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The Filofax and the Ape: Material approaches to the work of Albert Adams

I was lucky enough to be invited to write and reflect upon the work of the many-faceted South African artist Albert Adams, including a brief delve into his archives which are held at the University of Salford Art Collection. An opportunity also arose for me to produce an essay on Adams for Art UK, which you can read here. In that piece I took an introductory approach to the artist, reflecting my own learning, and in this piece I wanted to take a more eclectic approach, allowing me to range between themes and pieces that grabbed my imagination. From learning to yearning, you might say. That’s not just down to my own taste, but also because Adams’ output is not at all linear in its development, though there are themes that he returns to again and again – violence, self, power, nature – in fractured and inconclusive ways. I’m interested in the materials, anecdotes and images that merge/emerge in his work, from forgotten works to the frequent appearance of the artist’s own face, to queer contexts, to the mischievous frightening ape that sits atop it all.

– Greg Thorpe, Oct 2022


‘Hung where they had been painted’

I want to start with an image that might seem innocuous at first. In his short book on Albert Adams, ‘Notes about a Friend’, the renowned Salford artist Harold Riley recalls a visit he once made to Adams’ family in South Africa. He took tea with Albert’s mother and sister in their home, “a simple house in a community, similar to a local council estate in England.”:

as we sat in the room, I saw something from the window. Behind the house was a yard bounded by two sturdy brick outbuildings. I saw something on the walls and went out to discover two paintings of great power and energy. They were hung where they had been painted, and although covered by a kind of veranda, they were open to the elements. I mentioned this to Albert’s sister who nodded but was clearly at a loss as to what to do.

Riley’s discovery is poignant and without conclusion. He later mentions the paintings to Albert’s partner, Ted, who already seems aware of their existence. Were they paintings from Albert’s young life, or had he painted them on a later visit to his family? It’s conceivable that Adams drew and painted everywhere he went, as he seems to have been extremely dedicated to his work. Did he travel to his mother’s house with blank canvases, then back to London without them? Or did he buy materials on arrival in South Africa without worrying what would happen to the abandoned paintings once they were left behind, when light and moisture, wind and weather took its gradual toll? This too is conceivable – Riley himself recalls how Adams only kept “five or six pieces of any significance” from their time together at the Slade School in London. Perhaps the works were meant as a gift for his mother, for the garden, to surprise and intrigue visitors to the house, exactly as they have done.

What was “the great power and energy” Harold Riley saw in the paintings? Where are they now? Why does this odd mention of the two unclaimed veranda paintings linger? Firstly it suggests a sense of abundance to Adams’ output – that there will always be more paintings to come. There is also a forlorn feeling about Riley’s discovery – a sense that perhaps nobody quite knew what to do with Albert’s work, then or now. Are the pieces really ‘unclaimed’ though? What would ‘claiming’ them mean? There is an acquisitiveness to this response, a sense of wanting – to keep, restore, recoup, save. Who says the work of a Black/Indian artist is better off in a gallery or archive setting that is part of a white-dominated art structure than it is hanging where it has been painted in the warm breeze of a Cape Town backyard owned by two women who loved him? Perhaps there is a colonialist mindset at play in wanting to ‘claim’ the work – and a resistance to it in the casualness of what is ‘left behind’.

Notes on the many self-portraits of Albert Adams

Look closely at your lines again –

Your life comes back through them

– ‘Self Portrait 1956’, Jackie Kay

1956, etching on paper: Side-on view, high collar and quiff, almost coquettish this look, giving soft butch like a young Black James Dean (it’s the year of Giant). 26 or 27. High youthful cheekbones elegantly rendered with cartographic contour lines. Are these ‘the lines of South Africa etched in your face’ that Jackie Kay describes? Pristine mouth. Shy cruising eye.

1956, drypoint etching: You first scratch the image onto metal (copper or zinc) then smooth over generously and neatly with ink, then the paper is pressed to plate giving life to the image in its new iteration. Draw the lines nearer together for density or darkness – but the dour expression is all the artist’s own. Glum. Perplexed? I think etched at night in a small hot room.

1958, woodcut: New etching techniques bring out Picassan facial features and a feeling of accomplished looking. Minotaur. Simian. Up-lit but emitting darkness. What has happened in these two years? Deft, dynamic – derivative? – but also daring. What does it mean for an African artist to take back what Picasso took from African art? How can we sense so well that black and white represent the same kind of skin in this image?

