Don McCullin "Conflict-People-Landscape"
By Billy Kung
On the subject of some of the most famous images associated with conflict in the 20th and 21st centuries, from the Vietnam War to current conflicts in the Middle East, one immediately recalls Britain’s most celebrated and respected photographer Don McCullin (b. 1935), who is best known known for his stark and searing black-and-white images of wars in Vietnam and Cambodia, which appeared in the British newspapers The Observer and The Sunday Times.
The current exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Somerset, “Don McCullin: Conflict - People – Landscape,” covers over five decades of his work, presenting a comprehensive view of the photographer’s repertoire, from his first published photo of The Guvnors, a local Finsbury Park gang in The Observer in 1958, to his more recent images of landscape in the surroundings of his home in Somerset. In addition, the show includes a collection of McCullin’s personal memorabilia including the Nikon camera that saved his life from a sniper bullet during the Vietnam War.
