Dennis Morris: Music and Life

Dennis Morris arrived in London from Jamaica as a child, part of the Windrush generation. He fell in love with photography at age eight and became famous for his photos of Bob Marley and other reggae bands, as well as early punk such as the Sex Pistols. A retrospective exhibition in Paris features his music photos but also documentary photographs of the London of the 1970s.

Morris discovered photography at a club as a child and was soon taking his camera everywhere.

Three series in the exhibition focus on the experience of growing up black in Hackney, the life of the Sikh community in Southall, and "This Happy Breed", documenting mainly working-class life.

Morris captured living conditions for recent arrivals, like this Sikh man holding his prized radio. And his photos also show social changes, such as this wedding where black and white Londoners are mixing.

Meeting Bob
Morris was just 15 when he bunked off school one day to try to meet his hero Bob Marley, who was in London on tour. Not only did the teenager meet the star, he impressed him so much with his photography that he accompanied Marley and the Wailers on the tour.

He went on to photograph many other reggae artists, both British-based and on tour, and his photos featured on the covers of albums by acts such as Jimmy Cliff, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Gregory Isaacs. He became artistic director of Island Records, which specialised in Caribbean music.

But Morris was also the chronicler of the punk movement. When the Sex Pistols burst kicking and screaming onto the music scene in 1976, lead singer Johnny Rotten, a reggae fan, asked Morris to photograph them. Over the course of a year, he took hundreds of photos of the band, but also the fans who energised the punk scene. In this early photo, the punk aesthetic is just beginning to show. There are no Mohican haircuts yet, but some fans have adopted dog collar necklaces, exaggerated eye makeup and parodies of school uniform.

Morris went on to immortalise many more British and international musicians, from Marianne Faithful and Grace Jones to Oasis and Radiohead. the walls of the exhibition are like a directory of the popular music scene from the 1970s to today.

Not bad for a boy who was told by his school careers counsellor, “Don’t be stupid, kid. There’s no such thing as a black photographer.”

Dennis Morris Music + Life
Maison Européenne de la Photo
5 February to 18 May 2025

If you can't catch it in Paris but are in London this summer, the exhibition will transfer to The Photographers' Gallery from 17 June till 21 September.