Albert Adams, Self Portrait, 1956, etching on paper.
Albert Adams, Self Portrait, 1956, drypoint etching.
Albert Adams, Self Portrait, 1958, woodcut.

1958, oil on canvas: Experimenting with colours in oil. Handsome in his vest, such an image ahead of its time – this could be Soho trade lit behind the window of a bar in the 90s. Fast strokes and furious curious lines. Something anticipates Basquiat in the carnival of colours going on behind the scenes. A pretty boy offering us his best side under Tibetan flags. A paperback anthology of rad young poets of colour.

1960, sugar lift aquatint: Ever the technician, hungry for new materials. Back to black, zinc and ink, real sugar, gouache and gum. Sounds thick and sticky but the results give something Grecian and elegant. Is Adams trying to learn each new stage of his craft in solitude – hence his own face over and again? – or does each portrait demand a different form in which to say something new about himself? Introspection. Be still. Focus. Albert falls into shadow here and the eyes seem to go … nowhere. But London is outside your window, Albert!

Albert Adams, Self Portrait, 1958, oil on canvas.
Albert Adams, Self Portrait, 1960, sugar lift aquatint.

1960, print: A dead-on pose for once, with lustrous hair and direct eye contact. Like a bathroom mirror beginning to fog up and drip. There are no two portraits alike, because no two days alike? What was kept and what was thrown away, and why, in these years? Adams becoming the Expressionistic printmaker capturing his own cool stare and solemnity, but there is chaos here too – in the energy of the hair that might also be the brain, the mind.

1961, etching and aquatint: 1961, the year of Breakfast at Tiffany’s, South Africa exiting the Commonwealth, Yuri Gagarin entering outer space. Albert’s face here seems to consist of pressings of bark and clay, such texture and tactility. It wants to be touched. Those pale slashes seem like a kind of solarization of matter somehow. This work would be made on an iPad today. It’s the hands that I think are the masterpiece of design and suggestion and structure. Look at that network of metacarpal and knuckle and nail. The busy hands of the artist. Is that a knife or a brush too? Hands as crucial as the face.

Albert Adams, Self Portrait, 1960, print.
Albert Adams, Self Portrait, 1961, etching and aquatint.

Queer considerations in the work of Albert Adams

but the rain

Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh

Upon the glass and listen for reply,

And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain

For unremembered lads that not again

Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.

– ‘What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why’, Edna St Vincent Millay

There is a Filofax belonging to Albert Adams which resides in the archive of the University of Salford Art Collection. Adams purchased the Filofax in 1986 and it seems to have remained in use by the artist for at least a decade. In amongst the home addresses for an international circle of friends – Brisbane, Preston, Johannesburg, Bombay, Alicante and Devon in just a page or two – and his London restaurants of choice, from Gujarati to Chinese, Brick Lane to New Oxford Street – there is an Edna St Vincent Millay poem that has been written out by Albert in longhand. I’ve quoted from it above.

I delve into the Filofax hoping to encounter something intimate and revealing, and honestly, hopefully, something gay. I wonder if his personal materials might offer a queer aspect to works that at first glance seem to say little about sexuality or gender or desire. What are we looking for, exactly, when we are looking for something queer anyway, either in a Filofax or in a body of work? And why? The word ‘lads’ makes itself known abruptly in Millay’s poem, reproduced in full in Albert’s handwriting. What goes through his mind when he is writing ‘unremembered lads’? Does he have any of his own? In Albert’s decade of bound leather, there is sometimes a man’s first name with no address or surname, only a phone number. Ask any gay man who he thinks those men might be. Then there is the occasional man’s name that has been crossed out. Entered, and then crossed out, sometime between the mid-80s to the mid-90s, in a gay man’s address book, in London. Ask a gay man what he thinks might have happened to those men. (It’s worth saying that the campest thing in the Filofax is the presence of Valerie Singleton’s home address, by the way.)

These things are only traces. They represent what I call ‘yearning’ – the desire to be connected to our queer forebears. I explore these kinds of things in my fiction, but perhaps it’s better for us to consider a different and broader picture in a queer placement of Albert Adams’ practice. For one thing, his long-term partnership with Ted Glennon is the reason we have access to the work in the first place. The fact of Adams’ romantic and sexual life is already a frame through which I have had access his art. I find this touching, as I find the relocation of his work from London to Salford pleasing. London usually gets everything, and it costs nothing to Albert’s work to house it in Salford. It’s not anchored to place in that way. That’s not to say Adams himself is placeless, only that his work holds a strong meaning through and beyond geography – it is British art, migrant art, South African, South Asian, global majority, post-colonial, diasporic, exilic work. It is also European art, and formally trained art, it is of its time and sometimes strangely timeless.

