Tish: The Hard Life of a Documentary Photographer Who Could Not Compro...

A new documentary showing at Madison’s Arts and Literature Laboratory this week is a story of the life and work of documentary photographer Tish Murtha. The name of the film is Tish.

Murtha documented the lives of the people she knew in her hometown Newcastle upon Tyne in northeastern England in the 1970s. Her photographs of children playing in the streets amid urban decay captured the social divisions in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain.

Her subjects also included adults living with unemployment and London sex workers. Yet despite critical praise for her work, Murtha never found sustained support from the arts establishment in the UK, and she died in poverty in 2013.

But renewed interest in Murtha’s work has led to wider acclaim and the production of the documentary that will she shown in Madison this week. Tish follows Murtha’s daughter Ella in conversations with family and photographers who knew Murtha. The portrait that emerges is of an artist who held tight onto her artistic integrity, even when that meant losing professional opportunities.

The film’s producer, Jen Corcoran, spoke to Monday Eight o’Clock Buzz producer Nicholas Wootton about the film and elaborated on the challenges that Murtha faced.

Web posting by WORT producer Nicholas Wootton

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