At 90, Don McCullin is still looking. He has just returned from Indonesia, where he has been photographing on assignment, and is preparing for an invitation from the Vatican to photograph its museum collections. Travel, he admits, has become harder. Airports make him feel sick. The physical demands of the life he once led no longer appeal.
Nevertheless, he is starting 2026 with not one, but two exhibitions unfolding close to home. ‘Broken Beauty’, showing at the Holburne Museum in Bath, brings together images from across his career, placing some of his most recent unseen photographs of Roman sculptures – captured in museums around the world – alongside earlier work from conflict zones, landscapes, portraiture and still life. In February, Hauser & Wirth Somerset will present ‘Don McCullin. 90’, which marks his ninth decade by tracing the quieter threads woven throughout his career.
Self portrait in Crowthers reclamation yard, Islesworth
Hessel Street, Jewish District, East End, London, 1962
His early years were spent learning how to disappear. He photographed markets, neighbourhoods and people going about their lives in Finsbury Park, north London. 'I was learning how to disguise my presence,' he says, 'how to snatch pictures.' He is careful not to romanticise this. Even then, he was aware of the moral weight of looking. That awareness has never left him. 'I know I’m stealing from people’s lives by taking their images,' he says. In war, that knowledge sharpened into something constant and uncomfortable. Even now, he places himself 'on trial' when he photographs.
On the surface, the Roman sculptures at the heart of ‘Broken Beauty’ offer silence. They cannot protest or suffer in front of him, but McCullin does not see them as neutral objects. Even stillness, for him, is burdened with history. 'Before the man and the chisel got to that stone, people died in their thousands to get it out of the quarry,' he says. 'There was always someone suffering while I was photographing. Even a Roman sculpture.'
Landscape is where that questioning loosens its grip. Since settling in Somerset, McCullin has increasingly turned his attention to the land around him, which he only photographs in winter (watch McCullin speak of this in Hauser & Wirth’s short film, which we featured on the occasion of his 2020 exhibition at its Somerset gallery). It’s the season’s nakedness that draws him in. 'The landscape is in pain. It’s under rain and frost, the whole historical judgement of the elements.' He can sit on a hill for hours, waiting for the light to be right. He speaks about gazing at dark winter skies, conjuring mythical thoughts inspired by Arthurian legends and the long histories embedded in the land. He references John Steinbeck’s time in nearby Bruton and the pleasure of creative thought, of letting the mind wander. After decades of witnessing violence, the quietness of this kind of looking feels earned.
Don McCullin, 'Venus, Palazzo Massimo', Rome, 2022
Dew Pond by Iron Aged Hill Fort, Somerset, 1988
'My images were to try and persuade you to be anti-war. And since I've given it up I've seen things ten times worse than what I photographed'
Don McCullin
That freedom makes the distance from war more apparent. Conflict, he says, has changed. Drones have replaced ground-level confrontation, silently bringing death from above. The kind of war photography he once made is no longer possible in the same way, and he is sceptical about its impact now.
'My images were to try and persuade you to be anti-war. And since I've given it up I've seen things ten times worse than what I photographed,' he says. 'I don’t think the work I did made much difference to the world.' There is no bitterness in this, just clarity. McCullin speaks often about stepping back. He talks about growing tomatoes, about dahlias filling his house in September, about the satisfaction of tending something living. He laughs when recalling the young man who ran across battlefields, putting two fingers up to snipers, but he is serious about what this shift represents.
Near Glen Coe, Scotland, 2014
Asked about legacy, he shrugs off comparisons to art-historical giants. 'Legacy is short,' he says. 'Even Cartier-Bresson is being forgotten. I’m just a little old photographer living in Somerset.' What matters to him now is the ability to work without danger and to be among objects he loves. The chance to return, briefly, to something like the peace he started with. He recalls a trip to Crowthers reclamation yard, Isleworth at the age of 26. Having photographed a group of statues, he turned on the self-timer and jumped in beside them. It’s the only self-portrait he has made, and the first time it will be shown in the UK.
'When I finished, I found one last piece of stone. It was a man kneeling down, kissing a woman's legs. Nothing could be less war than this. It's a picture of peace and love.' He pauses. 'How strange, that I did this peaceful picture and in between all that I did all that dreadful stuff, and now I'm back to photographing Roman statues again.'
Outside, the countryside is bright. When the call ends, he plans to walk the hedgerows near his home. The Vatican assignment, he tells me, will be the last serious project of his photographic life. But for now, the looking continues.
Broken Beauty runs at the Holburne Museum from 30 January to 4 May 2026, alongside Don McCullin. 90 at Hauser & Wirth Somerset (14 February - 12 April 2026)