And is it also gay art? Queer art? The position of Adams as political subject must also include his marginalised sexuality. I reflect that even if he is not exactly in exile as such from South Africa while he is painting, he has rejected its white supremacy and its attempted denigration of his mixed ancestry, besides the fact that all queer subjects have existed in some state of exile from their heteronormative societies. The political affiliations of the queer subject are fluid because our adherence to the status quo is deliberately tentative and troubled/troubling. Adams is also a terrific stylist and technician who loves exploring new skills, and his influences are broad and very apparent. Is this magpie-like manoeuvring between schools and styles a queer thing? As in, outsider? As in, a non-adherence? As in, anything you can do I can do better? The works in Adams catalogue that we think of as Expressionist seem able to both collapse and splinter identity and we have seen how restless and rigorous was Adams’ reproduction of his own face, his own body as a subject. Gender and sexuality are maybe a distraction. More interesting is this sense of multiplicity in Adams’ work, of style and point of view and influence. Something non-normative that defies the white gaze (or even gays…)

Monkey on your back

A faintly ludicrous Sherlock Holmes story, ‘The Adventure of the Creeping Man’, tells the tale of an ageing man with a much younger fiancée who succumbs to quack science in a bid to regain some youthful invigoration for his forthcoming marriage. His method is to ingest drugs derived from the bodies of primates. The unfortunate side-effects include walking around on his knuckles, scaring pets, and shimmying up the ivy at the side of his house in the dead of night. In the illustrated Conan Doyle book of my childhood, the image accompanying this story was a kind of hideous gothic chimera of the old man in full-on monkey-mode, hunched and screaming upon being discovered by Holmes and Watson. This is the image that came roaring up from my subconscious on first seeing Albert Adams series of primate images. What is the ape doing here?

Adams’ ape most likely has its origins in the childhood stuffed toy that he brought with him from South Africa to England, and which now lives, somewhat forlornly, in the archives at The University of Salford Art Collection. In Conan Doyle’s story, the primate influence inside the old man represents the lust that he hopes to revive for his new marriage. And Adams ape? It seems to shapeshift and hold multiple meanings. In ‘Ape’ (2004) the stuffed toy has been touchingly reanimated into life, long-faced, and lovingly rendered, if unfinished, with dozens of fur-like strokes, benign and likeable. But it doesn’t remain tamed. ‘Ape with a Flag on a Skeletal Figure’, produced in the same year, sees the beast riding on another creature’s back as if in a victorious death march, with a black flag held aloft, its fur a kind of wild furze, while its beast of burden is an unidentifiable four-legged living skeleton.

Albert Adams, Ape, 2004, etching.
Albert Adams, Ape with a Flag on Skeletal Figure, 2004, etching and aquatint.

These ghoulish roles are then reversed for ‘Skeleton Electrocuting An Ape’, an etching that images precisely that title, the sinister twist being that the skeleton also appears to be a post-mortem ape, animated in death, and conducting some kind of hideous painful experiment on the screaming ape, its living relative. Is the ape our metaphor, our other? The cruelty it conducts is recognisably a human endeavour, so why would any metaphor be necessary? Look again at the suffering monkey’s face too and it may itself seem more human than you first thought. What is going on in these diabolical constructs? The commentary is perverse and discomfiting. Is it about racism and/or violence, animal experimentation, or is it an accompaniment to Adams’ ongoing nightmarish imagery of carceral suffering?

This latter seems more possible when we encounter ‘Ape on a skeletal figure: Darfur’ in which the skeletal figure bears an ape upon its back that seems to be composed of only shadows. Is it a cruel spirit? Again the black flag of death billows ahead. An ape in art is often shorthand for a kind of malcontent spirit, engaged in anything from simple trouble-making to evil intentions. The stripping-down to a skeleton draws ape and man closer together, we see ourselves more clearly in one another at the level of bone. Placing our own evil outside ourselves and into the body of the ape is a diversion. What the ape represents can always be us, the old, uncivilised portion of the brain that not only bonds and breeds, but kills and screams in the forest at night. These images seem to emerge from the very back of the mind, like Conan Doyle’s monkey-man did for me. They are troublesome, and by the time they take their place in ‘Ape on a standing man’, they are seemingly the ones in charge.

