Alvin Booth

Alvin Booth was born in Hull, an industrial city in the Northeast of England. He left school at the age of seventeen and trained to become a hairdresser. After working in Hull he later moved to Oxford where his interest in photography grew. In 1989 he gave up hairdressing and moved to New York City where he now lives.

Self taught, his nude studies are the work of both artist and artisan. Each photograph is printed, toned, and “distressed” by hand. So while the image and printing method is modern, the final result is reminiscent of the photographs of the mid to late nineteenth century. The finished print is then framed by sealing it in glass with copper and solder.

His work revels both in the intrinsic beauty of the human form, and in the mutations of that beauty. Using the body’s malleability and gravity as a palate, Booth creates a landscape that is at times attractively familiar and at times seductively surreal.

Booth’s first book of nudes, Corpus (forward by Charlotte Cotton of the Victoria and Albert Museum) was published fall 1999 by Edition Stemmle. Corpus was awarded the Kodak Photo Book press award for 1999. His next book, Osmosis, was published by Edition Galerie Vevais in 2006.

All images are Untitled, 1998, toned gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches sealed in artist’s copper frame.