Lincoln Clarkes

Lincoln Clarkes (born 1957) is a Canadian photographer. He has won National Magazine Awards, silver; and Western Magazine Awards, gold.

He has published three books, Heroines (2002), Views (2005) and Cyclists (2013) and has been the subject of two documentary films. Heroines (Anvil Press]) is an epic photographic documentary of 400 addicted women of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, which won the 2003 Vancouver Book Award (in a tie with Stan Douglas), and was the subject of numerous philosophical essays (by Margot Leigh Butler, and Paul Ugor, among them). The London Observer said Clarkes' book offered "beauty in a beastly place." Globe and Mail called it "intimate, compelling and undeniably unsettling," while The Toronto Star called it "incredibly powerful." In the summer of 2017, the Canadian art collector Bob Rennie purchased the entire Heorines photographic collection and archive.

Views, a retrospective of his works (Universal/Northern Electric), included a 17-song original soundtrack, featuring songs by Herald Nix, Rae Spoon and others.

Quattro Books published Clarkes' third book of photography, Cyclists, in 2013. A selection of 150 men and women riding bicycles, the book documents the cycling movement in Toronto.

In 2001, Peace Arch Entertainment produced a one-hour documentary film about Clarkes' Heroines project called, Heroines: A Photographic Obsession Heroines: A Photographic Obsession, which has aired on BRAVO! and Women's Television Network and has screened at numerous festivals.

In 2011 Clarkes was featured in Bob Barrett's television documentary series Snapshots: The Art of Photography Snapshots: The Art of Photography (Network Knowledge Network). The program features Clarkes’ accounts of many of his significant photographic series, including Shot in America, Portraits of Women in Texas with their Guns, and Anti-War Protesters. It was filmed while Clarkes was living on the top floor of Vancouver's historical Sylvia Hotel. In 2016, the actor Tony Pantages portrayed Clarkes in director Rachel Talalay's Leo Award-winning film (for Best TV Film), called On The Farm.

Clarkes has had solo exhibitions in Vancouver, Toronto and Seattle. His photographs have been used in the feature films Everything's Gone Green, by Douglas Coupland, and Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter. Clarkes' portrait work includes Helmut Newton, Oliver Stone, Vivianne Westwood, Noam Chomsky, Timothy Leary and Patti Smith.

Clarkes dropped out of Emily Carr University of Art and Design, where he was studying painting, to take up photography, for which he is self-taught. He had a solo exhibition of his paintings at Heffel Gallery in 1983, largely due to his street-art practice. At the time, he founded a fashion boutique and fronted an art-wave band.

"In the style of Lewis Hine or Dorothy Lange, [Clarkes'] work chronicles a particular segment of society with the intention of educating, affecting change in societal perceptions and, one would hope, influencing social policy," wrote Jesseca White, in sub-Terrain magazine. A reviewer in arts magazine Border Crossings wrote, "The world would be a better place if there were more noticers: People who take the time to listen hard and watch closely. Lincoln Clarkes is a noticer." In the London journal Philosophy of Photography, Kelly Wood argues that "the Heroines series’ blurs the boundaries between commercial, documentary and fine art photography."

General references
1. National Magazine Awards: "Past Awards"

2. Western Magazine Awards "Awards History"

3. Anvil Press: "Publication catalogue"

4. Northern Electric: "Publication catalogue"

5. Peace Arch Entertainment "List of Films"

Video

 * The Knowledge Network, Snapshot: The Art of Photography II: Lincoln Clarkes
 * Shaw TV, The Rush,
 * CBC News, Arts & Entertainment: Glamour of bicycles: Lincoln Clarkes on his new book Cyclists
 * CBC News, Arts & Entertainment: Glamour of bicycles: Lincoln Clarkes on his new book Cyclists