Albert Adams, Skeleton Electrocuting and Ape, date not known, etching.
Albert Adams, Ape on a Skeletal Figure: Darfur, 2004, etching and aquatint.

Greg Thorpe is a writer, curator and creative producer. His art writing has appeared in On Curating, FRUIT, Feast, Double Negative, Artist Newsletter and The Fourdrinier. He has written about art for the Whitworth Gallery, Manchester Art Gallery, HOME Manchester, and Salford Museum & Art Gallery. His fiction has appeared in Best British Short Stories, Foglifter and Ellipsis. He works for Islington Mill, an independent artist community in Salford, and is currently Festival Director for GAZE International LGBTQ+ Film Festival. He divides his time between Dublin and Todmorden.

The University of Salford Art collection holds a substantial collection of Albert Adams’ work and archives, acquired with the support of the Art Fund and made possible by the generosity of Edward Glennon.

Albert Adams: In Context is supported by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and by a donor funded Salford Advantage Grant.

Further Reading:

Harold Riley, Albert Adams: Notes about a Friend, 2017, The Riley Archive.

Albert Adams: In Context’, symposium resources, 2022.

Greg Thorpe, From South Africa to the Slade: repositioning Albert Adams, 2022, Art UK.


Announcing – LOOK Photo Biennial 2022: Climate

The University of Salford Art Collection is pleased to present three new photography projects which respond to the climate crisis, environmental issues, and sustainable living, for the LOOK Biennial 2022.

Duo McCoy Wynne share work from their residency at Energy House – the University’s world-leading research facility exploring energy efficiency at home. Artist and lecturer Megan Powell presents ongoing work around bees, pollinators and wildflowers – considering the importance of ecosystem habitats. Art Collection artist-in-residence Gwen Riley Jones shares images from her work with local youth groups, using plant-based methods and socially-engaged practice to address topics of nature and wellbeing.

Join us for a celebration event on Thursday 3rd November, from 4.30 – 6.30pm, at the New Adelphi Building, Salford – please RSVP to confirm your attendance here.

For further exhibition info and our events programme – including and online talk, wellbeing photo-walk, and exclusive tour of the Energy House research facilities – visit our LOOK Hub page here.

We’ll also be announcing an exciting new artist residency opportunity at the brand new Energy House 2 facility – join us on the launch to find out more!

LOOK Photo Biennial is led by Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool. The 2022 theme is climate – find out more about the Biennial and the wider programme here.


Selecting artworks with Salford Youth Council

Socially Engaged Photographer Gwen Riley Jones discusses Salford Youth Council’s visit to the University of Salford Art Collection’s new store and Theirs, Yours, Ours: queer and non-binary perspectives on identity, currently on exhibition in the New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery until 30 September 2022.


In preparation for their visit to the art store, members of the youth council selected works that they would like to view, and why, from the online catalogue.

Harley, Member of Young Parliament for Salford, selected Happy Cat by Kip Gresham, 1981 because ‘it strikes the line of being indiscernibly abstract and being a mysterious image. It has the pansexual flag colours on it.’

Kip Gresham, Happy Cat, 1981. Screenprint. Courtesy the Artist.
Matthew Houlding, New Olympia Building 5, 2012. Sculpture. Image courtesy Art UK.

Ollie, Young Mayor of Salford selected Matthew Houlding, New Olympia Building 5, 2012 because – it’s confusing – reminds me of a Rubix cube. 

During the visit the group discussed the artworks and the thoughts they provoked. Amber said, we were having a really interesting talk last week about this monkey on a tightrope – ‘you can only really go one way if you have lack of opportunities, you are stuck on this path and it’s like you are trying to fall off the path because you feel like its not for you sometimes, but you are stuck on it’.

Albert Adams, Ape on a Tightrope, 2006. Print. Image courtesy the Artist’s Estate. Photography by Museums Photography North West.

Henrique selected Louise Giavonelli, Collar IV, 2016, and after initially viewing the painting online, was surprised about the size of the painting when he saw it, ‘you would expect that it would be a lot bigger’.

I asked Henrique if the scale of the painting changed the way he felt about it.

‘A bit different now that its smaller, I feel that now that its small, its probably trying to go for a meaning of like, it might be small but it still has meaning and impact and stuff, it still has a mystery around it, like yeah, I think that’s what its trying to go for, even though its small, and its really confusing it still has a mystery and that’s the thing, no matter how small or big, that’s part of life trying to find out the meaning of it.

Louise Giovanelli, Collar IV, 2016. Oil on canvas. Courtesy the Artist.

