer Val Wiliams, etc)?
When my Mam first died and I was clearing out her flat, I was really comforted by all her old photographs. They made a really awful time slightly easier. I also found a letter that stood out to me. It was from Gordon McDonald, who had sent it a few years earlier when he was the editor of Photoworks magazine. He had come to the North East to meet my Mam for a feature. His letter was really genuine, and I was touched by how much he seemed to have enjoyed meeting her, and also loved her work. I decided to let him know that unfortunately she had just died. I don't really know why, I just felt I had found his letter for a reason. Gordon was lovely, and responded, telling me that he had also lost two members of his family recently - he knew what I was going through. We stayed in touch and I kept him informed of my plans for the archive a few years later. By this point, through Facebook, Paul Reas who is the course leader of the documentary photography course at USW had very kindly offered the university's help with the initial scanning of some of the archive and the first book was planned. It was meant to be published by GOST books which Gordon was part of.
Gordon decided to introduce me to Val Williams, as he thought she was the perfect fit for the project, and luckily she agreed. She has been a huge support and really pushed the archive. Gordon then left GOST and book publishing altogether. Val was actually going to publish my Mam’s work as the first book for her new press, but she decided that my Mam’s work was too important to be a guinea pig and she encouraged me to self-publish! She had so much faith in me, she thought I could do it, but I couldn't cope with the thought of pallets of books at my home and the practical side of book making. I started looking at other publishers, and was introduced to Colin Wilkinson by the photographer Jim Mortram. As soon as I met Colin, I knew he was the right man for the job. He wasn't in any way pushy, he said I could make the book I thought Tish would want, and he was just there to take the stress out of it. I knew he was a decent, kind man and we shook on it. Gordon and Val were both really happy for me, Val wrote the essay for the book and they both wanted to be involved in a possible exhibition, which is how they ended up co-curating Tish Murtha: Works 1976-1991 with Karen McQuaid at The Photographers Gallery last year. For the whole process I have gone with my gut instincts, and I feel lucky to have worked with some very special people.
Did you have a favourite picture or project that you liked of your Mam's when you were young? Did you want to be a photographer too?
Growing up, photographs were like our wallpaper, they were stuck up all over with Blutac, not much wall visible. My mam wasn't precious about them, they were just pieces of paper with great images on and she liked to enjoy them. One that always stood out to me was Karen at the sunset strip from the London by Night exhibition. Karen and my Mam were great friends, they lived in a shared house in little Russell Street, London, when Tish was photographing Soho. Tragically, Karen was knocked off her push bike in a hit and run accident and killed. I was only 3 at the time, but I remember how sad my Mam was.
I have always enjoyed photography but have never wanted to be a photographer. I love how much my Mam loved it - her camera was an extension of her - and she was so at home in a darkroom. As a child it seemed to me like the chemicals/fix smell was coming out of the pores of her skin. She lived and breathed it. She encouraged me to follow my own passion which was music. I can still hear her saying "Never let your talents go to waste".
There has been an immensely positive reaction to Tish's work including two books by Bluecoat Press - Youth Unemployment and Elswick Kids as well as exhibitions at The Photographers' Gallery in London and interest from the National Portrait Gallery. How have you processed that - & does it propel you to new projects?
I don't know if I have really taken any of it in yet. Both books were funded by Kickstarter which is a very intense process. It is scary, exhilarating and exhausting. The sense of community from a Kickstarter campaign is really special though. People like to feel like they have been part of something and helped get it made. I'm the same. I try to back others when I can. All the success is bittersweet for me though. The first person I want to tell about everything isn't here. My first instinct is "eee I must tell me Mam" and then I can't. So I feel a bit numb. I try to remember that I'm building her legacy, so Tish Murtha isn't forgotten - I'm so proud of her - but it is quite sad and lonely. I have a few exciting things planned for this year, several international exhibitions, the first opening at Willy Brandt Haus in Berlin at the end of March, and also a third book of the Juvenile Jazz Bands series, so plenty more to come from the archive.
Tish has been selected as one of the RPS Historical Heroines and won. Apart from Tish, who are some of your favourite photographic historical heroines?
My favourite historical heroines apart Tish are Dorothea Lange and Mary Ellen Mark. I was so honoured to discover she had been nominated, but I almost missed this entirely. I only found out two days before the voting closed when someone sent me a link to vote. March is a really difficult month for me, with the anniversary of my Mam’s death on the 13th and then her birthday the next day on the 14th, and my head had been up my arse for most of it. I seem to be feeling her loss more than ever at the moment, so for her to be nominated, and also win it, is really wonderful.
Do you think the current political situation of austerity is one reason people identify so much with Tish's work?
Possibly, Tish was really enraged by the political landscape of the time. She saw Youth Unemployment as the squandering of a whole generation of human potential and her warnings are eerie, especially when read now in the present climate. I think there is a whole new generation of photographers with very similar feelings of political rage and they are following the lead from the older social photographers. We can learn a lot about ourselves/current situations from studying the past.
Which contemporary exhibitions or photobooks in the photographic world are you a fan of?
I am a huge fan of Niall McDiarmid - his work is stunning and his use of colour is exquisite. When I'm scrolling through Instagram, if I see one of his images it always stops me in my tracks. You just know it is one of Niall’s. There was one the other day of this woman in red looking in the window of a bookshop and it is magical. I have met Niall briefly a few times and he is really canny too, so I can see why his work is as good as it is - he has a lovely way about him. I think he is fabulous. I am very intrigued by Margaret Mitchell and her work documenting her family over the years in Glasgow. I've never met Margaret, but I know Colin is planning on publishing a book of her work later this year, so I'm hoping to at some point, with her being part of the Bluecoat Press family.
Someone else I really admire is Jo Coates who is interested in working life and class inequality and is the founder of Lens Think Yorkshire. She is really special. I felt like I knew her long before I met her. Jo has so much passion and fire in her belly and a heart so big that she feels things so intensely but never gives up. I think Jo will go down in history. She is such a big supporter to others in the industry, and doesn't have it easy. She has been struggling with in work poverty and not even being able to afford to go to see her own work being exhibited recently. This is something to my heart as my Mam never had a pot to piss in. There are so many good photographers documenting the now actually, a lot living in poverty themselves, but feeling the need to use their cameras with the desire to spark change through their work, but those three stand out for sure.
Would you like to use your experience developing, curating, publicising and writing about Tish's work by working with other photography collections?
Possibly in the future. I have had no training/education in it. I manage my Mam’s archive because I love her and her work. It sort of happened naturally. I just know what I like and go with how an image makes me feel. Whether I am qualified to work on other photography collections, I'm not sure. I would give it a good go if I was lucky enough to be offered the chance to. I think there must be so many important archives out there waiting to be discovered.
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