Café Royal Books

Café Royal Books is an independent publisher[1][2] of photography photobooks or zines,[3] run by Craig Atkinson and based in Ainsdale, Southport, England.[4][5][6] Café Royal Books produces small-run publications predominantly documenting social and cultural change, Including themes of youth, leisure, music, protest, race, religion, industry, identity, architecture and fashion, often in Britain and Ireland,[4][5][7][8] using both new work and photographs from archives.[9] Café Royal Books has been operating since 2005 and has published over 950 books and zines.

Café Royal Books
Founded2005
FounderCraig Atkinson
Country of originUK
Headquarters locationAinsdale, Southport, Merseyside, England
Nonfiction topicsDocumentary photography
Official websitewww.caferoyalbooks.com

Its publications are held in public collections including Tate Britain;[10][11] National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum, London;[12] Museum of Modern Art, New York City;[13] National Gallery of Canada;[14] the British Library[15] and the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.[16]

Martin Parr has described Café Royal Books as "a great archive of much forgotten documentary photography"[17] and Daniel Meadows has said "Craig Atkinson [ . . . ] has invented a publishing model for creating a truly exciting new history of documentary photography in Britain."[18]

Details
A variety of Café Royal publications for sale in Foyles bookshop, London

Based in Southport, Atkinson is also a senior lecturer and researcher at the University of Central Lancashire. He founded Café Royal Books in 2005.[4][5][7][19] New booklets are published frequently: in 2014, typically one per week[4][7][20] and in short runs[19] typically of 250 copies.[7] They are sold both directly and through bookshops[21] in the UK, Europe, USA, Australia, Japan, Canada and Switzerland.[22] The booklets have a consistent print quality, paper and layout;[4] they are laid out to a grid system, usually 36 pages in length, slightly under A5 size, predominantly black & white and affordable. The colophon is on the front cover, making it easy to read on bookshop shelves.[lower-roman 1]

The booklets predominantly document social, historical and cultural change,[4][5][7][8] including themes of youth, leisure, music, protest, race, religion, industry, identity, architecture and fashion, using both previously unpublished work and photographs from archives.[9] Atkinson wrote in 2013 that emphasis "is given to work that encourages new ways of thinking about existing material or language which demonstrates the importance of using, documenting, collecting and observing a particular process or thing."[23] For example, in 2012 Café Royal began publishing a series of books based loosely on documentary photography with links to Britain and Ireland.[23]

Café Royal Books specialises in collaborating with a photographer and their archive or estate.[19] It has published work by over 100 photographers, including John Benton-Harris,[24] John Bulmer, David Carol,[25][26] John Claridge,[7] Douglas Corrance,[27][28][29][30] John Deakin, Peter Dench, Henrik Drescher, Alejandro Guijarro, Ken Grant, David Hurn,[31] Chris Killip,[32] Stephen McLaren, Daniel Meadows, Tish Murtha, Jim Mortram,[33] Martin Parr, Simon Roberts, Victor Sloan, Brian David Stevens,[34][35][3] Homer Sykes,[17] Ed Templeton,[36] Arthur Tress,[37] Patrick Ward, Janine Wiedel,[38] and Document Scotland photographers among others. Café Royal has worked with some photographers to produce numerous different books of their work. Some of the books are of Atkinson's own work.[39]

Café Royal Books occasionally publish larger print runs: as examples, the first printings of Killip's Huddersfield 1974 and of Chris Steele-Perkins' Wolverhampton 1978 were of 500 copies.[40] And some of the publications are later reprinted.[41]

In 2022 the Martin Parr Foundation held a retrospective exhibition, Café Royal Books, Documentary, Zines and Subversion, of 300 Café Royal publications and 167 prints of work appearing within these.[42][43]

Collections

Various Café Royal publications are held in public collections (museums and galleries) including:

Café Royal Projects

Café Royal Projects are occasional projects that use gallery type spaces for a purpose other than an exhibition. In 2010 the Café Royal Temporary Library invited artists to submit books and editions. The gallery space was presented as a reading room for the public to use, with 800 titles.[23] In 2012 the International Drawing Project exhibited film, drawing, and publications from eighty artists over three weeks. Ten catalogues were published to document the event and the artists.[23] In 2013 an exhibition and reading room featured essays from academics with backgrounds in photography, artists' books and communication design.[23]

Exhibitions

Notes
  1. The early issues were different. As examples, Someone Else's Wedding (edited by Atkinson) and Butchers Row (photographed by him), both "© 2011", have the colophon on the back cover (and the number within the edition of 100 penciled in); Butchers Row has no text whatever on its front cover.

