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Johnnie Shand Kydd interview

Johnnie Shand Kydd. After working at a Bond Street Gallery selling 19th Century paintings Shand Kydd began taking photographs of his artist friends, capturing the community of YBA's (Young British Artists) before they became household names and went on to photograph the artists featured in the Sensation show at the Royal Academy in 1997.

Date: 2 August 2002

Questions for Johnnie Shand Kydd

  1. How did you first get into photography?
  2. How did the photographs of the London art scene came about?
  3. Do you feel that your photographs make a part of that history?
  4. Are any of the artists you photographed close friends?
  5. What were you trying to create by photographing the artists in their studios?
  6. So you did not have a kind of agenda for capturing that informality?
  7. Is there a favourite photograph amongst those that the Gallery has acquired
    that you like most?
  8. How did you come to photograph Damien Hirst with cows?
  9. And how about the one of Georgina Starr, Gillian Wearing and Tracey Emin, dancing in Whitstable?

Download the transcript (389kb)