Peter Mitchell (photographer)

Mitchell was born in Manchester in 1943.

In 1979 Impressions Gallery showed his work A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission, which considered what Leeds would look like to aliens arriving from Mars.[1] Martin Parr described this show as groundbreaking.[2]

His images of Quarry Hill flats were published as Memento Mori in 1990. His ongoing documentation of Leeds became the critically well received monograph Strangely Familiar.[3] Colin Pantall described this work as "a classic".[4] He told the BBC that it is a "gritty kind of sentimentality".[5] His follow-up, Some Thing Means Everything to Somebody (2015), shows inanimate objects looked over by scarecrows. Reviewer Karen Jenkins called it a "story of steadfastness and continuity".[6]

In 2007 Mitchell's work was included in How We Are: Photographing Britain a photography exhibition held at Tate Britain.[7]

• Memento Mori. Skipton, Dalesman, 1990. ISBN 9781870071482.
  • Bristol: RRB, 2016. facsimile edition.
• Strangely Familiar. Portland, OR: Nazraeli, 2013.
• Some Thing means Everything to Somebody. Bristol: RRB, 2015.
• Scarecrows. Bristol: RRB, 2015. "A collection of 12 of the Scarecrows from Some Thing means Everything to Somebody, plus a few new suspects, in a perforated postcard book."
• A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission. Bristol: RRB, 2017. ISBN 978-0993232367. Bilingual English and French language edition. With an essay by Val Williams.

• 1977 `SUMMER SHOW 4', Serpentine Gallery, London, selected by Dr. Aaron Scharf, with artists Jane England, Heather Forbes, John Goto, Jim Harold, Paul Joyce, Chris Locke, et al.[8][9]
• A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission, Impressions Gallery, York, UK, 1979. The exhibition considered what Leeds would look like to aliens arriving from Mars.[1][2]
• How We Are: Photographing Britain, Tate Britain, London, 2007.[7] With Mitchell, Keith Arnatt, Nicholas Battye, Jane Bown, Vanley Burke, Stephen Dalton, John Davies, Anna Fox, Paul Graham, Nancy Hellebrand, Chris Killip, Daniel Meadows, Horace Ové, Martin Parr, Martin Pover, Paul Reas, Derek Ridgers, Paul Seawright, Chris Steele-Perkins, Homer Sykes, Paul Trevor, and Tom Wood.
• Project Space Leeds (PSL), Leeds, UK, 2008. With Mitchell and Eric Jacquier. The exhibition showed how Leeds has changed since the 1960s.[10]
• Drawn By Light: The Royal Photographic Society Collection, National Science and Media Museum, Bradford, UK;[11] Media Space, Science Museum, London.[12] Photographs by Mitchell, Roger Fenton, William Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, Don McCullin, Terry O’Neill, Martin Parr and others.
• No Such Thing As Society: Photography in Britain 1967-1987, toured 2008–2010. Works from the collections of the British Council and Arts Council England, Hayward Gallery, London; Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth; Tullie House, Carlisle; Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds; National Museum, Cardiff; Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne; The Exchange, Penzance; Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland;[13] and Arbetets Museum, Norrkoping, Sweden.[14]
• Artist And Camera, Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds, UK, 2008.[15] With Mitchell, Gilbert & George, Cornelia Parker, and others
• Planet Yorkshire, Impressions Gallery, Bradford, UK, 2016.[16]
• A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission (Reprise), Rencontres d'Arles, Arles, France, 2016.[17]

Mitchell's work is held in the following public collections:

• Royal Photographic Society, Bath, UK[18]
• Leeds Art Gallery, Leeds, UK
• Tate Modern, London, UK

• Strangely Familiar - Peter Mitchell
• Leeds back streets in 1970s caught on camera