The group also visited Theirs, Yours, Ours: queer and non-binary perspectives on identity, currently on exhibition in the New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery until 30 September 2022. When we arrived we spent time looking at the work together and talking about what it meant to us.

Harley: ‘the big floating ball sort of represents chaotic and combating feelings and thoughts, and the chair which is originally green and becoming purple represents someone who is going through thoughts of transitioning, someone transitioning from one gender to another. And because the chair and the ball are the same colour, these chaotic thoughts are related to the thoughts of transitioning.  

Amber: ‘Yeah the chaoticness that being human is or can be, or the thoughts that can collect when people are questioning.’ 

What do you make of those paintings on the wall, behind the chair? Harley: ‘I feel the blue and orange one could be a similar theme of transition. Amber: ‘half and half’.

Photograph of comments left by visitors of Theirs, Yours, Ours, queer and non-binary perspectives on identity exhibition

Amber – can I talk about that one [SHARP – Dancing with Elvis] because its all dark and then the last two photos are light cos I’m guessing its older and looks like a retro film, I’m guessing its like the darkness of the past and going to the lightness of now and like fighting for the future in rights and progressiveness.  

They are in a closet, or they are trapped in something…

…so they are trapped inside their own home if they don’t feel safe or anything.

Harley: ‘maybe their home represents their body’.


Can art help stop climate change?

‘Art can help stop climate change because it is so effective in sending a message. It can help people process information, but most importantly it can be understood by everyone no matter who they are or where they come from. With every art piece, you learn something– Angélica, Action for Conservation 

The exhibition, Planting for the Planet, currently on display in the Old Potting Shed, RHS Garden Bridgewater includes works co-created by University of Salford Art Collection’s Socially Engaged Artist in Residence, Gwen Riley Jones (a joint post with Open Eye Gallery) and a group of young people from youth environment charity, Action for Conservation.  

The exhibition is developed in partnership with the RHS and IGNITION – an EU-funded project bringing together local government, universities, environmental organisations, businesses and the local community – to find new ways of using plants and nature to protect communities from increased rainfall, flooding and heatwaves. 

During the Easter break, the group met up with Gwen Riley Jones and Rosie Naylor from RHS Communities for a week of peer learning, conversation and photography. They spent time with a broad range of people, from curators to climate experts, artists exploring anger, to a group of older gardeners from the LGBT foundation who have created a Pocket Park.  

Young people from Action for Conservation spending time with older people from Pride in Ageing at the Pocket Park they created at Manchester Art Gallery

Gwen explains more about the week:

We used art and photography to help us to develop our ideas, get to know each other and think about all the different languages we can use to communicate – verbal, visual, kinaesthetic and experiential.  

Walking in gardens and by the river, we thought about flooding sites and what plants can do to reduce the risk. Liling said: ‘By planting more trees and having more green spaces this helps combat flooding, as plants take up lots of the rainwater (especially in Manchester where there’s a lot of rain!) while cleaning the air for us.’ 

Young people from Action for Conservation debating ‘Can art help stop climate change?’ in the University of Salford Art Store

On the first day, Muhammed suggested we take part in a debate. So, when we visited University of Salford Art Collection’s new Art Store, after viewing and discussing the works selected by the group we debated: ‘can art help to stop climate change’? Daniel said: ‘I think art can help us solve the climate crisis as it can raise awareness and give people a boost to make a change to their actions and help the earth. Nature can make us more resilient to the effects of climate change as it can help us to prepare for natural disasters.’ In general, the group surmised that art can help to stop climate change, alongside education and systematic change. 

We collaborated in a protest workshop with Short Supply and Pride in Ageing at Manchester Art Gallery, sharing conversations and ideas across generations. Tamar said: ‘We can use nature to make communities more resilient. We can invest in water capturing systems redistributing the H2O to plants. We can educate more young people as well as create more greenspaces.’ 

Daniel, Anthotype portrait from Planting for the Planet, on exhibition at RHS Bridgewater Gardens

We experimented together with plant-based photographic methods including anthotypes – a process of creating a photographic print using just spinach juice or turmeric. The group really liked this process, saying ‘it doesn’t use chemicals, it’s a more natural method. And say for turmeric for example, I don’t really use turmeric, but I probably have it laying around, so I can probably find it in my pantry and have a go at home. It’s also more sustainable than other kinds of photography because it uses all-natural materials.’ 

