Manchester School of Art in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, England, was established in 1838 as the Manchester School of Design. It is the second oldest art school in the United Kingdom after the Royal College of Art which was founded the year before. It is now part of

Manchester Metropolitan University Manchester Metropolitan University is located in the centre of Manchester, England. The university has over 40,000 students and over 4,000 members of staff. It is home to four faculties (Arts and Humanities, Business and Law, Health and Educat ...

History

The school opened in the basement of the

Manchester Royal Institution The Royal Manchester Institution (RMI) was an England, English learned society founded on 1 October 1823 at a public meeting held in the Exchange Room by Manchester merchants, local artists and others keen to dispel the image of Manchester as a ...

Mosley Street Mosley Street is a street in Manchester, England. It runs between its junction with Piccadilly Gardens and Market Street to St Peter's Square. Beyond St Peter's Square it becomes Lower Mosley Street. It is the location of several Grade II and G ...

in 1838. It became the School of Art in 1853 and moved to Cavendish Street in 1880. It was subsequently named the Municipal School of Art. In 1880, the school admitted female students, at the time the only higher education available to women, although men and women were segregated. The school was extended in 1897. The school became part of

Manchester Polytechnic Manchester Metropolitan University is located in the centre of Manchester, England. The university has over 40,000 students and over 4,000 members of staff. It is home to four faculties (Arts and Humanities, Business and Law, Health and Educat ...

in 1970 and is now part of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the

. Its 175th anniversary in 2013 was marked by the opening of the new Benzie Building and the refurbishment of the Chatham Tower. The school comprises four departments, the

Manchester School of Architecture The Manchester School of Architecture (MSA) is a School of Architecture, jointly administered by The University of Manchester and the Manchester Metropolitan University in the city of Manchester, England. The School was formed in 1996 with the ...

(MSA), formed in 1996 and jointly administered with the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

, and the Departments of Art and Performance which incorporates the

Manchester School of Theatre The Manchester School of Theatre (originally the Manchester Polytechnic School of Theatre) is a tertiary school of theatre, drama and performance situated in the city of Manchester, founded in 1970. It is a part of Manchester Metropolitan Univer ...

, Design and Media as well as Manchester School of Art Research Centre. The school became responsible for the non-degree courses of the Manchester Municipal College of Technology by 1996, when the rest of that institution became the

University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology The University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) was a university based in the centre of the city of Manchester in England. It specialised in technical and scientific subjects and was a major centre for research. On 1 Oct ...

. This transfer gave a historical link to the Manchester Mechanics' Institute established in 1824.

Architecture

Manchester School of Art Geograph 3735342

The Manchester Municipal School of Art was built in Cavendish Street in 1880–81 to the designs of G.T. Redmayne. On a rectangular plan it was constructed in

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

with buff

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, a ...

dressings. It is two storeys high above a basement and has slate roofs with glazed skylights. Its symmetrical facade, built in the

Neo-Gothic style Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

, has large

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

d wings with pinnacles at either side of its

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

ed and blind arcaded main range. In the centre is a chamfered doorway with a moulded arched head and carved

spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...

s above which is a canted

oriel window An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, bracket (architecture), brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window is most commonly found pro ...

with a steep roof against a gable with pinnacles and a

finial A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the Apex (geometry), apex of a d ...

at the top. The building is Grade II listed. The 1897 extension designed by

Joseph Gibbon Sankey Joseph is a common male given name, derived from the Hebrew Yosef (יוֹסֵף). "Joseph" is used, along with "Josef", mostly in English, French and partially German languages. This spelling is also found as a variant in the languages of the mo ...

, at the rear of the building, was built in red brick and

with

Modern Style (British Art Nouveau style) The Modern Style is a style of architecture, art, and design that first emerged in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom in the mid-1880s. It is the first Art Nouveau style worldwide, and it represents the evolution of th ...

decoration by W.J. Neatby, chief designer at

Royal Doulton Royal Doulton is an English ceramic and home accessories manufacturer that was founded in 1815. Operating originally in Vauxhall, London, and later moving to Lambeth, in 1882 it opened a factory in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, in the centre of Engl ...

. In 2014 the 1960s Chatham Tower was refurbished and the Benzie Building was built, to provide additional studio and exhibition space for the art school. The design, by

Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios (also known as FCBStudios) is a British architectural design firm, established in 1978, with offices in Bath, London, Manchester, Belfast and Edinburgh. The firm is known for its pioneering work in sustainable desig ...

, was shortlisted for the

Stirling Prize The Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize is a British prize for excellence in architecture. It is named after the architect James Stirling, organised and awarded annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). The S ...

in the same year.

People

Calico Calico (; in British usage since 1505) is a heavy plain-woven textile made from unbleached, and often not fully processed, cotton. It may also contain unseparated husk parts. The fabric is far coarser than muslin, but less coarse and thick than ...

printers Edmund Potter and James Thomson were involved in the school's foundation. The first head from 1838 was

John Zephaniah Bell John Zephaniah Bell (1794–1883) was a Scottish artist. Life He was born in Dundee, where his father William Bell was a tanner, businessman and banker; James Stanislaus Bell was his brother. He studied at the University of Edinburgh, and then ...

