Ron McCormick

Renowned art critic, photo-historian and author of ‘Photography: A Concise History‘ and ‘The Photography Book‘, Ian Jeffrey remarked in a review for Creative Camera magazine:

“…Ron McCormick’s elegant and brutally honest pictures encapsulate this metamorphosis with precision and aplomb.”

Ron McCormick has exhibited and published internationally for 50 years. He has a background in both fine art and photography, and studied painting at Liverpool College of Art followed by post-graduate studies at the Royal Academy Schools, London from 1968-71. Professionally he has worked as a reportage photojournalist throughout the 1970s for a range of book publishers and magazines including New Society, Times Educational Supplement, Time Out, Design Magazine and Socialist Worker Press and has been actively involved in social issues and community initiatives since the early 1970s. 

Following a period as Artist in Residence at Newport College of Art, South Wales (1977/78), he was invited to teach at the renowned School of Documentary Photography in Newport, (now Univ. of South Wales) from 1979-97 where he established and directed the NEWPORT SURVEY an annual record of life and work in the community of Newport.  He was appointed Visiting Fellow at the West Australia Institute of Technology (now Curtin University, Perth in 1983 and spent twelve months photographing the mining areas of Western Australia before returning to teach at Newport.  In 1997 he took up a new academic post as Head of Design in the School of Art at Southampton Solent University where he also established the University Art Collection and became its first curator 2001-14.

He was director of the Half Moon Gallery in the East End of London 1972-75 and founding director of Side Gallery, Newcastle on Tyne from 1976-78. In 2002 he established Communimedia a community focused design & production enterprise and over a period of 8 years worked with the local Stow Hill Community Group to publish the quarterly magazine ECHO, for the area of Stow Hill, Newport

His photographs are represented in the collections of Bibliotheque Nationale; National Library of Wales; Arts Council of Great Britain, The Crafts Council, Contemporary Arts Society for Wales, Ffotogallery Wales, Curtin University Perth.WA, Southampton Solent University and Newport Museum & Art Gallery.

He has exhibited widely over 50 years including shows at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London; Whitechapel Art Gallery, Serpentine Gallery, The Photographers Gallery, Barbican Gallery, MIT Cambridge USA; La Photo Galeria, Madrid; Galerie im Lichtof, Stuttgart; Saidye Bronfman Centre, Montreal; John Hansard Gallery, Southampton; and Cardiff’s Ffotogallery.

 

Recent publications include:

CRIMINAL ORNAMENTATION by Yinka Shonibare. Pub. Hayward Gallery Publishing, London. 2019

THE DASH BETWEEN by Rob Bremner.  Pub. Bluecoat Books, Liverpool 2018
(McCormick contributed a foreword to this publication)

CARROTFLY Ron McCormick, Pub. Communimedia, Newport, Wales 2018

Triumph Workers Lock-in. by Ron McCormick, Pub. Café Royal Books, Southport 2018

Whitechapel Boy; a reading of the poetry of Isaac Rosenberg.  C. Searle & R. McCormick, Pub. Communimedia, Newport Wales 2018

Whitechapel in the 1970’s  Part One and Part Two.  By Ron McCormick
2 volumes  Pub. Café Royal Books, Southport 2018

Stepney Words III,  Pub. Rich Mix, London 2017

Post-War to Post-Modern: A Dictionary of Artists in Wales Pub. Gomer Press, Wales, 2015

Havelock Street Presbyterian Church, Pub. Communimedia, Wales 2009

NO SUCH THING AS SOCIETY: Photography in Britain 1967-1987, Pub. Hayward London 2007