Edna O Brien, London, 1991 © Steve Pyke

Steve Pyke is a renowned photographer known for his intimate and intense black-and-white portraits of extraordinary thinkers, creators, and artists of our time. Pyke created his first photographs in Ireland in 1980 and has maintained a deep, ongoing association with a place central to the development of his artistic practice. Widely hailed as a classic landmark ‘photographic novel’ I Could Read the Sky, created with the writer Timothy O’Grady, was first published in 1997. In 2024, it was reissued in a new, expanded edition by Unbound.

Pyke has spent the last 40 years seeing the world through a creative lens. Born in Leicester, UK, Pyke resided in London and NYC for many years. Steve now lives and works in New Orleans, Louisiana and continues to work in Ireland and internationally. His work has been exhibited widely in the UK, Europe, Japan, Mexico and the US and is held in many permanent collections, including the National Portrait Gallery, the Imperial War Museum, the V&A in London, New York Public Library and the Museum of Modern art (MOMA), New York. A selection of works from his I Could Read the Sky series was acquired in 2024 for the Photo Museum Ireland collection. He is currently an Artist-in-Residence at Photo Museum Ireland in 2025.