01 / 03

London at Night

The Wapping Project, Bankside, the new photographic gallery by Jules Wright of the Wapping Project, opens its second show on Thursday 26th November with a collection of images by the acclaimed Magnum photographer Peter Marlow from his London at Night series.

In 1981, the Photographers Gallery, London, commissioned Marlow to produce an exhibition on the theme of London at Night. Heavily influenced by the night photography of Bill Brandt who used long exposures to document London by Moonlight during the blitz, Marlow chose to concentrate on the London Docklands where he was living.

At the time, the areas around Limehouse and the Isle of Dogs were in the process of the extraordinary transformation from traditional docks to what we now know as Canary Wharf. The London at Night series is of particular importance it represents the first time Marlow felt he had found a ‘voice’ or signature in his work that was the bridge between traditional photojournalism in the Magnum tradition, and an independent unique vision.

The 30 vintage 20”x16 “ prints were produced by Marlow in his loft on the isle of Dogs in 1982 and still have the clothes peg marks on each corner where he hung them out to dry all those years ago. Marlow printed the London at Night series on a now obsolete paper called Ilford Gallerie, which together with the film had more silver in the base than today’s materials and produces a much more evocative image.

Today Marlow’s stark yet beautiful images are a haunting reminder of a forgotten Docklands; places like the Fred Olsen Terminal in the Isle of Dogs, designed by Norman Foster in 1969, and demolished to make way for the Canary Wharf Development.

Peter Marlow’s work is highly collectible and can be found in the permanent collections of some of the worlds most prestigious institutions such as Centre National de la Photographie, Paris, the Arts Council of Great Britain, the Institute Valenciano Arte Moderne (IVAM) Spain, and the Centre Pompidou Paris France