Andrew Catlin (born 1960)[1] is an English photographer, artist, director, cinematographer and filmmaker. His work has been widely published, and is included in numerous collections, books, exhibitions and archives.
Catlin grew up intrigued by both arts and science. His childhood was spent in London in the 1960s during a period of great transformation and social change. His father, Harry, was the son of a carpenter from the Midlands, who moved to London in the 1950's to work at the BBC. His mother, Joan, was from the north east of England, growing up in county Durham, before coming to London to study English and then finding work at the BBC, where she met Harry.[citation needed]
Catlin had early interests in ethology and also photography, which was encouraged by his father, himself a keen photographer. In 1978, Catlin was awarded the Prince Philip Prize for Zoology by the Zoological Society of London for a research project completed while at school.[2] After attending University College London, he continued his studies with a psychology degree at Durham University before returning to London to do a research degree in Learning and Development at University College London.
During this time he developed his interest in photography. Early work for NME, Melody Maker, Smash Hits, POP and Spin quickly extended to other publications, and commissions from record companies, musicians, designers and artists internationally. His work appeared on record sleeves, books and magazine covers. He was one of the photographers chosen to document the Live Aid concert in 1985 and was the largest single contributor to the subsequent exhibition and book.[3]
During the 1980s he began directing music videos.[4] During a visit to Japan while working with Bryan Adams, he was experimenting with a Super-8 movie camera, when Adams asked if he would film one of his live songs. The black and white clip that followed was reviewed by Chrissy Iley in Direction Magazine as a great debut.[citation needed] His second video, for the Cowboy Junkies track, Blue Moon was given a feature in Direction:
"Blue Moon surprised me, impressed me, and I'm hard to impress, especially with performance videos. Its approach is not clinical or technical or corporate. But its flickered lights and sepia faces strike a mood that few directors of the three-minute clip even bother to think necessary. The facial expressions are important to him, and are carefully monitored with his portraiture eye. Fortunately, MTV shared my view and put it on heavy rotation."(Chrissy Iley).[citation needed]
Catlin was Director of Photography for Elements of Mine, a film by Egyptian director Khaled El Hagar which was awarded First Prize in the Toronto Moving Pictures Festival (MoPix Award 2004). [5]
In 2008, drawing together experience from photography, filmmaking and graphic design, he began a project called "The Matrix Series", exploring graphic compositions with complex multi-frame narratives.[citation needed] Each piece was shot as a set of images designed to interact in multiple dimensions, combining elements of time, movement, rhythm, narrative and graphic structure, while remaining within an essentially documentary framework. In his essay "Nine Hastings Photographers" Vasileios Kantas proposes that
"Andrew Catlin's imagery formations could be considered as a study on perception. His matrix suggests a unique syntax, of which the visual elements have been formed partly coincidentally - the subject's actions - and partly in a controllable way - the photographer's decisions. The way the sub-frames are selected and positioned in the matrix is preconceived, though it does not serve the linearity of time which seems to be loosened, if not abolished. The display of the sub-frames allows different reading strategies, seemingly serving many goals simultaneously."
"In his Matrix series, he has somehow merged the rigorously formal with the luminously observational. Whereas the likes of Blossfeldt and the Bechers created visual typologies, arranging plants and industrial water towers respectively in grids that echo the natural and man-made sameness of their subjects, Catlin has used the grid format to render a series of what he calls "critical" moments. The resulting images are both formally detached and acutely observational, ordered yet intimate. ... Andrew Catlin is a photographer with a scientific eye. He is obsessive, meticulous and rigorous, but also a quiet, unobtrusive observer of the everyday sublime. It shines brightly though his big pictures."[6]
In 2021 he produced an exhibition and book of portraits, Rebel Song, exploring the connections of history and faces of Irish music. Excerpts from the book were presented by The Irish Cultural Centre in London, with commentary:
"Rebel Song; Faces of Irish Music is a collection of photographs of some of the most important musicians who changed the face of Irish Music into the international force it is today. With the words of Irish song's, quotes from the musicians, and written commentaries on Irish history and on British colonial rule in Ireland, published throughout – what emerges is a powerful and sublime book which charts the evolution from Irish folk, into rebellious Rock, Pop and Protest Songs and Punk, which burst into the sounds and voice of a nation's resistance and exploded onto a global stage.
What's so extraordinary about the book is that its author, photographer Andrew Catlin, is an Englishman, who knew nothing about Irish history at the outset. While producing the book Catlin under-went a journey of discovery to find the connection between Irish music, the history of Ireland, and the passion, power and intensity of some of the greatest Irish songwriters and performers of the last 50 years.
