The Library’s Special Collections provide a rich resource for Art History and Visual Studies at the University of Manchester.
Our collections cover areas as diverse as Renaissance print culture, Post World War II avant garde art movements, the art and illustration of science, technology and medicine, 19th century British Art, and the visual culture of the Near, Middle and Far East.
This guide identifies our collection strengths to help you access the most relevant material.
The Library's collection of art and visual culture contains paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, textiles, ceramics, prints, illustrations in books and illuminations in manuscripts. Our rare book and archive collections (History of Art and Architecture) are also rich in documentary source materials that relate to the study of art history. These collections date from the ancient world to the present, and their scope is international. Their particular strengths are in the following areas:
Our collections of non-Western manuscripts (Jewish, Near Eastern and Oriental manuscripts) contain a wide range of examples of the art and visual culture of the Near, Middle and Far East in the form of drawings, paintings, illumination and calligraphy whilst our Western European manuscripts (Western European manuscripts) represent the crafts of painting, illumination and calligraphy.
European prints and visual print culture is well represented in the Library's collections. Covering a spectrum of subjects, our prints provide examples of a range of different techniques including relief, intaglio, planographic and screen printing. They date from the 15th century to the present and include works by Nicolas Poussin, William Hogarth, William Blake and Ian Hamilton Finlay.
The Hiero von Holtorp Collection, assembled by the 19th century collector and designer Hiero von Holtorp, is an especially rich source for the study of Renaissance prints and contains works by Northern and Italian masters including, Albrecht Durer, Hans Burkmair, and Andrea Mantegna.
The Library's collections contain a wide range of material that relate to art movements from the 20th century, including papers and art works created by significant artists, sculptors, print makers, and photographers from Britain and beyond.
Post World War II avant garde international art and 'counter cultural' movements, are especially well represented in the collections. Art works, 'zines and artists books survive in the collections of dom sylvester houēdard (dsh, and dsh book collection), Li Yuan-chia (Lu Yuan-chia) and Jeff Nuttall (Jeff Nuttall).
The Library has extremely rich collections in the area of 19th century art; the Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts Movements are especially well represented.
The collections include the papers of William Holman Hunt (William Holman Hunt Papers), John Ruskin (John Ruskin Papers and John Ruskin Printed Works), Ruskin's assistant and friend,Charles Fairfax Murray (Charles Fairfax Murray Papers), the art critic Marion Harry Spielmann, (Spielmann Collection), the artist Walter Crane (Walter Crane Archive) and the Manchester artist Robert Crozier (Robert Crozier Collection).
These contain substantial exchanges of correspondence between figures that include Edward Burne-Jones, D.G. Rossetti, W.M Rossetti, William Morris, George F. Watts, Frederic Lord Leighton, and Charles Eastlake, the first Director of the National Gallery. In addition, the Private Press book collection contain all fifty-three publications of William Morris’s Kelmscott Press.
Architectural, urban, garden and landscape history is well represented across our collections and includes treatises and surveys which range from Alberti and Palladio to Robert Adam, Sir John Soane and Joseph Nash. We also hold extensive collections of atlases and travelogues.
Urban design and development, particularly of Manchester and the North West of England, is well represented in our Map Collection. Included in the collection are large-scale historical town plans by William Green and Joseph Adshead, as well as detailed Ordnance Survey plans dating from 1848 to the present day. Many of the historical maps of Manchester are available in our Online Map Collection.
The Map Collection also contains historical and modern mapping of major cities from across the world including London and Paris. In addition, the Library holds architectural archives including the Manchester Society of Architects, the Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain and the University of Manchester's School of Architecture Archive (School of Architecture Archive). We also hold personal papers relating to distinguished architects and town planners, including Sir Hubert Worthington and Raymond Unwin.
The University of Manchester Library holds one of the finest collections of rare books, manuscripts, archives and visual collections in the world. These collections are mainly concentrated in the magnificent building on Deansgate, The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, in the centre of Manchester. They are also housed in the Main Library on the University campus and at the Ahmed Iqbal Ullah RACE Centre, in Manchester Central Library. This resource introduces the different types of materials found in Special Collections and explains how they can be used to support your studies. For general tips on accessing digital and physical collections and visiting our reading room please look at our other Medium resources.
You are welcome to make use of Special Collections in your learning and research.
Due to the special nature of the material, we provide access in a controlled environment and there are some restrictions on use and access, particularly for fragile material or modern archives which may contain sensitive data.
Please read our guidance pages on the web for details.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence.