Fox first came to attention with her 1988 documentary study of London office life on the mid-1980s, Work Stations: Office Life in London. She is perhaps best known for her Zwarte Piet series made between 1993 and 1998, published as the book Zwarte Piet, which documents 'black face' folk culture traditions in the Netherlands. Between 2001 and 2003 she published four monographs in her "Made in" series: Made in Milton Keynes, Made in Kansas, Made in Gothenburg and Made in Florence. From 2009, Fox photographed for two years at Butlins in Bognor Regis for her book Resort 1 - Butlin's Bognor Regis.[5][6][7]
The critic Sean O'Hagan, reviewing Resort 1 - Butlin's Bognor Regis in The Guardian, said "Her work often hones in on the particular to suggest the universal, such as her series The Village (1991–1993), in which rural England becomes a pastiche of itself even as the individual lives glimpsed therein seem vividly real."[6]
David Chandler, in his essay Vile Bodies, in the book Anna Fox Photographs 1983-2007, said Fox is "widely regarded as an important part of what might be called the 'second wave' of British colour documentary photography" and that she "helped form its particular style of combative, highly charged use of flash and colour".[2]
Publications
Publications by Fox
Work Stations: Office Life in London Photographed by Anna Fox. Camerawork, 1988. ISBN978-1871103007.
Made in Europe. Milton Keynes Gallery, 2001-2003. Five small paperbacks. Made in Milton Keynes 2001, ISBN0-9536755-5-6. Made in Gothenburg 2002, ISBN0-9542029-2-9. Made in Kaunas 2002, ISBN0-9542029-1-0. Made in Florence 2003, ISBN0-9542029-5-3. Made in Los Cristianos 2003, ISBN0-9542029-4-5. Photographs and texts made by teenagers in five European cities.
Resort 1 - Butlin's Bognor Regis. Amsterdam: Schilt, 2013. ISBN978-9053308035. Text by Stephen Bull.
Portraits from an Island. Newsprint catalogue with essay, 2015