Standing under the mosiac…

There are so many circles, and so many left incomplete.  Many years ago, as a fresh-faced fine art graduate I once applied for a job at what was once called the Jacob Kramer College, now restyled as the Leeds College of Art. I quite rightly didn’t get the job, I would have been a hopeless instructor. But on my brief visit I was impressed by the iconic Vernon Street building, the home of the original Leeds College of Art with its Gilbert Moira mural adorning the entrance.

Years later I find myself curating the Leeds College of Art Archive and associated collections held here at Leeds Met. And this week I was asked to give a short talk about these collections to some of the members of the 2011 ARLIS conference, taking place in what used to be the Light and Shade rooms of the original college (now the Library). It struck me then that this was as near as I am likely to get to ‘teaching’, in the broadest sense of the word, in an art college.  And for the briefest of moments I felt connected to the artists who made Leeds College of Art the celebrated place it was. Willy Tirr, Eric Taylor, Ricky Atkinson, Harry Thubron back to the early days of Haywood Rider,  Harry Simpson and Clara Lavington.

This may not amount to the most well drawn out circle but standing under Moira’s mosaic reviewing how my talk went felt as if it was almost full.

The art of seeing?

A few months ago I had the pleasure of a visit from Doug Sandle and Jack Chesterman, both had worked at the old Leeds Art College and witnessed its transformation into the Faculty of Art and Design of Leeds Polytechnic and beyond. They had come to see the material that has survived in the form of a Leeds College of Art archive. It may seem strange to the casual observer that such an archive is held by Leeds Metropolitan University. There is a lot of confusion about the various constituent colleges that went to form first the Polytechnic and subsequently the University and the art college at Leeds certainly serves as an example of this confusion.

Few appear to realise that in September 1969 Leeds Art College moved from Vernon Street to the purpose built studios on Woodhouse Lane and that on 1 January 1970 the art college officially became part of Leeds Polytechnic. Meanwhile the former Branch College of Art renamed Jacob Kramer College, originally based at Rossington Street, moved into the now vacant Vernon Street. Recently this college has changed its name to Leeds College of Art in an inspired bit of branding. It has long laid claim to the illustrious pedigree of Leeds School of Art and subsequently Leeds College of Art. However, it should be noted that the art college’s true heritage lies buried deep within Leeds Metropolitan University who appear strangely reticent about acknowledging this. This direct lineage explains why the Leeds College of Art archive remains with the University.

With the help of Doug, Jack and hopefully many others we hope to build on the existing archive and raise awareness of this rich heritage.

Snow tracks

From the Library offices in the James Graham Building looking out across the snow bound Acre on our Headingley Campus I see the traces of many footprints crisscrossing over the blue white sheet, punctuated by the odd misshapen snowman.

I’m reminded of the tale told to me by a group of Alumni who were students at the City of Leeds Training College on this very campus. They were here in the 1950s and in those days segregation of the sexes was strictly enforced, and no one bar the grounds staff were allowed to walk on the Acre. The women students occupied the halls to my left Caedmon, Leighton, Priestley, Macauley and Bronte. The men on my right Fairfax, Cavendish and the Grange. During winter nights surreptitious visits were made to the opposite side. In the morning the evidence was there for all to see in the fresh tracks left in the snow. What college staff made of this fraternisation and sullying of hallowed ground is not recorded.

While I watch one of the snowmen loses his head and it rolls off down the Acre.

Podagra’s Progress

The Gout by James Gillray

Benjamin Wade of New Grange (now the Grange on Leeds Met Headingley Campus) was laid up with gout in the Spring of 1701, preventing him from attending the York Assizes.

Perhaps I have been immersing myself in eighteenth century gentry studies for far too long. But the last few weeks have seen my foot seized by that painful affliction, the gout as they called it. Except to those afflicted, there is something comical about the name and the images it conjures up of corpulent toffs in agony with thier raised foot bandaged and pampered. I’m thinking Cruikshank or Gillray and their satirical cartoons. The association with overindulgence in food and drink and even a suspicion of licentiousness looms large.

I can’t speak for what old Ben Wade got up to in the Grange… anyway I am consoling myself by reading Porter and Rousseau’s Gout, the Patrician Malady a historical commentary on the disease which reveals among many details  the great and the good among suffers Leonardo da Vinci, John Milton, Isaac Newton, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Benjamin Franklin, Christopher Columbus, Samuel Johnson, Charles Darwin, in good company then.

Are we nearly there yet?

Hillman Humber

My dad used to drive an old Hillman ( it was actually my grandad’s), we used to have weekend trips in and around Northumberland and the Borders. The roads were winding and long and it was very hilly. It seemed to take an age to get to where we were going. Bravely the old Hillman would wheeze up yet another hill and just when we thought we were at the top,  another higher hill would appear.  Inevitably someone would ask…are we nearly there yet!

Like the old Hillman it seems I have been chugging up hill after hill of book collections for the past eighteen months. Just when I think I’ve  got the inventory in the boot (as it were) another problem of provenance looms, an old list doesn’t correspond with a card index, a book has no identifying marks whatsoever and so on.  Of course, what I had only half guessed while bouncing up and down on the backseat of the Hillman aged eight and three-quarters, was that it wasn’t just the destination that was important but the getting there.

