Capturing a Region Before It Disappears: Tom Hicks' Black Country Type II

There are places that exist more powerfully in collective memory than on any official map, and the Black Country is one of them. Straddling the four Metropolitan Boroughs of Sandwell, Dudley, Walsall and Wolverhampton, it is a region defined by industrial heritage, stubborn identity, and a landscape quietly transforming around its edges. It is precisely this world — vivid, fading, defiant — that artist and photographer Tom Hicks has made his life's work to document.

Black Country Type II, published by the modernist in May 2026, is the eagerly awaited follow-up to Hicks' debut volume, featuring entirely new images that have never been seen before, capturing a changing landscape before it disappears. The first volume, published in 2023, sold out quickly and received international attention, including being listed in Dezeen magazine's top ten architecture and design books of that year. 

The new book comes with a remarkable endorsement. Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant — himself a Black Country native — contributed the foreword, describing it as "a startling study of our fractured, crazy place." It is a fitting tribute from one cultural ambassador of the region to another. 

Hicks typically takes his photographs during freeform walks and cycle rides through the Black Country, applying a fine art sensibility to the urban environment. His focus falls on words, typography, handmade lettering and signs, as well as architectural features and objects from the post-industrial landscape. His trademark compositional style relies on direct sunlight to illuminate his subjects, and his work consistently demonstrates a keen eye for the humorous and the surreal in everyday life. 

His output extends well beyond these volumes. Earlier publications include I.D.S.T. (The Modernist, 2020) and The Dereliction (Hercules Editions, 2021), a collaboration with poet Liz Berry. Wolverhampton Art Gallery staged a solo exhibition of his work in 2020, and in 2023 he was commissioned for a major public art project across the Merry Hill site. Ikon

For Hicks, photography is "a medium that allows me to synthesise a wide range of interests, including architecture, design, typography, art, popular culture and history." Black Country Type II is the latest, most compelling proof of that synthesis — a love letter to a place the rest of the world sometimes overlooks.

Black Country Type II is available from the modernist shop and on-line