Brenda Prince Archive
About this Archive
Administrative/Biographical History
Brenda Prince was born in Hackney, London in 1950. An early interest in film led her to a job at the British Film Institute as publicity officer for 7 years in her 20’s. She took up photography in 1978 for political reasons, being fed up with the way women were constantly misrepresented and stereotyped, as well as other so-called ‘minority’ groups such as gay men & lesbians, Black people, people with disabilities and the elderly.
Brenda took an honours degree in Photographic Arts at the Polytechnic of Central London (now University of Westminster) in 1979-82. Her final degree exhibition focussed on Lesbian mothers and their children. After this she worked in a community darkroom in North Paddington where she began to document women in manual trades. In 1983 Brenda joined Format Photographers, the first all-women photographic agency/library. As a working-class woman, she felt it was important to document the 1984/85 miners strike from the miners wives’ perspective and she spent 18 months covering the mining communities in Nottinghamshire. This led to being commissioned with three other photographers (Raissa Page, Imogen Young and Izabela Jedrzejczyk) to participate in an exhibition at the Photographers Gallery in London called ‘Striking Women: Communities and Coal’.
She travelled amongst other countries to the Soviet Union, Philippines, and Iraqi-Kurdistan to document women’s lives.
In 1993 she focused on the struggle of women in the Church of England to become ordained as priests. Although not religious she saw it as an equal rights issue and spent a year photographing women in various roles. Women were first ordained as priests in 1994.
In 1997 Brenda began training to be a Counsellor. She often found it important to hear peoples’ stories as well as take their photograph. It was a Methodist minister working in a homeless shelter in east London who suggested she would make a good Counsellor as she was a good listener. In 2001 Brenda left Format Photographers, hung up her cameras and after four more years of training became a qualified psychotherapist in 2008. She has been a feminist all her adult life.
Scope and Content
Archive of photographer Brenda Prince (b 1950), including: black and white and colour photographic prints relating to politics; health; disability; housing; communities; training, employment, and education; demonstrations and protests; the LGBTQ+ community; countries; women and women’s rights movements; religion; generations; elderly people; and other miscellaneous subjects including police, graffiti, the environment, and death; black and white and colour negatives and contact sheets relating to women and the women’s right movement; the LGBTQ+ community; protests and demonstrations; countries; politics; training, employment, and education; religion; disability; communities; elderly people; health; poverty and homelessness; generations; and other miscellaneous subjects including the environment; colour slides relating to travel and countries including Iraqi Kurdistan; Philippines; South Korea; Japan; and Germany; oversized black and white and colour exhibition prints relating to countries including Iraqi Kurdistan and Philippines; women and work; women and religion; the Miners’ Strike (1984-1985); protest and demonstrations including the Greenham Common protests relating to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament; mothers and daughters; lesbian parents; elderly people; and Schooling and Culture (publication); press cuttings with photographs taken by Brenda Prince relating to women and religion; lesbian parents; and Iraqi Kurdistan (c1970-1997).
Quantity
23 boxes; 3 folders; 72 oversized prints; 4 oversized files; 1 oversized folder; [1,288 TIFFs]
