Collections

There are approximately 500,000 items held at Birmingham City University Arts, Design and Media archive, spanning 40 collections covering art and design, photography, education, music, media, jewellery, architecture and fashion.

They range in size from less than fifty items to over 40,000 and contain paper documents and books as well as artworks, designs, posters, photographs and slides. Thirteen collections have been catalogued to date.

School of Art Archive

This collection includes books, student records, programmes and photographs that document the history of the School.

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Public Arts Commissions Agency

The Public Arts Commissions Agency (PACA) was formed in 1987 as an educational charity for public art, art projects and research.  

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Marion Richardson Collection

Marion Richardson was an influential art teacher and pioneer of the child art movement. Find out more about the collection.

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Larry Cartoon Collection

Larry Parkes was a cartoonist and illustrator, the collection contains cartoons on the subject of art and art galleries.

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The Craftsman’s Club Collection

The Craftsman’s Club was a group founded in 1902 by Robert Catterson-Smith, Headmaster of the School of Art from 1903 to 1920.

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Margaret Street Restoration Project

The collection contains documents and colour photographs that document the progress of the restoration of the School of Art in 1994-1995.

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Margaret Street Centenary Folio

The collection is made up of 12 unframed original art prints by members of staff of the School of Fine Art.

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Birmingham Billboard Project

This collection documents an art project organised by Graham Fagen, who was a member of staff at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design.

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Hodgson Art History Collection

This collection contains files and papers produced by Frank Hodgson as a teacher at the Birmingham College of Arts and Crafts.

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Bowater Family Collection

This collection focuses on the history of the Bowater family and the artistic development of their daughter Gertrude Ann.

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Plaster Casts Collection

This collection consists of plaster casts used for teaching in the Birmingham School of Art during the nineteenth century.

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School of Jewellery Archive

Recently the ADM Archive has acquired a collection of 1000 medals that were found in the vault at the School of Jewellery.

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Phil Miller Collection

The Phil Miller Collection comprises mostly of his compositional work, LPs, CDs, and other ephemerals related to his artistic career. 

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Pete James

The Pete James collection includes his personal library of books, catalogues of exhibitions by contemporary photographers, and periodicals on photography.

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National Jazz Archive

The National Jazz Archive Satellite Collection is a treasure trove for jazz enthusiasts, professionals, and researchers.

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Barbara Webster

The Barbara Webster Collection contains over 250 items related to the work of the Women’s Unit between 1984 and 1988.  

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Historical Dress

The collection contains a range of historical dress, with the earliest item a pair of shoes with buckles that date from 1775 and the most recent a dress from the 1980s.

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Ian Edmond NME Magazine Collection

The Ian Edmond Collection at ADM Archive contains 943 issues of NME dating from 1984 to 2005. 

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Letters from Back A Yard Collection

This collection is a growing digital archive charting the personal experience of the Caribbean migrants who came to live and work in Britain from the 1940’s to the end of the 1980s.

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Ron Davis Collection

Ronald Davis (1920-1996) was a typographer and labour councillor. The collection contains material relating to Ron Davis’ political and professional careers. 

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Digbrew Collection

The Dig Brew Collection contains extensive branding material from the company, including items relating to the beer they brewed in the form of beer tins, beer labels and pipe clips

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Phil Howitt Collection

This collection contains the complete run of Facelift a music fanzine that ran for 19 issues from 1989 to 1998.

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Herman Wilson Collection

Herman Herrington Wilson was a Jamaican-born trombonist, band leader, arranger, composer, and educator. The collection comprises most of his compositional work.

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Art Education

Material dates from the 1950s to the 1980s, including administrative records,  finance, Government publications and responses, staff appointments and student admissions, resources produced by staff and artworks.

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Public Monuments and Sculpture

Much of this collection is made up of photographs and slides of public sculpture and monuments in Midlands counties.

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Diploma in Professional Studies in Education

The collection contains administrative records relating to the running of the course during the 1980s and 1990s.

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Bournville School of Art

The collection includes documentary material including prospectuses dating from 1919-20 to 1982-83, course brochures, exhibition catalogues and student artwork.

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David Massey Collection

David Massey is the award winning West-Midlands based author of the young adult novels: Taken, Torn and Bone Surfers, and alumni of Birmingham City University. 

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Oliver Carter Film Fanzine Collection

This collection contains 110 issues of the magazine Video Watchdog dating from 1990 to 2012.

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