About Stuart Clarke Life, work & Aspirations
“My football mission is my mission in life”
I set out to show the beauty of a nation, even if a lot of what its people say and do is not beautiful. And to show the beauty of football that is ever more a World game. And to keep on showing it.
I set out to show how football is simple yet gives many of us a very profound feeling for and understanding of life.
I set out to warm the cockles of your hearts, all of you, with some eccentric seeing - and to revel in the pure joy of seeing.
I set out to be the best photographer, best artist, best poet, if that's what it takes for you to see the best of something.
I set out to show a landscape that is quite beautiful without the need for football, industry and people - but is better for their existence.
I set out to show a 'game' that appeals to the rich and the strong as well as to the weak and the supposed poor.
I set out to show something universal whose starting point for my own understanding is in the land where I grew up, which is fortunately the land where the game began.
I set out to make little Ambleside, situated in a World Heritage National Park, a football capital, even if most people come here to get away from it all.
There is a lot of me in this because I simply have to share my joy of being involved in doing something that I feel I was meant to do.
Biography
Born in 1961 in Hertfordshire, England, Clarke has been based for his entire professional career in the wilds of the romantic English Lake District. Certainly this has influenced his approach to what might be thought of as an urban phenomenon. Clarke has set off for football grounds on some 3,500 occasions, in the UK alone. His canvas includes the national team, the mighty club teams like Manchester United, as well as the small or unheard of clubs, grounds, sets of fans, matches, moments. In this way Clarke fulfils William Wordsworth’s maxim of comparing and treating the biggest and smallest events and features with the same level of interest.
Clarke began the football journey, in large-scale (as well as intimate) photographs in the wake of a series of international footballing disasters, culminating with the Hillsborough Disaster of 1989. Shocked that the beloved game could have come to this, he set about his unique ‘celebration’, with all its asides, visual commentaries and critiques. He was soon adopted by The Football Foundation as their ‘war’ (equivalent) artist whilst also drawing the interest and approval of all the UK’s governing football authorities.
In 1993 Clarke staged a campaigning show in the House of Parliament at Westminster. “Homes of Football” was and remains Clarke’s only well-known body of work, given that it has taken him most of his adult life. His work is revered throughout the football world and he is rightly considered the number one photographer of football culture.
