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Bradford Mill
Introduction & collection description
Born in 1939, Duff began his career as a photo-journalist. His own work, however, explored the nature of society and humans as social beings. Interested in the ‘seven stages of man’, Duff’s work encompasses many aspects of human life –childhood, school, leisure, marriage, sex, work, unemployment, old age. The breadth of the collection donated to Sussex reflects these broad interests and provides a rich resource for research in a variety of disciplines. The photographs, taken between the 1950s and 1990s, document the development of fashion, transport, interiors, advertising, supermarkets and entertainment. Duff’s proximity and intimacy with his subjects also provides insight into people’s emotional and domestic lives. As a social record, these images reflect the focus and ethos of the Mass Observation Archive, which is why they are now housed at Sussex.
As the son of Peggy Duff, General Secretary of the CND, Euan Duff had unique access to many activities of the CND, including in 1959, the march from Aldermaston to London. 2 books based on this march make up part of the Euan Duff collection at Sussex. These include familiar images of banners and slogans but are exceptional due to the close contact that Duff had with the march. These photographs include images from within the march and within the demonstrators’ camps.
The collection consists of a number of dummy books, edited by Duff, some of which have been published. ‘How We Are’ was published in 1971, with a foreword by John Berger, and reflected Duff’s interest in exploring society. ‘Workless’ was published in 1975, with sociologist Dennis Marsden, and featured intimate portraits of unemployed men with their families. The dummy books demonstrate Duff’s editing process. The effect of the books is that images of different periods or places are presented together. Duff uses parallels, juxtapositions and sequences to make connections between photographs and encourage the viewer in new ways of thinking about the images. Few of the images have captions and some have no contextual information at all.
Samples of the images are now available online for the first time, accompanied by Duff’s own comments. The complete audio recording, totalling more than 2 hours, is also available in the Mass Observation Archive.
Further information on Euan Duff and his work can be found at .
Amy Clark March 2009