Her first solo exhibition, People at Peace, took place at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 1969, and 1970 saw the publication of her first book, A World Observed. Numerous more books and exhibitions would follow. In 1971 she was closely involved in the founding of The Photographers’ Gallery, the first of its kind in the country, if not in Europe, and served as its Associate Director for the next fifteen years.
In this capacity, she came to know and become friends with many of the big names in international photography (among them Bill Brandt, Manuel Alvarez Bravo and André Kertesz) as well as nurturing the talents of many younger photographers (including Fay Godwin, Markéta Luskačová and Martin Parr). It was mainly during this period that she acquired her substantial private collection of prints by other photographers, some of them bought to encourage them and some received as gifts in recognition of her support.
In the early 1980s, inspired by a visit to André Kertesz in New York, she started experimenting with the polaroid medium, and in 1984, abandoned black and white completely, working in colour thereafter. While the human presence remained central to her work, the images became more allusive, painterly and spatially ambiguous, sometimes verging on abstraction.
