Police Photo Opportunity. Controlling Violent Man in Small Room
- Artist: Chris Steele-Perkins
- Date: 1980–9
- Medium: Photograph, dye destruction on paper
- Dimensions: image: 255 x 382 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
This is “Police Photo Opportunity. Controlling Violent Man in Small Room” by Chris Steele‑Perkins. The work is a photograph printed on paper with dye‑destruction, created between 1980 and 1989 as part of his larger series *The Pleasure Principle*. In this image you see a small room, the kind of space that could be a photo studio or a police interrogation chamber, but the focus is on the man being photographed. The camera captures him mid‑action, caught in the moment the policeman frames the shot and the subject looks back with a mix of nervousness and defiance.
Steele‑Perkins used the vibrant colors available to color film at that time to bring everyday scenes of Britain into sharp relief. This photograph is not merely a portrait; it’s a snapshot of public rituals—here, a man’s identity being recorded by authority—displaying his personal style of using colour and composition to reveal social moments. The image sits inside the larger context of 44 prints that document leisure, sport, politics, and even portraits like that of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in his set. In sum, this photograph offers a brief but potent look into how visual culture captured everyday scenes and formalized them as public rituals in late‑twentieth‑century Britain.
See it in person
Police Photo Opportunity. Controlling Violent Man in Small Room is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
