Bradford Artists & Social Change

 

Art, including photography, can be a powerful instrument for encouraging social comment, change, even protest.

In Bradford, artists and photographers, past and present, have used art for social commentary or documentary purposes. In recent years too, there has been a movement to involve local people more in individual or collective creative projects, and to remove a perceived elitist tag from ‘art’.

Here then, in chronological order, are some Bradford artists over the last 100+ years who have responded through their art to social change in Bradford, and elsewhere.

James Lobley (1828-1888) came from relatively humble origins, but worked his way by virtue of his talent to become design teacher at the Bradford Mechanics Institute School of Design.  Despite his position, it was not particularly well-paid and he was forced to teach privately and undertake private commissions to provide for his growing family. His precarious financial position made him dependent on the patronage of wealthier Bradfordians, and this, combined with his liberal political leanings and progressive views on education, led him to paint a series of narrative scenes depicting working people in a sympathetic light.  One of his most overt social commentary paintings is ‘The Dole, Stow Church’, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1867, and now on permanent display at Cartwright Hall, Bradford.

 

 

The painting, oil on canvas, illustrates the donation of bread to the rural poor at the Stow Church in Lincolnshire. It was part of the Tomlinson’s Dole, an ancient charity that allowed a small sum of money (20 shillings annually) for bread to be given out to needy parishioners immediately after Divine Service on a Sunday.

The scene shows the local Parson (believed to be modelled on Lobley’s own father), giving out loaves of bread to a group of mainly ageing parishioners. The stigma of dependency of those receiving the ‘dole’ is emphasised by their demeanour. The two older women upright in the scene have their eyes downcast, and the woman seated appears to be in a state of depression: her shoulders are stooped and eyes cast down. Even the young girl receiving bread has averted her eyes from the Parson.

In the far corner, left, a woman and child are exiting the church by the main door. Both figures are well-dressed, and a young girl in working clothes has turned toward the opened door to watch her wealthy neighbours leave.

The composition in the painting reflects the social levels in 19th century British society, with a small wealthy group in the background; the middle classes, as represented by the Parson, occupying the more elevated middle ground of the picture; and below him a rural working class population, where the old and very young, unable to work themselves, were often dependent on the generosity of others to survive.

Lobley’s ideas and concerns about the social class divides and poverty, particularly in rural communities, are expressed in this work. Note the worn boots of the child looking at the two figures leaving the church, and the contrast between her head covering compared with the bonnet of the departing child.

There are also religious connotations in the work, with references in the Bible to the symbolism of bread; for example:

“… I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life…This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. (John: 6.47-50).

However, the shame of being dependent, and being on the receiving end of charity, is clearly written on to the faces of the villagers. They would also have needed to attend church regularly to receive the bread; if you were an agnostic, you went hungry.

John Sowden

By the mid 19th century, Bradford had become one of the most affluent cities in Britain. It had become a world centre for the manufacture of worsted textiles and its population had rocketed from 47,000 in 1831 to nearly 108,000 by 1851. The rapid growth of mills had created work for thousands, great wealth for hundreds – and misery for many who fell between the social cracks.

There were many, because of infirmity, old age or lack of skill, who could not work in the mills, shops or offices of the city. Their prospects were often very bleak unless they could scratch a living on the streets hawking, begging, or in other ways; the alternative was the dreaded workhouse.

Although there are photographs of 19th century street workers in England, there are few paintings of them. But one wealthy Bradford artist/businessman – John Sowden – wanted to paint the many characters he met on his journeys around the city.  Between 1891 and 1906 he painted portraits of 315 street characters, creating an invaluable social record of the times. He paid his subjects well for posing for him.

 

 

Sowden had risen from fairly humble beginnings to become a rich architect and artist. He painted the wealthy elite of Bradford, but because of his own origins, difficult home life, and Liberal political views, he was also sympathetic toward those on the margins of society. He was also influenced by William Mayhew’s book, ‘London Labour and London Poor’. Mayhew had awoken the public to the plight of the poor with his words; John Sowden wanted to do the same with his art.

