Robert Blomfield
Blomfield was born in Leeds to freelance journalist Mary (née Gough) and George Blomfield, a surgeon and engineer, and an amateur photographer. He was the eldest of five children and grew up in Sheffield. In 1956, aged 18, he moved to Scotland to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh, where he remained until 1967. He was a junior doctor in London. Blomfield practised as a family doctor in Wrexham then Hebden Bridge. He made street photography all over the UK from the late 1950s in Edinburgh, through to the early 1970s. Blomfield’s work has been compared to Oscar Marzaroli. When his work was displayed at the City Art Centre in 2018 he said, “After 50 years, I’m thrilled to be able to share some of my pictures with the wider world. Edinburgh is a city that remains close to my heart, and the interaction of its residents with this most dramatic of urban stages provided me with endless inspiration as a young photographer.” His archive is held by the University of Edinburgh who have pledged to share it with the “widest possible audience”. An exhibition is planned in May 2022. In 1965 he met Jane Alexander, an art historian working at the Courtauld Institute. They married in 1975 and had three sons, William, George and Edward. In 1985, they moved to Hebden Bridge., Jane was co-founder of the Steiner School there. Jane died in 2011. Blomfield died in December 2020, aged 82.
Life and work
In 2018 he had an exhibition of work made in Edinburgh at the City Art Centre there, and in 2020 a book of his Edinburgh work was published. Blomfield worked as a family doctor.