There's a photograph in Martin Parr's final commission that's almost unbearably him. A single potato, lumpy and unremarkable, sits on a decorative paper plate beneath a pink card reading "FIRST PRIZE". The exhibitor's name: Anthony Edwards. The event: the Lacock Garden and Allotment Association Annual Flower Show. The photographer: the man who, for half a century, understood better than anyone that this – all of this – is what Britain actually looks like.
The National Trust opens Lacock by Martin Parr at Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire on 27 June, running for a full year. It's his last major commission, developed with Magnum Photos and the Martin Parr Foundation, and it has a significance that goes well beyond the work itself: Parr, who died in December aged 73, shot it at the birthplace of photography.
