UK Council Criticised Over Sale Of Collection Including Works By Pioneering Photographer Tony Ray-Jones The Art Newspaper International Art News And Events

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Kent County Council Plans Auction of Tony Ray-Jones Photo Archive as Budget Pressures Mount A cache of 33 photographs by British documentary photographer Tony Ray-Jones (British, 1941–1972) is heading to the auction block after Kent County Council said it can no longer keep the collection in storage at County Hall in Maidstone. The sale, scheduled at Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers on March 10, will also include an early work by British artist Andy Goldsworthy (British, b. 1956) and a lithograph by Australian artist Sidney Nolan (Australian, 1917–1992). But it is the Ray-Jones material - much of it rooted in Kent's own civic life - that has prompted the sharpest concern from photography specialists and former county arts staff. A Reform-led spokesperson for the council said the collection has been kept in the basement of County Hall and now needs to be moved.“Due to the lack of viable alternative storage options and in light of the significant financial pressures facing the county council, no suitable alternatives were identified,” the spokesperson said. The council also acknowledged that the works were not offered to any of Kent's museums or galleries. The authority is facing a severe budget deficit, and Reform has yet to deliver tax cuts promised ahead of winning control of Kent in last spring's local elections. The council did not respond by publication time to questions about why the works were being sold, or whether the decision originated with the current administration or a previous one. “The disposal of significant photography and other artwork [from public collections] is always a concern, especially when it includes rare work from figures such as Tony Ray-Jones - one of Britain's great documentary photographers and an inspiration to luminaries such as the late Martin Parr,” said the photography historian Michael Pritchard.“Kent's short-term financial gain will be at the long-term cultural expense of Kent residents and visitors.” The March auction follows an earlier disposal from the same council collection. In July 2025, Sworders held a sale that included works by established artists such as Norman Ackroyd, Victor Passmore, and Anthony Gross, many depicting town and countryside scenes across Kent. The council said the net income from that sale was £29,060, which it stated was directed to a“Culture and Creative Economy Service revenue budget.” Further details of that budget allocation have been requested. John Brazier, who served as head of arts and museums at Kent Council from 1990 to 2005, said he acquired the Ray-Jones photographs after an exhibition toured the county in the late 1980s. The works were purchased for KVALS, a lending scheme designed to place art in schools and workplaces. Brazier said the photographs were originally stored in appropriate archival conditions in a converted hangar at RAF West Malling, a former Royal Air Force station. The program, however, was mothballed at least a decade ago. “They don't know what they have,” Brazier said of the current approach to the collection.“They can only see them in terms of monetary value, which [unlike cultural worth] tends not to be a huge amount. The value of having the work in Kent is a great deal more than the value of flogging them off.” Ray-Jones, born in Wells, Somerset, had personal ties to the county: he spent early childhood in Tonbridge. Many of the photographs in the sale depict public gatherings and local traditions across Kent, including May Queen celebrations in Chatham, a Dickens festival in Broadstairs, and a beauty contest in Margate. The images were made during a concentrated two-year period in the late 1960s, when Ray-Jones embarked on a major project documenting the English at leisure. That body of work was posthumously published by Thames & Hudson in 1974 as“A Day Off,” two years after the photographer died at 31. Several photographs from“A Day Off” are included in the March 10 Sworders auction. Ray-Jones's standing has only grown in the decades since his death. A number of works from“A Day Off” are currently on view at Tate Britain in“Modern and Contemporary British Art,” which runs through May 17. Nicoletta Lambertucci, curator of Modern and Contemporary British Art at Tate, has credited Ray-Jones with helping shift documentary photography's status within Britain's cultural landscape, describing the work as an enduring record of social life. For Kent, the immediate question is whether a short-term financial fix justifies the permanent dispersal of a locally resonant archive - and what obligations public bodies have to explore museum transfer or alternative stewardship before turning to the market.

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