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 ...

, 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 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 city lac ...

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 ...

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 The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The university owns and operates majo ...

, and the Departments of Art and Performance which incorporates the Manchester School of Theatre, 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 silicat ...

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 unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terra ...

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 aest ...

d wings with

pinnacle A pinnacle is an architectural element originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire. It was mainly ...

s 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 An arcade is a succession of contiguous arches, with each arch supported by a colonnade of columns or piers. Exterior arcades are designed to provide a sheltered walkway for pedestrians. The walkway may be lined with retail stores. An arcade may ...

main range. In the centre is a

chamfer A chamfer or is a transitional edge between two faces of an object. Sometimes defined as a form of bevel, it is often created at a 45° angle between two adjoining right-angled faces. Chamfers are frequently used in machining, carpentry, ...

ed 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, brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window is most commonly found projecting from an upper f ...

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 of a dome, spire, towe ...

at the top. The building is

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

. The 1897 extension designed by Joseph Gibbon Sankey, 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 in the mid-1880s. It is the first Art Nouveau style worldwide, and it represents the evolution of the Arts and Crafts movement which was native ...

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, 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 Edmund Potter (1802–1883) was a Manchester industrialist and MP and grandfather to Beatrix Potter. He was a unitarian and, from 1861 to 1874, Liberal MP for Carlisle. Potter moved his business to Glossop in 1825, he rebuilt Joseph Lyne's B ...

and James Thomson were involved in the school's foundation. The first head from 1838 was John Zephaniah Bell, 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 metalwor ...

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 Pierre Adolphe Valette (13 October 1876 – 18 April 1942) was a French Impressionist painter who spent most of his career in England. His most acclaimed paintings are urban landscapes of Manchester, now in the collection of Manchester Art ...

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, Eugene Halliday,

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 Univers ...

, Ossie Clark,

Martin Parr Martin Parr (born 23 May 1952) is a British documentary photographer, photojournalist and photobook collector. He is known for his photographic projects that take an intimate, satirical and anthropological look at aspects of modern life, in p ...

, Malcolm Garrett, Peter Saville, Thomas Heatherwick, Roger Hampson 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 Man ...

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 Susan Isabel Dacre (1844–1933), known as Isabel Dacre, was an English artist of the Victorian era. Biography She was born in Leamington, Warwickshire, and was educated at a convent school in Salford, Greater Manchester, Salford. For the ...

and

Annie Swynnerton Annie Louisa Swynnerton, ARA ( Robinson; 26 February 1844 – 24 October 1933) was a British painter best known for her portrait and symbolist works. She studied at Manchester School of Art and at the Académie Julian, before basing herself i ...

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 John Mayall, OBE (born 29 November 1933) is an English blues singer, musician and songwriter, whose musical career spans over sixty years. In the 1960s, he was the founder of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, a band that has counted among it ...

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, 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 t ...

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 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 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