Don McCullin: Tate Britain; April 2015: 8/10

I’m here at Tate Britain to see the photographs of the incomparable Don McCullin. It’s Monday afternoon and as I arrive the gallery is heaving. I scan the advertisements. It cannot be that ghastly dauber Pierre Bonnard who has visitors flocking to the gallery. No it’s the most overexposed and arguably overrated artist of the 20th Century - the failed priest, now saint, Van Gogh. Ernst and Young have turned away from their relentless pursuit of the avant-garde to present us with yet more work from an artist whose major achievement was an early and mysterious death.

McCullin braved battle and famine for us. Here are half a century of horrors. The most terrible thing about the ghastly events captured by the camera of the amazing Don McCullin is that all of this still goes on: the Congo is still a place of unspeakable horror,  and the Saudis are currently using starvation as a weapon in Yemen just as the Nigerians did in Biafra.  We still shudder at the rise of tyrants like Idi Amin. The Kurds are still being betrayed and Israel is still bombarding its neighbours.  At home McCullin photographed the effects of de-industrialisation on cities like Bradford! The polarisation that he photographed plays itself out in the struggle of Brexit.

This is a show whose bleakness overwhelms the artistry of its maker. It’s 100% black and white pictures make life seem gray.

We must celebrate this hero who brought all of this offensiveness to our attention but it’s hard going.