, who pursued a

fine art In European academic traditions, fine art is developed primarily for aesthetics or creative expression, distinguishing it from decorative art or applied art, which also has to serve some practical function, such as pottery or most metalwork ...

curriculum until 1843. John Cassidy studied in 1883 and taught there for a year in 1887.

Walter Crane Walter Crane (15 August 184514 March 1915) was an English artist and book illustrator. He is considered to be the most influential, and among the most prolific, children's book creators of his generation and, along with Randolph Caldecott and Ka ...

was the Director of Design from 1893 to 1898. Adolphe Valette was a teacher there from 1906 to 1920. On 1 December 2020 Professor Martyn Evans was appointed as Director of Manchester School of Art. Its graduates include

L.S. Lowry Laurence Stephen Lowry ( ; 1 November 1887 – 23 February 1976) was an English artist. His drawings and paintings mainly depict Pendlebury, Lancashire (where he lived and worked for more than 40 years) as well as Salford and its vicinity ...

Eugene Halliday Eugene Halliday (10 December 1911 – 22 July 1987) was a British artist, writer, and teacher. For a large part of his life he lived and taught in Manchester and Altrincham, England, lecturing (in Manchester and Liverpool), running groups and g ...

Liam Spencer Liam Spencer (born 1964) is a British artist. Early life Spencer was born in Burnley, Lancashire and attended St Theodore's RC High School. He studied at Burnley College and the Manchester School of Art (now Manchester Metropolitan Universit ...

Ossie Clark Raymond "Ossie" Clark (9 June 1942 – 6 August 1996) was a British fashion designer who was a major figure in the Swinging Sixties scene in London and the fashion industry in that era. Clark is now renowned for his vintage designs by present- ...

, Martin Parr,

Malcolm Garrett Malcolm Leslie Garrett (born 1956) is a British graphic designer, and Creative Director of Images&Co, a communications design consultancy based in London, UK. He is Ambassador for Manchester School of Art and co-founder of the annual Design M ...

, Peter Saville,

Thomas Heatherwick Thomas Alexander Heatherwick, (born 17 February 1970) is an English designer and the founder of London-based design practice Heatherwick Studio. He works with a team of around 200 architects, designers and makers from a studio and workshop in ...

Roger Hampson Roger Hampson (1925–1996) was born in Tyldesley, Lancashire, England. He was a teacher, painter and printmaker, taking inspiration from everyday surroundings, people and the industries prevalent in the area where he lived and worked. Backgr ...

and

Audrey Albert Audrey Albert is a Mauritian artist with Chagossian heritage, whose work reflects the cultural heritage and identities of Chagos Islanders. Her work has been exhibited internationally, and in 2021 she was appointed to a Creative Fellowship at Manc ...

Sylvia Pankhurst Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (5 May 1882 – 27 September 1960) was a campaigning English feminist and socialist. Committed to organising working-class women in London's East End, and unwilling in 1914 to enter into a wartime political truce with t ...

was a student at the school. Susan Dacre and Annie Swynnerton formed the Society of Women Painters and Swynnerton became the first woman to be elected to the Royal Academy since its inception in 1768. John Mayall enrolled at the School of Art in the 1950s. British bluegrass music pioneers Tom Travis and Tom (Smiley) Bowker enrolled at the School of Art in the 1950s. Other notable musicians to attend the school include

Mick Hucknall Michael James Hucknall (born 8 June 1960) is an English singer and songwriter. Hucknall achieved international fame in the 1980s as the lead singer and songwriter of the soul-influenced pop band Simply Red, with whom he enjoyed a 25-year career ...

, who studied Fine Art in the 1980s and formed

Simply Red Simply Red are a British soul and pop band formed in Manchester in 1985. The lead vocalist of the band is singer and songwriter Mick Hucknall, who, by the time the band initially disbanded in 2010, was the only original member left. Since th ...

Collections

When founded, the school promoted the Arts and Crafts movement's philosophy and its collection includes metalwork, jewellery, wallpapers, a

tapestry Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads ma ...

made by Morris & Co. designed by

Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman ...

, Whitefriars glass by

James Powell and Sons The firm of James Powell and Sons, also known as Whitefriars Glass, were London-based English glassmakers, leadlighters and stained glass window manufacturers. As ''Whitefriars Glass'', the company existed from the 17th century, but became well k ...

and

George Henry Walton George Henry Walton (3 June 1867 Glasgow – 10 December 1933 London), was a noted Scottish architect and designer of remarkable diversity. Biography George Walton was born in Glasgow in 1862. He was the youngest of twelve talented children o ...

, silverware by

Charles Robert Ashbee Charles Robert Ashbee (17 May 1863 – 23 May 1942) was an English architect and designer who was a prime mover of the Arts and Crafts movement, which took its craft ethic from the works of John Ruskin and its co-operative structure from the soc ...

and ceramics from Pilkington's Art Pottery.

References

Citations

Sources

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External links

1878 – Manchester School of Art, Lancashire
{{Authority control Manchester Metropolitan University Art schools in England Grade II listed buildings in Manchester Art Nouveau architecture in Manchester Art Nouveau educational buildings School buildings completed in 1881 School buildings completed in 1897 1881 establishments in England Professional education in Manchester