User:Gerry Cranham

Gerry Cranham (born 1929) is regarded as one of the finest sports photographers of his generation.

Early career
Cranham served as an apprentice in the aircraft industry before spending five years in the regular Army. He went on to work as an engineering draftsman. As a young man his tall and sporting physique led him towards athletics and he was fine middle-distance runner, winning the Southern Junior half-mile (1945) and finishing second in the Junior AAA half-mile (1946). His interest in sports helped to shape an eventual career within it as a photographer and his first photograph was published in London, 1957.

A Pioneer of British Sports Photography
Through the 1960s and 1970s, Cranham was at the forefront of a new wave of sports photographers in this country, his pictures were seen in a host of renowned national and international titles including The Observer, Sunday Times, Sports Illustrated, the Evening Standard, Daily Mail, Athletics Weekly, Time Life Inc and South London Press.

A broader appeal
In the 1970s and 1980s, he undertook advertising commissions for clients such as Shell, Midland Bank, Dunlop, Harp Larger and St. Ivel. By this stage his love affair with sports, majored mainly on horseracing and for the last 30 years, his camera has been pointed at many of the world’s greatest thoroughbreds.

Overview
Gerry Cranham has been recognised as among the very best British sports photographers of his generation. Blessed with flair, dynamism and determinism in equal measures, he captured a series of stunning photographs over half of a century from the late 1950s onwards.

Exhibitions & Collections
Individual Exhibitions 1962, Kodak Gallery, London. 1971, ‘Sports Photographs by Gerry Cranham’, Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Selected Group Exhibitions 1964 Motor Racing, Kodak Gallery, London. 1968 Man In Sport, Baltimore Museum of Art. 1973 A Matter of Style, The Photographers Gallery, London.

Collections Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Baltimore Museum of Art.