A former member of the 1960’s underground theatre group CAST, Red Saunders made his name as a regular contributor for the ground-breaking Sunday Times colour supplement for over 20 years in addition to photographic commissions for Rolling Stone, GQ, Esquire and Time Out.
Saunders was also the founder member of Rock Against Racism campaign in the 1970’s, and he has an ongoing engagement with politics and social change that has resulted in The Hidden Project series.
Through the involvement of local people, Saunders reproduces important historic scenes involving the dissenters, revolutionaries, radicals and non-conformists who have so often been written out of our history books.
Commissioned internationally, Saunders has created photographic tableaux including The Peterloo Massacre (Manchester 2019, Wyatt Tyler and the Peasants’ Revolt 1381 (The Museum of London), The Signing of the Treaty of Utrecht 1731 for its 300th Year Commemoration (City Of Utrecht), and The Women Levellers of the Civil War 1646 as part of a major series of tableaux vivant (Impressions Gallery).
As an artist, his work focusses on the staged or constructed school of photography using large format cameras and processes that lend themselves to a much slower, more considered composition. It is this practice that finds influence from the great traditions of classical painting, theatre and opera that are the palette from which he draws his photographic practice.
Find out more about Red Saunders and Hidden Project here.
