Steve Pyke
Encyclopedia
Steve Pyke MBE
(b. 1957) is a British photographer living in New York City
. From 1981 to 1984, he worked for diverse publications including The Face
and NME
. Pyke has been a staff photographer at The New Yorker
since 2004.
, Pyke left school at 16 to work in the local textile industry as a factory mechanic. He became involved in the turbulent music scene of the late 1970s, a move which led him into his first experiments in photography
. Pyke moved to London
in 1978. He became a singer in a number of bands and was involved with establishing a record label and
fanzines. During an extended motorcycle tour of the USA in 1976, he assembled a collection of Instamatic
pictures. On his return he Xerox
ed and coloured them and, fascinated by the results, purchased a Rolleiflex
camera. By 1980 he had abandoned rock music for the visual arts.
Pyke's early work was sold to magazines and the music press, and exhibited from 1982. It helped to define the emergent visual signature of the iconic 1980s magazine, The Face
. His first cover subject was John Lydon
, and Pyke's predilection for distinctive, graphically adventurous portraiture was immediately evident. He sought to develop his style by joining the Film
Centre Stream course at the London College of Printing in 1982, though he was an unconventional student, working as much on his own projects as college assignments. His independent mind attracted the film director Peter Greenaway
for whom Pyke created photographic works used in his films, stills and the poster shots for A Zed and Two Noughts, The Belly of an Architect
,
Drowning by Numbers
and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
. More recently his work featured prominently in Mike Nichols
' movie Closer
.
It was during an early project on film directors that Pyke established his trademark portrait
style, chancing on the little close-up lenses, that when placed on his Rolleiflex camera, allowed him to make incisive, direct images within the square 6x6cm negative. The first picture made in this way, of the film director Sam Fuller in 1983, was taken the same afternoon as Pyke found the Rolleinars in an Edinburgh
camera shop.
Throughout his career Pyke has developed, funded and then published a number of personal projects which have given his work shape and thrust. Best known perhaps are those on the world's leading thinkers "Philosophers" and on youth identity as expressed through "Uniforms". In the late nineties he completed the series, "Astronauts", photographing the men that had walked on the moon
as well as related still life artifacts from the Apollo Missions. Pyke has been collecting the Faces of Our Times for almost thirty years, recording those who have made a contribution to the history of the age. He has made a touching series on First World War veterans and The Holocaust Survivors as well as a major study of the worlds leading film directors. Confounding those who would define him simply as a portraitist, he has produced fascinating still-life projects that include his "Soles" series and the "Post Partum Post Mortem" collection. There is also powerful landscape work, exciting experiments in collage and multiple imagery, and a profound body of humanist street photography
.
Pyke has worked for many of the world's leading magazines, and published eight books which concentrate on different aspects of his work. His work has been exhibited widely in the UK, Europe
, Japan
, Mexico
and the USA and is held in many permanent collections, including the National Portrait Gallery, the Imperial War Museum
, the V&A in London, and the New York Public Library
.
In 2004 Pyke was appointed an MBE
in the Queen's New Years Honours list for his services to the Arts. In 2006 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society
. He became staff photographer at The New Yorker
in 2004 and lives in New York City.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(b. 1957) is a British photographer living in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. From 1981 to 1984, he worked for diverse publications including The Face
The Face (magazine)
The Face was a British music, fashion and culture monthly magazine started in May 1980 by Nick Logan.-1980s:Logan had previously created the teen pop magazine Smash Hits, and had been an editor at the New Musical Express in the 1970s before launching The Face in 1980.The magazine was influential in...
and NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
. Pyke has been a staff photographer at The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
since 2004.
Life and career
Born in LeicesterLeicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
, Pyke left school at 16 to work in the local textile industry as a factory mechanic. He became involved in the turbulent music scene of the late 1970s, a move which led him into his first experiments in photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
. Pyke moved to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1978. He became a singer in a number of bands and was involved with establishing a record label and
fanzines. During an extended motorcycle tour of the USA in 1976, he assembled a collection of Instamatic
Instamatic
The Instamatic was a series of inexpensive, easy-to-load 126 and 110 cameras made by Kodak beginning in 1963. The Instamatic was immensely successful, introducing a generation to low-cost photography and spawning numerous imitators....
pictures. On his return he Xerox
Xerox
Xerox Corporation is an American multinational document management corporation that produced and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction systems, photo copiers, digital production printing presses, and related consulting services and supplies...
ed and coloured them and, fascinated by the results, purchased a Rolleiflex
Rolleiflex
Rolleiflex is the name of a long-running and diverse line of high-end cameras originally made by the German company Franke & Heidecke, and later Rollei-Werk. The "Rolleiflex" name is most commonly used to refer to Rollei's premier line of medium format twin lens reflex cameras...
camera. By 1980 he had abandoned rock music for the visual arts.
