Peter Mitchell

• RRB 2020
  
• Hardback, 1st edition
  
• New
  

Peter Mitchell’s Early Sunday Morning is made up of over 90 previously unpublished images, each one selected from a cache of five hundred negatives which have sat undeveloped for over 30 years.

Early Sunday Morning, edited and sequenced by John Myers, shows a different Leeds to Mitchell’s earlier publications. It is neither the sombre look at destruction seen in Memento Mori, nor the detached view of ‘the man from mars’ of A New Refutation of the Viking 4 Space Mission, but a more intimate document of Mitchell’s own Leeds.

The book reveals the layers of the city’s history, exposed by the changes to the urban landscape that epitomised the 1970s and 80s. Hundred-year-old terraces and cobbled streets sit flanked by concrete flats, with newly cleared ground to either side are presented with Mitchell’s typical graphic framing.

“It is as if Peter Mitchell has taken the atmosphere and mood of Edward Hopper’s famous painting and established it as a matter of documentary fact in the north of England at a moment when collapse can lead to further desolation or possible renewal. So these beautiful pictures are drily drenched in history – social, economic and photographic.”  - Geoff Dyer

Early Sunday Morning is available in an edition of 1500 copies.

• RRB 2021
• Hardback, 1st edition
• New

I photograph dying buildings and Quarry Hill was terminal by the time I got to it. Times change and I know there was no point in keeping Quarry Hill Flats. But what it stood for might have been worth keeping” - Peter Mitchell

RRB Photobooks are pleased to announce the forthcoming publication Epilogue -The Demise of the Quarry Hill Flats by Peter Mitchell. The book acts as a sequel to his 1990 publication Memento Mori, which documented the dramatic impact of the Quarry Hill redevelopment project in Leeds. 

The book contains over 40 new images, documenting the abandonment and subsequent demolition of the site, adding a poignant final chapter to the 1990 publication and its later facsimile edition. Largely eschewing the archive material seen in Memento Mori, Epilogue takes a more narrative approach to telling this final part of the story. Mitchell is again the lone wanderer in an increasingly unpopulated and other-wordly landscape.

Quarry Hill was a large housing estate in Leeds built in the 1930's as part of a ‘great social experiment’ to accommodate an entire community of 3000 people. By the 1970's both the vision and the flats were crumbling and the decision was made to demolish.

Though the notion of Utopia underpins the narrative of Quarry Hill, from its passionately visionary beginnings to its step-by-step decline and final end, there are no real morals or easy conclusions to be drawn.  As Bernard Crick wrote, it was “small things, not any inherent fault in the grand design, which destroyed Quarry Hill.”  It was more about timings than anything else - a sad ending. Peter Mitchell’s chronicles and photographs simply show what happens to utopias when they implode.

All copies will also ship with a  5x5" signed c-print (horse image)

• RRB 2021
• Hardback, 1st edition
• New

I photograph dying buildings and Quarry Hill was terminal by the time I got to it. Times change and I know there was no point in keeping Quarry Hill Flats. But what it stood for might have been worth keeping” - Peter Mitchell

RRB Photobooks are pleased to announce the forthcoming publication Epilogue -The Demise of the Quarry Hill Flats by Peter Mitchell. The book acts as a sequel to his 1990 publication Memento Mori, which documented the dramatic impact of the Quarry Hill redevelopment project in Leeds. 

The book contains over 40 new images, documenting the abandonment and subsequent demolition of the site, adding a poignant final chapter to the 1990 publication and its later facsimile edition. Largely eschewing the archive material seen in Memento Mori, Epilogue takes a more narrative approach to telling this final part of the story. Mitchell is again the lone wanderer in an increasingly unpopulated and other-wordly landscape.

Quarry Hill was a large housing estate in Leeds built in the 1930's as part of a ‘great social experiment’ to accommodate an entire community of 3000 people. By the 1970's both the vision and the flats were crumbling and the decision was made to demolish.

Though the notion of Utopia underpins the narrative of Quarry Hill, from its passionately visionary beginnings to its step-by-step decline and final end, there are no real morals or easy conclusions to be drawn.  As Bernard Crick wrote, it was “small things, not any inherent fault in the grand design, which destroyed Quarry Hill.”  It was more about timings than anything else - a sad ending. Peter Mitchell’s chronicles and photographs simply show what happens to utopias when they implode.

Special Edition of 100 copies, Inclusive of a signed & limited print of 'Abandoned Car' see first image after cover.  

For a limited period this will also ship with an additional 5"x5" signed c-print (horse image)