On The Big Green Sofa with Mary Nightingale: a conversation with Don McCullin
Tuesday 20 June 2017 7.45 - 9.30pm
The Academicians' Room, The Keeper's House, Royal Academy of Arts, Piccadilly
£20
Don McCullin joins Mary Nightingale for the sixth instalment of a series of conversations, in which the ITV journalist and broadcaster talks to inspiring individuals in the art world.
Don McCullin is a preeminent British photographer. He is perhaps best known as a war photographer; his hard-hitting coverage of the Vietnam War and the Northern Ireland conflict is particularly highly regarded, but in later life he has turned to nature and landscape as sources of inspiration.
He says of his working life: "I have been manipulated, and I have in turn manipulated others, by recording their response to suffering and misery. So there is guilt in every direction: guilt because I don't practise religion, guilt because I was able to walk away, while this man was dying of starvation or being murdered by another man with a gun. And I am tired of guilt, tired of saying to myself: ‘I didn't kill that man in that photograph, I didn't starve that child.’ That's why I now want to photograph landscapes and flowers. I am sentencing myself to peace."
This event is produced by Roger James Elsgood, working with the Academicians’ Room team. Doors open at 7pm and the talk will start at 7.45pm.
This event is open to members of the Academicians’ Room, Friends of the RA and the general public.
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