The Smiths: The Early Years

A stunning photographic record of The Smiths' formative years.

For many The Smiths were the definitive alternative rock band of the '80s. A bracing antidote to Thatcher's Britain for the youth of the day, Manchester-based Morrissey, Marr & Co. even approached something like mainstream success towards the end.

But at the start they were scruffy, uncompromising rebels. This was the period in which Paul Slattery took a series of band photos of great intimacy and power.

Slattery was particularly close to The Smiths in those early days, and his images - many of them seen for the first time here - were an insider's work: informal, brash, exciting and revealing. Seen together these photos form an exciting visual narrative on the work of an influential band that, for a few turbulent years, cornered the market in lyrical gloom laced with mordant wit.