Maurice Broomfield: The Industrial Sublime

Broomfield was born into a working class family near Derby, Broomfield, in 1916. He left school aged 15 to take a job as a lathe operator in a Rolls Royce factory, and spent evenings training at Derby College of Art. During WWII, he was a conscientious objector – serving as a driver for the Friends’ Ambulance Service amidst the Blitz. The aftermath of the conflict in Europe provided Broomfield with his first major photographic project, as he visited ruined cities to document the devastation wreaked by fascism.