Jo Spence

Life & Legacy

Jo Spence (15 June 1934, London – 24 June 1992, Camden) was a British photographer, writer, cultural worker, and photo therapist. She began her career in the field of commercial photography but soon started her own agency which specialised in family portraits, and wedding photos. In the 1970s, she refocused her work towards documentary photography, adopting a politicised approach to her art form, with socialist and feminist themes revisited throughout her career. Self-portraits about her own fight with breast cancer, depicting various stages of her breast cancer to subvert the notion of an idealised female form, inspired projects in 'photo therapy', a means of using the medium to work on psychological health.