Olivia from Action for Conservation opening the Anthotype print she made at RHS Gardens Bridgewater

Gwen will be at the Salford Rediscovered event this Thursday 16th June, delivering Anthotype workshops between 4.00-5.30pm and 6.30-7.30pm.  

The full programme is now available over on the Eventbrite page, with the full listings of all the afternoon’s activities from curator tours to live DJs. 

If you are planning on joining us on the 16th, please register for free here

Gwen’s anthotype workshop is delivered in partnership with RHS Garden Bridgewater & Ignition and is part of LOOK Festival 2022 with Open Eye Gallery.


Digital Content and Engagement Officer – Closing Notes

Our outgoing Digital Content and Engagement Officer, Alistair Small, offers some reflections on the collection’s digitisation project and new online catalogue.

I’m now coming to the end of my time working with the University of Salford Art Collection as Digital Content and Engagement Officer. Since last September we’ve seen a step-change in the accessibility of the University’s collection, facilitated by a move to a new, purpose-built Art Store in the heart of the campus and our growing Online Catalogue.

Through this project, we’ve been able to open up opportunities for engagement with the collection in both online and real space, and lay the foundations for a collection that is accessible to all, and used by students, staff and the wider community. Our Socially Engaged Photographer in Residence – Gwen Riley Jones – has recently facilitated the first visits to our new store, with Salford Youth Council and Action for Conservation. These visits prompted enthusiastic and heated debates around the definitions of art and how it can function in wider society and hit home the importance of viewing works in person. Ahead of the visits, both groups were invited to use the Online Catalogue to browse and select works to then view in person in the stores, giving them agency over the visit. These are exactly the kinds of interactions we hoped to facilitate through this project: using digital platforms as a point of entry to the collection and to generate interest in and engagement with our work, and with art and visual culture more generally.

Moreover, collections are holders and producers of cultural heritage and making them visible is crucial in opening up critical dialogues around collecting practices and institutional practices. It is hoped that the online collection will support the work and research of students and staff across the University, particularly around the creation of cultural narratives and institutional practices: what’s collected and what’s left out, and how does this influence definitions of culture, and historical narratives?

The practicalities of digitising a large number of artworks and creating a framework in which to show them has required a lot of collaboration – with photographers, web developers and our colleagues in the Archive and Library. There’s so much variation in the collection both in terms of medium (with works ranging from prints and drawings to performance objects and Augmented Reality installations) and in terms of the amount of contextual information held by the University – particularly with works from the collection’s early days. This has facilitated many conversations about what it means to represent a work online, and what risks being lost through this representation. The digitisation process can also elevate the works in the collection. I’ve found it particularly satisfying to make visible works which are otherwise hidden in drawers and plan chests or haven’t been on public display for years.

Digital photography also allows new details to emerge and for works to be studied in greater detail – for example in the below Self-Portrait by Albert Adams: the detail can reveal brush strokes and movement that show the painter’s process and technique – his creative process frozen in time, his hand made present.

The digitisation process has also opened up the possibility of drawing new connections between works, offered by the ability to position disparate works together, side-by-side within a digital, flat space. The catalogue home page also randomly regenerates the order of works, creating new and previously unexplored comparisons, and generating visual connections between works.

A random selection of artworks on the Art Collection: Catalogue Homepage
Liam Young, Where the City Can’t See (book). Image Courtesy of the Artist. Photograph by Museum Photography North West.

To date we have made over 200 works from the collection available to view online, and we’re uploading new works every week. There’s over 800 artworks in the collection, not to mention the various studio objects and documents in its care.

Moving forward, the collection – both in its online and physical spaces – will be a site of activity, with new tools allowing users to curate their selections further, and there’s a lot of potential for residencies working with the collection, for artists and researchers alike.


2022 Graduate Scholarship Programme: Now open for applications 

  • Up to £1000 cash 
  • Studio space for up to 12 months 
  • Mentor support, coaching, and guidance 
  • Professional development opportunities 
  • Opportunity to have work permanently acquired into the University of Salford Art Collection 

The Graduate Scholarship Programme, now in its eighth year, is open for applications for the 2022 cohort. 

The 12-month scheme, managed by the University of Salford Art Collection in collaboration with Castlefield Gallery, supports artists in the crucial first year after graduation – providing time, space, and resources to continue developing a professional contemporary practice. 

The bespoke programme includes: studio space in Salford with one of our partners: Hot Bed Press, Islington Mill, Paradise Works, support from Redeye, The Photography Network – alongside mentoring and cash for materials, travel, or other costs. 

