Simon Marsden (1948 - 2012)
It is with great sadness that Bridgeman announces the passing of Simon Marsden, an artist with whom we have worked for many years, specializing in black and white photography of spooky subjects such as ruins, moonlit abbeys and graveyards.
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Chateau de Trecesson, Forest of Paimpont, Brittany, France by Simon Marsden / The Marsden Archive, UK Simon Marsden spent his childhood in a haunted bedroom of a large manor house in a remote part of the English countryside. His father had a large library of books and manuscripts on the occult and he used to tell Simon and his three older siblings ghost stories.
Eschewing digital photography, he once remarked that "computers have no soul," Marsden was a true artisan and spent many hours in the darkroom finding that perfect shot. Inspired in part by Symbolist painters such as Felician Rops and by authors such as Edgar Allen Poe, Marsden once said he was trying to exorcize his childhood fears through his prints.
Simon’s many friends at the Bridgeman Art Library were very saddened to hear of his untimely death.
At his funeral on Monday in a quiet corner of the Lincolnshire Wolds a lone piper brought him to the church through an appropriately foggy landscape. Simon’s unique and brilliant photography lives on, reminding us of his extraordinary talent and huge personality.
“It is not my intention to try and convince you that ghosts exist,” Marsden said, “but rather to inspire you not to take everything around you at face value."
