Description

In 1980 French Magnum photographer Raymond Depardon was commissioned by The Sunday Times Magazine to photograph Scotland’s largest city: Glasgow, on the River Clyde. The city has long been known for its architectural heritage – from its majestic Victorian squares to stern rows of tenements and brutal industrial giants – much of this building being the product of the city’s great Victorian-era wealth. However, in spite of this prosperous past and the city’s pivotal role in Britain’s industrial and cultural development, numerous areas of Glasgow were – at the time of Depardon’s visit – poverty stricken. The photographer focused his work on Glasgow’s famed slums and dock areas, capturing the imposing architecture and broad vistas, as well as the resilient nature of the city’s inhabitants.

The photographer is filled with doubt. Nothing will soothe him

Raymond Depardon
© Raymond Depardon | Magnum Photos

Raymond Depardon, born in France in 1942, began taking photographs on his family farm in Garet at the age of 12. Apprenticed to a photographer-optician in Villefranche-sur-Saône, he left for Paris in 1958.

He joined the Dalmas agency in Paris in 1960 as a reporter, and in 1966 he co-founded the Gamma agency, reporting from all over the world. From 1974 to 1977, as a photographer and filmmaker, he covered the kidnap of a French ethnologist, François Claustre, in northern Chad.

Alongside his photographic career, he began to make documentary films: 1974, Une Partie de Campagne and San Clemente. He has since made eighteen feature-length films and published forty-seven books.
Depardon joined Magnum in 1978. He is based in Paris.

© Raymond Depardon | Magnum Photos

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