Eligibility: 

The scheme is only open to University of Salford final year undergraduates from the School of Arts and Media (who are due to graduate or complete their studies in July 2022) – plus there will be a maximum of one scholarship open to an MA graduate (due to graduate or complete in September 2022). 

Please note: some details of the scheme are subject to changes in COVID-19 restrictions. Full guidance is included on the application form (below). 

Read more about the scheme here, and find out more about our previous scholars here

APPLY NOW:
Deadline 9.00am Monday 23rd May 2022
To apply: Send in your completed application form, plus your CV (up to 2 pages) and image, video or sound files of your work (up to 4 files).
Full details & contact info in the application form:
Click here to download: 2022 Application form

Please contact artcollection@salford.ac.uk for any issues or questions.


Theirs, Yours, Ours: queer and non-binary perspectives on identity

Artists include: Mollie Balshaw, Jesse Glazzard, Sadé Mica, and SHARP

Theirs, Yours, Ours brings together the work of four University of Salford Alumni who explore queer and non-binary perspectives through print, photography, painting, and installation.

From the 1990s to today, the artists in this exhibition explore what it means to be represented, celebrate identities that lie beyond traditional gender expectations, and reflect on the shifts in identity that take place over time. Together, they consider: What does it mean to be, and look, ‘queer’? How are we limited by society’s binary expectations? And in what way does existing beyond them free us?

With work made during the artists’ time at University and as Graduate Scholars, along-side more recent work, together Theirs, Yours, Ours celebrates the possibilities of queer and non-binary identity, while also reflecting the shifts and transitions in identity that take place over time.

Read more:
Exhibition Introduction
Exhibition Handout


Dancing With Elvis (1999-2021) by artist SHARP was made in the late 1990s when Section 28 legislation severely limited LGBTQ+ freedom of expression. The work reflects their butch dyke and non-binary identity at a time of censorship across education, the mainstream media, and everyday life.

Jesse Glazzard’s LGBT+ Letters (2018-19) counters the ‘complete lack of queer visibility’ he was met with upon coming out at secondary school through intimate snapshots accompanied by hand-written accounts of the subjects’ own experiences of queerness and representation.

Sade Mica series of screenprints draws on their own identity, experiences and environments. The open-ended question in screenprint Sheddin’ (2018) asks: ‘Me hair’s gone, now what?’ and brims with the excitement of queer possibility and the anxiety of uncertainty that comes hand in hand.

Mollie Balshaw’s paintings in the ‘expanded field’ extend beyond the traditional bounds and restrictions of both painting and portraiture – to reflect the expansive, multi-dimensional, and even sometimes playful nature of non-binary experience.

SHARP graduated from BA Visual Arts and Culture in 1999, Glazzard from BA Fashion Image Making and Styling in 2018, Mica from BA Fine Art in 2018 and Balshaw from BA Fine Art in 2019.


Exhibition Dates: 
Wednesday 30 March 2022 – Friday 30 September 2022 (closed bank holidays).
Opening hours: Monday – Friday 10am – 4pm
Admission:
Free
Venue: 
New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery, University of Salford, University Road West, M5 4BR


Accessibility Information:  

The New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery is located on the ground floor of the New Adelphi building. The gallery is wheelchair accessible, with seating, toilets, and a shop/cafe for refreshments available within the New Adelphi building.  

For full accessibility information including parking, facilities, and details for each entrance, please see the New Adelphi building guide on AccessAble, available here.  

If you have any additional questions or concerns about visiting the New Adelphi Exhibition Gallery, don’t hesitate to email us at artcollection@salford.ac.uk


Artwork of the Month: Ma Qiusha, Fog Series

As part of our ongoing digitisation project, last week we began photographing the works in the Collection to make more of our artwork accessible online. One of the first pieces we recorded during this process was Ma Qiusha’s Fog Series.

At a glance, the series of panels appear monochromatic; a dark background interrupted only by thin white lines. Even in person, any further details are subtle. When captured through photography, however, the intricacies of this work are beautifully illuminated. Created using lace curtains, Ma Qiusha uses these as a stencil to apply dark paint to the surface. The white lines, which at first appear almost like contrails, inscribed into the surface of the work, in fact, are the gaps between the paint, revealing the pale foundation underneath.

These fine details emerge in the digital photographs of the work, exposing the subtle patterns of the lace curtains. The delicate, and familiar domestic patterns are intriguing. With the high resolution of the digital images, I am drawn to zoom in and inspect the details, the way the pattern is preserved in the work’s surface, only to be interrupted by the sharp white gaps of the paper. The harsh white and delicate darks juxtaposing each other.

