Outside the Piss House Pub, Portobello Road, 1968

Ronald ‘Charlie’ Phillips is a restaurateur, photographer and documenter of Black London. He is now best known for his photographs of London’s Notting Hill during the period of West Indian migration to the city. His subject matter has also included film stars and student protests, with his photographs appearing in Stern, Harper’s Bazaar, Life and Vogue and in Italian and Swiss journals.

Phillips came with his family to Notting Hill in 1956 and as a young man travelled all over Europe. During the 1980s, he took photographs documenting West Indian funerals at Kensal Green Cemetery and other cemeteries in London. In recent years his work has been appreciated in numerous high profile exhibitions at prestigious venues such as the Museum of London, Tate Britain, the V&A and Photofusion Gallery.

Phillips’ photographs documented the people local to him as they addressed the social and political issues of the late 1960s. A decade earlier, the area had witnessed the eruption of racial hostility, when white youths turned to violence as a way to divide Notting Hill’s diverse community. In One of the first Notting Hill ‘street’ carnivals, numerous figures spill out of Phillips’ frame, alluding to the magnitude of the gathering.