'Like a rock or movie star'

Why Martin Parr's work is revered around the world

- Philip Oltermann European culture editor

The death of Martin Parr - the photographer whose work chronicled the rituals and customs of British life - was front-page news in France and his life and work were celebrated as far afield as the US and Japan.

If his native England had to shake off concerns about the role of class in Parr’s satirical gaze before it could fully embrace him, countries like France have long revered the Epsom-born artist “like a rock or a movie star”, said the curator Quentin Bajac.

In France Parr’s death on Saturday aged 73 was marked on the front page of Le Monde and with a 10-minute radio bulletin.

It was at the Arles photography festival that Parr first came to be appreciated as a serious artist, when his Last Resort series of images of the working-class seaside resort of New Brighton, Merseyside, was featured at the summer event in Provence in 1986; he was invited to curate the festival as guest artistic director in 2004.