Against the Grain - Collecting Contemporary Art at the Whitworth Art Gallery, The University of Manchester, UK

Abstract

In this paper I will address the ways in which we collect contemporary art at the Whitworth Art gallery, with reference to the methods of and approaches to collecting by other public galleries in Britain. The Whitworth Art Gallery is part of the University of Manchester and as such is one of the premier University galleries in Britain, ranking alongside the Fitzwilliam at Cambridge University, the Ashmolean at Oxford, and the Hunterian at Glasgow University. It is one of a group of institutions within the University of Manchester that hold cultural collections, the others being The Manchester Museum, the John Rylands Library, Jodrell Bank radio telescope and Tabley House.