References
  1. "Artist’s books are collected by Tate and send [sic] across the globe", Southport Visiter. Retrieved by the Wayback Machine on 16 October 2014.
  2. "The National Portrait Gallery's Helen Trompeteler on photography" Archived 14 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine, IdeasTap. Accessed 11 July 2014.
  3. "Notting Hill sound systems documented in photo fanzine". The Wire. 18 August 2014. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
  4. "Great new zines from Café Royal Books offer unlikely tours of Britain and America", It's Nice That. Accessed 11 July 2014.
  5. "Café Culture". British Journal of Photography. Apptitude Media. 162 (7836): 64–65. 2015.
  6. Mauger, Zelda (18 October 2013). "« Assez compulsif et très obsessionnel » On a parlé avec Craig Atkinson, le génie derrière Café Royal Books". Vice. Retrieved 11 July 2014.
  7. "Publication: Café Royal Books immerse us in all of the peculiarities of Britain", It's Nice That. Accessed 11 July 2014.
  8. Ellis, Rosie (13 November 2014). "Nine Years of Documenting Britain's Forgotten History with Cafe Royal Books". i-D. Archived from the original on 14 November 2014. Retrieved 14 November 2014.
  9. CBM #01. London: Copeland Book Market. 2013. OCLC 175165701. Archived from the original on 15 July 2014. Retrieved 14 July 2014.
  10. On 7 January 2023, requesting the words or phrase "cafe royal books" from "Tate Library Catalogue" brought a list of 213 items.
  11. "Search Results: 29 titles matched: Café Royal Books", National Art Library. Accessed 11 July 2014.
  12. "Dadabase: The Museum of Modern Art", Museum of Modern Art. Accessed 11 July 2014.
  13. "Explore the British Library: Search, View and Order from our Catalogues & Collections", British Library. Accessed 11 July 2014.
  14. "Baltic Plus | Home". balticplus.uk. Retrieved 14 June 2018.
  15. "Social Landscapes in Britain in the 1970s". Image Magazine. Association of Photographers (2): 6. 2014. Retrieved 9 November 2014.
  16. "Daniel Meadows". Photobook Bristol. Archived from the original on 29 December 2015. Retrieved 18 September 2015.
  17. "Craig Atkinson: Staff Profile: University of Central Lancashire", University of Central Lancashire. Accessed 11 July 2014.
  18. Abraham, Amelia (25 November 2014). "Café Royal Publish Exactly One Great Photobook Every Week". Vice. Retrieved 26 November 2014.
  19. "Foyles Photography Section", Source. Accessed 11 July 2014.
  20. "About Archived 14 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine", Café Royal Books. Accessed 11 July 2014.
  21. Artist's Book Yearbook: 2014-2015. Bristol: Impact Press, UWE Bristol. 2013. ISBN 978-1-906501-07-5. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 11 July 2014.
  22. "The big picture: out to lunch in London, 1974". The Guardian. 8 August 2021. Retrieved 28 September 2021.
  23. "About David Carol", LensCulture. Accessed 11 July 2014.
  24. "Where's the Monkey?", LensCulture. Accessed 11 July 2014.
  25. "Documentary photographer's captured moments of 20th century Scotland life goes global". www.scotsman.com. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  26. "The big picture: a different side to Glasgow's tenements". The Guardian. 7 February 2021. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  27. "'The finest city': vintage images of Glasgow on the cusp of regeneration". The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
  28. "Photos of Glasgow on the cusp of urban renewal in the '70s and '80s". Huck Magazine. 10 February 2021. Retrieved 29 September 2021.
  29. Havlin, Laura (14 March 2017). "David Hurn's California". Magnum Photos. Retrieved 14 March 2017.
  30. "British photographer Chris Killip remembered after battle with cancer". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved 15 October 2020.
  31. Stelfox, Dave (19 February 2014). "'I photograph people who don't have a voice': Jim Mortram's Norfolk portraits". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 July 2014.
  32. "Brian David Stevens captures the sound systems of the Notting Hill Carnival". Financial Times. 8 August 2014. Archived from the original on 12 August 2014. Retrieved 10 August 2014.
  33. "If Only I'd Known: Photographer Brian David Stevens Archived 13 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine", IdeasTap. Accessed 11 July 2014.
  34. Smyth, Diane (9 December 2016). "Ed Templeton's new zine is the lick". British Journal of Photography. Retrieved 11 January 2017.
  35. "Bookshop News: Discoveries at Photobook Bristol Archived 19 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine", Photographers' Gallery. Accessed 17 August 2014.
  36. "Inside Greenham Common's radical protest". The Independent. 1 September 2019. Retrieved 2 September 2019.
  37. Behind the Zines: Self-publishing Culture. Berlin: Gestalten. 2011. pp. 40, 222. ISBN 978-3-89955-336-9. Retrieved 11 July 2014.
  38. As indicated on the front cover of Huddersfield 1974 (see for example this photograph of it) and of Wolverhampton 1978 (ditto).
  39. As examples, Chris Killip's Isle of Man TT Races 1971 (see CRB's page about it) and Ian Beesley's Esholt Sewage Works 1977–78 (see CRB's page about it).
  40. "Café Royal Books, Documentary, Zines and Subversion", Martin Parr Foundation. Accessed 12 July 2023. (This says 300 publications.)
  41. "'Café Royal Books, Documentary, Zines, and Subversion' at Martin Parr Foundation", ArtDaily. Accessed 12 July 2023. (This says 500 publications.)
  42. "Towards a comprehensive collection of Scottish documentary photobooks". University of St Andrews. 25 March 2015. Retrieved 18 September 2015.
  43. "Picture Book: Co-curated with Pages". The Tetley. 8 January 2016. Archived from the original on 30 January 2016. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  44. "The Vanished East End – Arts events – Tower Hamlets – Arts & Entertainment". www.towerhamletsarts.org.uk. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
  45. "Success for East End Archive Publication – London Metropolitan University". www.londonmet.ac.uk. Retrieved 3 March 2022.
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