About Sefton
Sefton Samuels is one of Britain’s most iconic photographers, but the path there has weaved via the old mills of Yorkshire and seedy jazz clubs around the North West of England.
Sefton was born in Manchester in 1931. He left Manchester Grammar School at 16, trained in textiles and went to work in mills around Yorkshire. But a camera was never far from his hand. Nor was a pair of drum sticks. An accomplished jazz drummer, Sefton at one point turned semi-professional playing alongside the likes of Karl Denver. The highlight was an appearance at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester with the Paul Beattie Skiffle Group – winning North West skiffle group of the year.
In 1960, Sefton was named the Manchester Evening News amateur photographer of the year – and headed back to his native city as it began to swing. It was during the sixties on the gritty streets of Manchester that he developed his trademark style of poignant photojournalism edged with a black northern humour. He became a supplier of photos for national newspapers, BBC and Granada TV – and ran the Sefton Photo Library until the early 1990s. He still lives in Manchester, England.
His accolades include:
- Sefton’s collection published by Ebury/Random House – Northerners: Portrait of a no-nonsense people. Watch a report about Sefton and Northerners on BBC Two’s The Culture Show.
- Winner of Royal Academy of Arts Eyewitness street photography award 2011
- Sefton Samuels: Jazz Legends – exhibition at Kings Place gallery as part of 2010 London Jazz Festival
- Major exhibition at Proud Gallery, London, of 1960s photos
- Solo exhibition at Barbican Centre of jazz photos
- Seventy pictures in the National Portrait Gallery
- Ten photos in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s National Collection of the Art of Photography
- Lowry pictures shown at Royal Academy
- Member of the Distinctions panel for the Royal Photographic Society, and exhibited at the RPS’ International Print Exhibition
- Winner in the M.I.L.K. contest – the world’s largest photographic competition which attracted entries from 17,000 photographers from 164 countries, which then exhibited in New York, London and Australia.
- George Best photo used on cover of Paul Weller album
- Addressed the National Art Fund
Sefton’s more unusual claims to fame include inadvertently causing a riot with fascists when trying to photograph Oswold Mosley, beating the world-record holder for the mile Derek Ibbotson in a 120-yards hurdle race and winning a Manchester beautiful baby contest in 1931.