Pyke's early work was sold to magazines and the music press, and exhibited from 1982. It helped to define the emergent visual signature of the iconic 1980s magazine, The Face
The Face (magazine)
The Face was a British music, fashion and culture monthly magazine started in May 1980 by Nick Logan.-1980s:Logan had previously created the teen pop magazine Smash Hits, and had been an editor at the New Musical Express in the 1970s before launching The Face in 1980.The magazine was influential in...
. His first cover subject was John Lydon
John Lydon
John Joseph Lydon , also known by the former stage name Johnny Rotten, is a singer-songwriter and television presenter, best known as the lead singer of punk rock band the Sex Pistols from 1975 until 1978, and again for various revivals during the 1990s and 2000s...
, and Pyke's predilection for distinctive, graphically adventurous portraiture was immediately evident. He sought to develop his style by joining the Film
Centre Stream course at the London College of Printing in 1982, though he was an unconventional student, working as much on his own projects as college assignments. His independent mind attracted the film director Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway
Peter Greenaway, CBE is a British film director. His films are noted for the distinct influence of Renaissance and Baroque painting, and Flemish painting in particular...
for whom Pyke created photographic works used in his films, stills and the poster shots for A Zed and Two Noughts, The Belly of an Architect
The Belly of an Architect
The Belly of an Architect is a 1987 film drama written and directed by Peter Greenaway, featuring original music by Glenn Branca and Wim Mertens....
,
Drowning by Numbers
Drowning by Numbers
Drowning by Numbers is a 1988 British film directed by Peter Greenaway. It was entered into the 1988 Cannes Film Festival.-Plot:The film's plot centers on three women — a grandmother, mother and daughter — each named Cissie Colpitts. As the story progresses each woman successively drowns her husband...
and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover is a 1989 romantic crime drama written and directed by Peter Greenaway, starring Richard Bohringer, Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren, and Alan Howard in the titular roles...
. More recently his work featured prominently in Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols
Mike Nichols is a German-born American television, stage and film director, writer, producer and comedian. He began his career in the 1950s as one half of the comedy duo Nichols and May, along with Elaine May. In 1968 he won the Academy Award for Best Director for the film The Graduate...
' movie Closer
Closer (film)
Closer is a 2004 romantic drama film written by Patrick Marber, based on his award-winning 1997 play of the same name. It was produced and directed by Mike Nichols and stars Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, Jude Law and Clive Owen...
.
It was during an early project on film directors that Pyke established his trademark portrait
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
style, chancing on the little close-up lenses, that when placed on his Rolleiflex camera, allowed him to make incisive, direct images within the square 6x6cm negative. The first picture made in this way, of the film director Sam Fuller in 1983, was taken the same afternoon as Pyke found the Rolleinars in an Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
camera shop.
Throughout his career Pyke has developed, funded and then published a number of personal projects which have given his work shape and thrust. Best known perhaps are those on the world's leading thinkers "Philosophers" and on youth identity as expressed through "Uniforms". In the late nineties he completed the series, "Astronauts", photographing the men that had walked on the moon
Moon
The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...
as well as related still life artifacts from the Apollo Missions. Pyke has been collecting the Faces of Our Times for almost thirty years, recording those who have made a contribution to the history of the age. He has made a touching series on First World War veterans and The Holocaust Survivors as well as a major study of the worlds leading film directors. Confounding those who would define him simply as a portraitist, he has produced fascinating still-life projects that include his "Soles" series and the "Post Partum Post Mortem" collection. There is also powerful landscape work, exciting experiments in collage and multiple imagery, and a profound body of humanist street photography
Street photography
Street photography is a type of documentary photography that features subjects in candid situations within public places such as streets, parks, beaches, malls, political conventions and other settings....
.
Pyke has worked for many of the world's leading magazines, and published eight books which concentrate on different aspects of his work. His work has been exhibited widely in the UK, Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
and the USA and is held in many permanent collections, including the National Portrait Gallery, the Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museum is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. The museum was founded during the First World War in 1917 and intended as a record of the war effort and sacrifice of Britain and her Empire...
, the V&A in London, and the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
.
In 2004 Pyke was appointed an MBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
in the Queen's New Years Honours list for his services to the Arts. In 2006 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society
Royal Photographic Society
The Royal Photographic Society is the world's oldest national photographic society. It was founded in London, United Kingdom in 1853 as The Photographic Society of London with the objective of promoting the Art and Science of Photography...
. He became staff photographer at The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
in 2004 and lives in New York City.