Billboard on the side of the Pavillion Cinema, Stanningley Road at junction of Half Mile Lane, Leeds, 1986

Regarded as the one of the most important early colour photographers of the 20th century, Peter Mitchell is best-known for his chronicles of the city of Leeds and Quarry Hill. A new monograph and a major retrospective of his work at Leeds Art Gallery establish him as a social historian and storyteller. Peter Mitchell: Nothing Lasts Forever is at Leeds Arts Gallery until 6 October 2024. A book is available from RRB Photobooks

Edna, George & Pat, Butchers, Waterloo Road, junction with Jack Lane, Leeds, spring 1977

Fifty years ago, Peter Mitchell walked into Leeds City Art Gallery and was fortunate enough to encounter curator Sheila Ross, who was so struck by his photographs that she gave him a solo exhibition a year later: An Impression of the Yorkshire City of Leeds. Fast forward to 2024 and the very same gallery, now called Leeds Art Gallery, is honouring Mitchell’s remarkable career

Concorde Wallpaper, Devon Road, 1970s

The exhibition and book present Mitchell’s photographs to a new generation and share his compelling vision, which has the changing face of Leeds at its heart; the city’s history as witnessed through the ruins of its buildings and the citizens who have lived there

Moynihan House, Quarry Hill flats, 1978

Peter Mitchell: ‘I photograph dying buildings and Quarry Hill was terminal by the time I got to it. Times change and I know there was no point in keeping the flats. But what they stood for might have been worth keeping’

Tetley Malthouse, Mill Street, junction of Cross Mill Street, Leeds, winter 1973

Mitchell on the making of the book Strangely Familiar, which centred around Leeds: ‘Martin Parr, who was forever promoting new photography, had been commissioned by Nazraeli Press to select 10 photographers, and I was one of them’

Mrs Clayton and Mrs Collins, summer 1974

Mitchell’s work portrays the citizens of Leeds and remembers those who stood proudly in their places of work

Old Kent Road, London, 1979

His early photographs were made in the 1970s and 80s, when he was working as a truck driver. His vantage point removed him from the immediacy of the street, and he developed his distinctive graphic framing of the buildings and landscapes, which reveal the layers of urban and social history

The Kitson House telephone, Quarry Hill flats, 1978

‘Quarry Hill was right there in the middle of Leeds and by 1936 had become a giant architectural wonder totally alien to the “Loiners” of Leeds. I often walked through the flats and when demolition was imminent I started to photograph their demise – for five years! Interest began to grow as to what was so special about the flats, and why they were got rid of so completely. Leeds City Art Gallery had just been refurbished, and they chose my photographs for the opening exhibition and book, Memento Mori’

‘How Many Aunties?’, Black Hares Mount, Leeds 1978

Born in Manchester in 1943, Mitchell left school at 16 and trained as a cartographic draughtsman for the civil service. Aged 24 he went to Hornsey College of Art in London. After visiting Leeds, he never returned to London, and has lived in the same house in Chapeltown for more than 40 years

Two anonymous ladies, Tivoli Cinema, Acre Road, Leeds. Taken from Sisson’s Lane, 1976

In the course of his working life, Mitchell has had many jobs – truck driving, silkscreen and printmaking, hand-lettering and poster designer, stock control clerk of a perfume counter – and all the time he was taking photographs. Mitchell’s exhibition A New Refutation of the Space Viking 4 Mission, at Impressions Gallery in 1979, established his career and was the first colour exhibition by a British photographer at a British photographic gallery

Mr and Mrs Hudson, by the old Seacroft Chapel, York Road, Leeds, 1974

However, it wasn’t until the publication of Mitchell’s book Strangely Familiar (2013) that he found his career trajectory, at the age of 70, suddenly accelerating. Three further books followed: Memento Mori, Some Thing Means Everything to Somebody, and A New Refutation of the Space Viking 4 Mission. His work is held in the permanent collections of the Royal Photographic Society and Leeds Art Gallery among others

Francis Gavan, Ghost Train Ride, Woodhouse Moor, Leeds, spring 1986

In the words of Val Williams, Mitchell is ‘a narrator of how we were, a chaser of a disappearing world’. All photographs and quotes by Peter Mitchell. Texts from the book by Jane Bhoyroo and Diane Smyth