George Wright ... bike, camera and knowledge of the greats who came before ...
- Chris Hilton
- May 15, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: Sep 18, 2025
It's fantastic when we get photographers of George's standing coming to the club to share his work but one of the things I really appreciate is when some of these photographers introduce us to the people that inspired them.
It all started at the Wimbledon School of Art ... with John Benton-Harris, an American photographer known for his portrayal of the British. It's often thought that you need to be a part of what you photograph in order to get to its essence ... but an outsider can sometimes cut through in a way that a local just can't. John introduced George to a wealth of photographers, amongst them Robert Frank, a Swiss outsider whose images of a shattered American dream were so pointed that The Americans had to be published first in Europe before making it's way back across the pond.
Chris Killip was another, Sea Coal is an extraordinary photobook. It's worth buying just for the introduction alone. It shows the dedication of some of these people ... Chris was an outsider, it took him from 1976 until 1982 to get to a place where he could even begin to photograph without people trying to drown him or run him over. The following year he moved into a caravan on site and spent the next fourteen months working on the project.
George and I have Tony Ray-Jones in common as an early interest, and once you've been introduced to him; how could you not be interested? An Englishman who cut his teeth photographing in America before returning home for an intense period photographing the British in such a unique and purposeful way that he went on to inspire the likes of Martin Parr.
John Benton Harris and the Wimbledon School of Art acquainted George with many more photographers work ... greats like Elliot Erwitt, Joseph Kouldeka, John McCullin, John Bulmer and Edward Weston.
George drifted into fashion photography as well as taking commissions from the broadsheets ... and in between times he traveled, always taking photographs and he shared some of that huge archive with us when he visited the club. We journeyed from the Arctic to Ushuaia, through the Baltic states and Eastern Europe, the Stans, Yemen, Iran and the Ukraine ... we traveled back in time to a Dorset that has all but disappeared. We saw it all through George's unique lens ...
Now and again you can catch George pointing that lens in Bridders ...
George is well published but most recently he has joined the lexicon of great photographers at Cafe Royal Books ...
Another photographer with collections at Cafe Royal is Barry Lewis, he'll be joining us at the club 18/09/24 ... save the date ...