Albert Rutherston

Albert Rutherston was born in Bradford, the younger brother of Sir William Rothenstein.

Albert studied art at the Slade School in London from 1989 to 1902 and under the tutelage of Fred Brown gained a reputation as a realist painter. The painting shown here, ‘The Song of the Shirt’,  painted in 1902, was the artist’s interpretation of a popular ballad of the same name, written by Thomas Hood, and published in 1843. The ballad drew attention to the plight of women in low-paid needlework trades and sparked a series of paintings by realist artists over the following 50 years.

The painting was more a response to his tuition at the Slade and the influence of realist art work of other contemporary artists known to Rutherston,  rather than an expression of his social commitment. He went on to become a successful designer of sets and costumes for the London theatre, producing lighter and frothier work.

However, ‘The Song of the Shirt’  did much to enhance his reputation as an artist and draw the public’s attention to the effect of long hours of hard labour by seamstresses working from home.

The painting catches the powerlessness of women in this situation. The model is shown in black, suggesting she is a widow forced to work as a seamstress from her home to make a living. The hunk of bread, undecorated walls, hard chair and plain furnishings all emphasise her poverty. She has a stooped posture and a dazed expression, again emphasising the long hours she would be forced to work.

Responding to Major changes in Bradford

Bradford, during the first 65 years of the twentieth century, was a relatively prosperous city, with a thriving engineering and textile industry. The buoyant economic conditions attracted workers from around the world to work in the mills of West Yorkshire, and new communities began to form around Bradford and elsewhere in the region.

For many years now, Bradford photographers, including Tim Smith, Ian Beesley,  Nudrat Afza, and John Bolloten  have documented the lives of the new workers to the city, and later their children and grand-children.

 

 

 

Out with the old …

From 1970 onward, there have been massive structural change in the city. Frank Johnson (1917 – 1998), painted realistic street and social scenes of a rapidly changing Bradford, including a major rebuilding programme that saw the demise of many old buildings in the city. Johnson’s painting, for example, of the demolition in 1990 of the Theatre Royal in Bradford, captures a sense of major reconstruction in the city, whilst passers-by, seemingly indifferent to the changes, walk past without a glance at the nearby destruction.

 

 

Community Art

An important feature of responding to social change in Bradford has been through the work of community artists and their encouragement of local people to express their collective and individual voices through art. Their work has been particularly important over the last 30+ years because of the major loss of the textile and engineering industries in Bradford and subsequent rise in unemployment and poverty. Discovering an interest or talent for art can help provide a focus and impetus to people who have lost their roles in society through unemployment

Artists, such as Tim Curtis, Mussarat Rahman, Lynne Dobson, Musarat Raza, Lou Sumray, Ruth Fettis, and Jean McEwan, have encouraged local people, particularly those who feel themselves ‘lacking’ in art talent, to express ideas and feelings through a variety of accessible art forms.

Jean McEwan, for example, founded the Wur Bradford  project, based in the Oastler Market, Bradford, as a creative safe space where local people could come together and explore, through a wide range of activities, ideas to make the city a better place to live. ‘WUR Bradford’ Projects in 2016, for example, included ideas to make refugees welcome, and ways of making Bradford a ‘Zero-Waste’ city.

 

 

Similarly,  in effort to highlight food waste and the impact of malnutrition on poor families in Bradford and elsewhere, Shipley photographer, Shy Burhan, in 2015-16 has photographed the day to day work in ‘Real Junk Food Project’ cafes across the UK, including at the local ‘Saltaire Canteen’, where food destined for the tip is rescued and turned into meals, bought on a ‘pay what you can’ basis.

Shy’s photographs have drawn attention of the paradox of food going to waste, parallel to a significant rise in the use of food banks in the Bradford by the poorest members of society; see Real Junk Food Project at http://therealjunkfoodproject.org/