The ideas behind Ma Qiusha’s work are echoed in these contrasts as she explores the suppressed emotions experienced by many of her generation, as they seek to balance familial duties with a wish for personal freedom.

With thanks to Museums Photography North West.

December 2021


Get involved: Paid opportunities with the Albert Adams: In Context project

The University of Salford Art Collection team are offering two temporary paid roles, part-funded by the Advantage Fund. Please note, two roles are offered, however, candidates may wish to apply for both as a combined role. Please indicate on your application which role(s) you are applying for.

Key information:

– Two opportunities for two students to work together – or one combined role
– Deadline EXTENDED to: 19/12/21
– Anticipated start date: January 2022
– Full application information on the Unitemps portal

About the opportunity:

The Curatorial Assistant and Project/Marketing Assistant will support the “Albert Adams In Context” project – an exhibition and symposium celebrating our Albert Adams Archive. Adams was an artist of African/Indian heritage, and the University holds one of the largest existing collections of his work. The symposium, inspired by Adam’s work and themes, will focus on art, culture and Black history with invited experts in the field. It is set to take place in Spring 2022.

Find out more about Albert Adams and the archive/collection here.

The Curatorial role involves: research and writing about the artist, his work, and related topics; assisting exhibition curation and installation, liaising with invited speakers, and general support/involvement in the symposium.

The Project/Marketing role involves: Producing online content (including social media content, accessible formats, and posters/graphics); project promotion and communication, general support/involvement in the symposium, and evaluation.

Eligibility & applications:

– This opportunity is only available to current University of Salford students.
– Please indicate which course and level you are studying.
– Application is by CV and a brief covering letter.
– Applicants should demonstrate a clear interest in visual art, cultural studies, Black history, and/or related areas.

For full eligibility information, job description, and person specification/criteria, and to apply:
please visit the UNITEMPS portal

Application deadline: 19/12/2021
Expected start date: January 2022
Pay: £10ph for approximately 75 hours
Note: The roles average around 5-6 hours per week, or 10 full days in total over 2-3 months. We will require flexible working around key delivery dates e.g. symposium week. Exact dates and working patterns will be agreed with the successful candidate(s).

We are committed to making reasonable adjustments to reduce barriers to the role.

Further information:

The Albert Adams In Context symposium is led by art historian Dr Alice Correia, in collaboration with the University of Salford Art Collection. With generous support from the Paul Mellon Centre and the Advantage Fund. Full dates and details will be announced soon (subject to change due to national covid measures).

For further information, contact Stephanie Fletcher, Assistant Curator, at artcollection@salford.ac.uk


Do you remember the Manchester Print Workshop?

The University of Salford Art Collection holds an archive of artists prints from the ‘Manchester Print Workshop’ – founded by Master Printmaker Kip Gresham. The Workshop started in Manchester in 1975 and after a few years moved to the University of Salford, where it ran until the mid 1980s. The prints – including screenprints, lithography and other techniques – exemplify the vibrant and experimental aesthetic of the era. We’re now undertaking some research to find out more about the activities of the Workshop and the artists who worked there, and would like to invite any alumni or members of the local community who have memories from this time to share them with us.

The artists represented in our collection include: Alan Whitehead, Cecile Elstein, Kip Gresham, Matthew Hilton, Michael Green, Pat Eason, Paul Ritchie, Peta Cole, Richard Riley

We’re particularly interested in hearing more about these artists, but welcome all recollections about the Workshop and any of its members, from alumni who may have also made prints there or been taught by members.

If you can help us to find out more, please email researcher Tracy Ireland at artcollection@salford.ac.uk, including “Manchester Print Workshop” in your email subject. (Please avoid sending any large files or attachments with your email, as this may get filtered out).

Click here to find out more about our Print Collection.


Examples from the Collection:

Screenprint ‘Shoot’ was made by artist Alan Whitehead at the workshop in 1969. It combines collaged football scenes with abstract printed elements, framed in a football ‘goal’ composition. We know that Alan unfortunately passed away in the 1980s, and have been unable to trace his estate. Do you remember Alan & his work?

This silkscreen print (Untitled) was made by Pat Eason in 1980, and acquired into our permanent collection (#298a). The work exemplifies the vibrant and playful aesthetic of the time. Do you remember Pat, their work, or any of the other artists connected to the Manchester Print Workshop?

Images: Courtesy the artist and Museum Photography North West. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material.