Catlin says "Many of the references in Irish songs – people and places that in Ireland carry a heavy weight of history – have no meaning at all in England. You feel the strength of emotion, but unrecognised names seem quaint or unimportant. It can be shocking when you find a familiar song is about a shameful episode of British brutality."[7]
His photography is held in major collections and archives worldwide, ranging from The National Portrait Gallery in London[8] to the Schwules Museum in Berlin.[9]
The Pogues were an English or Anglo-Irish Celtic punk band fronted by Shane MacGowan and others, founded in King's Cross, London, in 1982, as Pogue Mahone—an anglicisation by James Joyce of the Irish phrase póg mo thóin, meaning "kiss my arse". Fusing punk influences with instruments such as the tin whistle, banjo, cittern, mandolin and accordion, the Pogues were initially poorly received in traditional Irish music circles—the noted musician Tommy Makem called them "the greatest disaster ever to hit Irish music"—but were subsequently credited with reinvigorating the genre. The band later incorporated influences from other musical traditions, including jazz, flamenco, and Middle Eastern music.
Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan was a British-born Irish singer-songwriter and musician known as the lead vocalist and primary lyricist of Celtic punk band the Pogues. He also produced solo material and collaborated with artists including Joe Strummer, Nick Cave, Sinéad O'Connor, and Cruachan. Known for his exceptional songwriting ability and his heavy alcohol and drug use, MacGowan was described by The New York Times as "a titanically destructive personality and a master songsmith whose lyrics painted vivid portraits of the underbelly of Irish immigrant life".
The Popes are a band originally formed by Shane MacGowan and Paul "Mad Dog" McGuinness, who play a blend of rock, Irish folk and Americana.
If I Should Fall from Grace with God is the third studio album by Celtic folk-punk band the Pogues, released on 18 January 1988. Released in the wake of their biggest hit single, "Fairytale of New York", If I Should Fall from Grace with God also became the band's best-selling album, peaking at number three on the UK Albums Chart and reaching the top ten in several other countries.
Harry Morey Callahan was an American photographer and educator. He taught at both the Institute of Design in Chicago and the Rhode Island School of Design.
Red Roses for Me is the debut studio album by the London-based band the Pogues, released on 15 October 1984. It was produced by Stan Brennan, who had managed the Nipple Erectors/The Nips and Rocks Off Records shop in London.
"Fairytale of New York" is a song written by Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan and recorded by their London-based band the Pogues, featuring English singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl on vocals. The song is an Irish folk-style ballad and was written as a duet, with the Pogues' singer MacGowan taking the role of the male character and MacColl playing the female character. It was originally released as a single on 23 November 1987 and later featured on the Pogues' 1988 album If I Should Fall from Grace with God.
Hell's Ditch is the fifth studio album by The Pogues, released on 1 October 1990, and the last to feature frontman Shane MacGowan as a member.
Waiting for Herb is the sixth studio album by the Pogues, released in 1993, and their first without lead singer Shane MacGowan.
Peace and Love is the fourth studio album by the Pogues, released in July 1989.
The Nips are an English punk rock band formed in London in 1976 as the Nipple Erectors by punk artist Shanne Bradley. They were Shane MacGowan's first musical group.
Peter Richard "Spider" Stacy is an English musician, singer, songwriter, and actor. He is best known for playing tin whistle and sometimes singing for The Pogues.
Susheela Raman is a British musician. She was nominated for the 2006 BBC World Music Awards. Her debut album Salt Rain was nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2001. She is known for energetic, vibrant, syncretic, and uplifting live performances built on the sacred Bhakti and Sufi traditions of India and Pakistan.
"A Rainy Night in Soho" is a song by The Pogues released in 1986, originally included on their Poguetry in Motion EP.
Pogue Mahone is the seventh and final studio album by The Pogues, released in February 1996. The title is a variant of the Irish phrase póg mo thóin, meaning "kiss my arse", from which the band's name is derived. It was the band's second studio album recorded after the departure of Shane MacGowan, and features Spider Stacy in the role of lead singer.
"Sally MacLennane" was a single released by The Pogues in 1985. It was the second single by the band to make the UK Top 100, reaching number 54. The song was composed by Shane MacGowan and featured on the band's second album, Rum Sodomy & the Lash. The song is based on a bar his uncle owned which served Irish Ford workers in Dagenham.
Siobhan MacGowan is the author of two novels, The Trial of Lotta Rae and The Graces. Living in Ireland, she has also worked in journalism and the music business. She is the sister of the late Shane MacGowan, lead singer of the Irish group The Pogues.
The Crock of Gold was the second and final full-length album by Shane MacGowan and the Popes and was released in November 1997 on ZTT Records. The Crock of Gold followed The Snake, MacGowan's first solo album after the breakup of The Pogues, and was less critically acclaimed than its predecessor. The album is named for the novel by Irish writer James Stephens. It is the last full studio album MacGowan recorded before his passing in November 2023.
Poguetry in Motion is an EP by The Pogues, released on Stiff Records in the UK on 24 February 1986, and in the US & Canada on MCA Records. It was the band's first single to make the UK Top 40, peaking at number 29 and the first Pogues recording to feature Philip Chevron and Terry Woods.
Enda Bowe is an Irish photographer that lives and works in London. His publications include Kilburn Cherry (2013) and At Mirrored River (2016). Bowe was joint winner of the SOLAS Ireland award in 2015 and won second prize in the 2018 and 2019 Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. He has had solo exhibitions in Carlow and in Dublin.
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