It has been a privilege to work with these books all things considered, their age, their provenance, their smells, their textures. All these tangible and intangible things that build up a mental landscape of our collections, an appreciation of what we have from handling physically and intellectually the individual items… a sort of view from the Hillman window.  But old habits die-hard… there’s still an eight year old voice in my head wondering if  we’re nearly there yet!

No one lights a lamp and hides it…

Making more people aware of the hidden collections here in the University was an important part of setting up the Archive and Special Collections. One major component was to create web pages which would begin to introduce our collections to a wider public.  Our Archive and Special Collections pages are now live.

Other methods of publicity are emerging, I have recently been interviewed for the University’s alumni magazine, which I am told has a global readership.  This will certainly raise the profile of our intent and work so far, however I much happier out of the spotlight, wrapped in the anonymity of a blog or buried in books and papers.  But as the parable goes, no one lights a lamp and hides it.

And then there was the shock realisation that I am going to have to stand in front of library colleagues and explain to them what’s been going on in the Archive for the last year or so.  I can only hope that some of my own interest and enthusiasm comes through in my rambling presentation.

Dodging the demolition

Recently I was alerted to the imminent demolition of back to back houses in Holbeck, in particular to a house and shop that was once headquarters of the International Labour Publications. Before 1975 they were known as the International Labour Party and have been well archived by the London School of Economics and the Working Class Movement Library.  Consultation with colleagues and on site staff suggested that it may be worth investigating what was in the house before it was finally pulled down.   On arriving I realised much had already been removed by the ILP itself and others, on top of that the workmen had already started stripping out cables and pipes so there was quite a bit of damage. The window of opportunity to save the material was narrow but with the help of colleagues across the University we managed to get several boxes transfered into our special collection before the house was due to come down.

Although initially disappointing some of the material definitely was worth saving, especially bearing in mind our existing collection relating to the Cooperative movement.  The material has the potential to offer both a contrasting and complimentary view of socialism and related concerns, and certainly opens up the range of material in our collection.

The house despite the urgency to remove the material is still standing, gaining a brief reprieve. The demolition apparently halted, despite all the houses in the row being vacated,  by a lone trader selling pizzas.

Phew!

Finally finished!! For the past year I have been painstakingly compiling an inventory of books held in our combined collections of the West Yorkshire Society of Architects Library and Leeds School of Architecture Library.  In all there are one thousand and eighty two separate volumes. The earliest dates from 1565 and the most modern from 1994 (although the latter is a reprint of a an 18th century set of volumes).  There is still a bit more work to do on the spreadsheet but hopefully this will evetually form the basis of a finding aid allowing greater awareness of and access to these collections.

A gathering of spectators

We have recently acquired the archive of Leeds Met Gallery and Studio Theatre, which is very exciting.  With the closure of H Block at Civic Quarter, part of the original Central Colleges and Polytechnic site, the traditional venues no longer exist and the Gallery and Studio Theatre are working on plans for off-site projects.  The archive generally covers the period from the refurbishment of Leeds Polytechnic Gallery in 1990 and the establishment of the then named Leeds Polytechnic Gallery and Studio Theatre through to the present day.  The archives  not only provide a record of the varied and vibrant works performed and shown but also the inner workings of a well-respected arts venue.  Records from the period before 1990 are not part of this collection, but investigations are continuing to see if any have survived.

In the past the Gallery and Theatre have supplied a venue for many emerging and more established artists, performers and practitioners.  Which, in a very small way, at one time included me! As a young painter I had two paintings accepted for the New Art in Yorkshire Show in 1987, one of the venues was the then Leeds Polytechnic Gallery. looking over the show catalogue I notice other artists exhibiting were Damien Hirst, then a student at Leeds and Willy Tirr, who was once Head of Fine Art at Leeds Polytechnic.

Books for the dead

Edgar Bell Inscription

The war memorial in the James Graham Building at our Headingley Campus rightly attracts attention around the time of Remembrance Day.  It becomes a focus for the University’s events during this time, the most visible memorial that survives of the constituent colleges that eventually formed the University.

Another less obvious memorial to the students who fell during the wars of the twentieth century are the college books dedicated to them by their parents and  loved ones. One such book is a second volume of  “Building Construction” dedicated to E. A. Bell by his parents. Edgar Allan Bell was born in Sheffield on the 13 January 1896 the youngest son of Alexander Brown Bell, a journalist who for a time worked on the Yorkshire Evening Post.  Edgar Bell enlisted at Leeds in 1913 joining the Yorkshire Hussars and was part of the British Expeditionary Force during 1915.  By 1916 he had joined the South Staffordshire Regiment and continued in the war, being promoted to Lance Corporal, until he was wounded at Angres in May 1917, he died of his wounds eight months later.

Bell was training to be an architect, studying at the Leeds School of Architecture and had passed the RIBA Intermediate Examination before the war started. Like so many others of his generation his hopes and aspirations were quashed.  Perhaps his parents  took comfort from his commanding officer’s comment that “You will be pleased to hear that he behaved splendidly”.  Perhaps  they were proud to see his name etched in stone or metal on some other war memorial.  But perhaps in the end they believed a book, relevant to his chosen profession, would best bear thier son’s memory to future generations.