Iconic Football Art on Display

A selection of highlights from the National Football Museum’s surprising art collection have gone on display in Manchester for the first time.

Exhibited as part of the Heritage Lottery Fund Collecting Cultures project ‘The Art Of Football’, this small selection of highlights from the museum’s collection features a range of art that takes football as its inspiration.

A number of artworks displayed are from 1953; the same year L.S. Lowry’s iconic Going To The Match won the inaugural Football And Fine Arts competition arranged by The FA and the newly-formed Arts Council.

Gerald Cains on Saturday Taxpayers (1953)

On Tuesday 14th of April Sally Hawley and John O’Shea travelled to Bristol’s Royal West of England Academy to meet with Gerald Cains – painter of “Saturday Taxpayers”.

Using a small digital sound recorder we conducted some oral history recordings relating to:

• Gerald’s memory of the 1953 exhibition
• his inspiration for this specific work
• the development of his painting in the time since then (including his entry to 2006/07’s One Love exhibition at the Lowry in Salford)
• his thoughts regards football as a topic for art

The interview took a little over an hour and the resulting recordings have been added to an archive folder on our server for further research. Published below is is short excerpt where Gerald Cains describes his initial inspiration for the work Saturday Taxpayers”:

Art History – Part 2 (discussion)

Having engaged with a range of works on display (see Art History Primer – Part 1) the second part of the day involved a much closer examination, with members of the NFM Collections Team (Dr. Alex Jackson and Sally Hawley) of an item which had been specially brought to Manchester from museum’s collection, (the majority of which is held in Preston).

Gerald Cains’ “Saturday Taxpayers” is a painting which was created for the 1953 “Football and the Fine Arts” exhibition, a collaborative between the Football Association and the newly formed Arts Council of Great Britain and a seminal moment in the history of “football art”.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/saturday-taxpayers-228850

Art History – Part 1 (tour)

On 23rd of March Dr. Mike O’Mahony brought a group of undergraduate Art History students from University of Bristol to the National Football Museum (NFM) in Manchester. Mike and our guest, painter Dominic Heffer, initiated our programme of staff training by facilitating a series of informed discussions between the art history students and NFM’s collections team.

 

Researching the Existing Collection

Sally Hawley, Collections Officer at National Football Museum has been assigned as the main point of contact between the project and the NFM collection and has begun some preliminary research in order to:

• Identify specific 1953 related items, history and artists represented within our collections and available to us on loan.
• What existing print items do we have? What are their materials? etc.
• What are the storage, conservation and display needs around:
  • paintings
  • illustrations
  • prints

Project Dissemination

Article in University of Bristol School of Humanities Newsletter:

Dr Mike O’Mahony to work with the National Football Museum on A Heritage Lottery Fund Project.

The National Football Museum has received a grant of £199,900 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) Collecting Cultures scheme in order to expand its collection of artworks inspired by or depicting the beautiful game. Mike O’Mahony will advise the NFM on acquisition as well as setting up workshops with the Museum curatorial staff to develop programmes for promoting and presenting the extensive art collection of the museum to the public. The three-year project will conclude with an exhibition displaying new acquisitions alongside other works from the collection.

Mike O’Mahony has previously worked with the museum advising them on loan acquisitions, including Picasso’s Footballeur (1965) and Charles Ernest Cundall’s A Chelsea Cup Tie (1923).

Project Partners Meeting

A project start meeting was convened at University of Bristol History of Art Department on 15th of January 2015 hosted by Prof. Mike O’Mahony and attended by John O’Shea and David Pearson. An outline was drawn up of the key areas of investigation for this 4 year project along with associated challenges, opportunities and key timepoints. (Comprehensive notes were taken and shared with partners). There are effectively three areas of investigation over the first three years and identified below are some starting points and challenges for the first year:

Cohort Meeting #1

The first cohort meeting of the new Collecting Cultures Fund was held at the Museum of London and attended on behalf of National Football Museum by David Pearson (Deputy Director) and John O’Shea. It was a very thorough day (comprehensive notes were taken/shared) but four takeaway points are below:

1. Importance of Dialogue with Community

• Set up a blog (done!) This can be a central point for engagement.
• Use objects to engage dialogue (through forums etc.) Notify HLF, museum colleagues and public as acquisitions are made.
• Importance of Dissemination through peer publications and press
• September 2015 (date TBC) there will be a conference for all the projects.