Uncovering Queer Collections in Birmingham Museums Trust

Natasha Booth-Johnson

Collection: Birmingham Museums Trust

Keywords: LGBTQ audit, collection survey, fine art collections, representation

In autumn 2023, I was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to undergo a placement project with Birmingham Museums Trust. I was tasked with identifying objects of queer significance across their expansive collections (containing over a million objects) and highlighting the importance of their untold histories. My definition of queerness for this project was necessarily quite broad, aiming to encompass any and all disruption or challenge to heteronormativity, including any identities that fall outside of the heterosexual paradigm or seek to blur its boundaries. This included representations of gender non-conformity, works of art both depicting queerness and created by queer artists, and objects pertaining to historical figures rumoured to be queer. Over the course of this project, I collated 176 objects, although I am certain many more remain undiscovered within the collection. [1]

My placement project built on previous work at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery to spotlight queer histories. Over the last two decades the museum has held two queer exhibitions: Coming Out: Sexuality, Gender, Identity in 2017, which travelled from the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, and Matt Smith’s Queering the Museum in 2011. While the 2017 exhibition was limited to the Gas Hall space and largely consisted of work loaned from the Arts Council Collection, Queering the Museum was held throughout the building and engaged directly with the museum’s collection. For this, significant objects were marked by a green carnation, which is a notable queer symbol from the nineteenth century, specifically the 1894 novel by Robert Hitchens, The Green Carnation, believed to have been written about Oscar Wilde at the height of his fame. This symbol, when used in the museum, encouraged engagement with queer objects for an audience who might not otherwise be inclined to seek out queer histories.

While Smith’s exhibition was excellent, it necessarily omitted many objects available in the city’s collection. It was intended as an intervention and exhibition that existed seamlessly alongside the other objects on displays in the permanent collection, and so only a limited number of objects were chosen as its focus. My survey was an opportunity to expand on work like this and highlight a larger number of objects already contained within the collection so that, were further queer-focused interventions and exhibitions to be staged again in the future, a wider range and larger number of objects could be utilised to tell the queer histories contained within the museum.

I collated the 176 objects I identified into a spreadsheet, presented my background research in a 70-page research document, and finished by creating a report called a Survey of Significance in which I went into detail on which objects I felt could be utilised to the museum’s advantage. The charts illustrated in this article give a snapshot of my research – Chart 1 (fig.1) shows the proportion of objects from different collections in the museum my project identified, and Chart 2 (fig.2) the date ranges that my selected objects covered. Of the objects I identified, most (57%) came from the Fine Art collection, including popular works in the collection such as Athlete Strangling a Python, 1877, and Study of a Head, 1888, by two male artists – Frederic, Lord Leighton and Simeon Solomon – who featured several times across the scope of my project. Artists like Leighton and Solomon could often operate within a subculture that tolerated or even, at times, embraced queer symbolism – for instance, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood often depicted pagan subject matter which allowed them to distance their works of art from the predominantly Christian Victorian culture and explore challenging themes. [2] Richer academic study into the practice of locating queer symbolism within art, such as work by Emmanuel Cooper and Whitney Davis, means that there is a broad basis for research into this area. [3]

Objects from the other collections, such as Science and Industry, Topographical Views, and Natural Sciences were limited to a more tangential relation to LGBTQ+ interests due to the lack of information on the ownership and creation of these objects compared to a collection like Fine Art. It is important to note, however, that in recent years studies to trace queer contributions to the sciences have grown in frequency and number, meaning more queer histories are being uncovered in these areas through varied methodologies.

Furthermore, a significant number of the objects I uncovered were created in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, meaning that the contexts and historical moments from which they originated must be carefully considered. While it is impossible to accurately unveil the sexual orientation or identity of those who are long dead, I felt that it is important to resist excluding people from these groups on the basis of their inability to self-identify as queer. Working within the definition of queer as a challenge to heteronormativity, I can seek to locate those who are likely to have experienced same-sex desire or whom I believed might presently identify as such, were they given the opportunity. This understanding allowed me to present a more vibrant queer history to the museum through my project, and meant that it became more expansive than the limited objects that had been previously identified. By presenting a wide range of queer histories and potentialities, the museum can engage with a wide range of audiences and provide an inclusive experience to museum-goers who may not have expected to see themselves represented in the past.

As it stands, however, the collection at Birmingham Museums Trust cannot currently be considered representational of all aspects of queerness. While it is impossible for a collection to ever be complete, especially where the vibrant and contrasting experiences of queerness are concerned, the museum’s collection currently underrepresents several groups including but not limited to: queer women and lesbians, queer people of colour, and transgender and non-binary people. When these groups are represented in the current collection, it is often in work completed by an individual who did not fall into these groups (i.e. white artists depicting people of colour). Bearing this in mind, I proceeded with the knowledge that white male artists would make up a significant portion of my survey, but also made a particular effort to highlight objects that did not fall into this category too. While the perspectives of the overrepresented group are still vital, it would benefit the collection if, in the future, Birmingham Museums Trust sought to expand the collection to include other viewpoints and experiences.

Many of the objects I selected, of course, have multiple interpretations, and sometimes a queer explanation is perhaps not the most obvious. Nonetheless, I have concluded that every object in my selection has something significant to offer queer history and queer heritage. For instance, while coins depicting Roman emperors such as Hadrian (widely believed to have been gay) and Elagabalus (considered by many to be the first transgender woman) may not have been collected for their queer significance initially, they do open the opportunity for discussion on the existence of queer people in every period.

Objects from the past can also allow us to open dialogues with the public about the experiences and challenges faced by queer people in the past, and how the language surrounding queerness has changed and continues to do so. It is vital to remember that progress and acceptance is not linear – some cultures of the past, for example, experienced very little (or a different kind of) homophobia to what may exist today.

In the concluding survey of significance I completed for this project, I identified ten objects I considered to be representative of the collection which I have presented below, alongside the name of the collection in which they sit:

• Babylon Hath Been a Golden Cup, Simeon Solomon, 1859, Fine Art.
• Study for August Blue, Henry Scott Tuke, 1915, Fine Art.
• A Symphony in Bronze and Silver, Ethel Walker, 1900-14, Fine Art.
• Portrait of Miss Edith Emma Cooper, Charles Haslewood Shannon, 1900-10, Fine Art.
• Study of a Man, Duncan Grant, 1942, Fine Art.
• Figures in a Landscape, Francis Bacon, 1956, Fine Art.
• Gold Stater of Alexander the Great, 336-300 BCE, Antiquities.
• Jakes’ Progress, Matt Smith, 2010, Applied Art.
• ‘World AIDS Day 1993’, Mark Salmon, 1993, Social History.
• ‘Say No to LGBT Racism’, Anonymous, 2017, Social History.

I selected these to be as widely representative of the collection as possible (mirroring my project’s findings, Fine Art makes up 60% of the selected objects) while also drawing attention to objects that have not yet been utilised by the museum to their full potential and objects depicting or created by people of colour (such as Duncan Grant’s Study of a Man, 1942, and the protest sign ‘Say No To LGBT Racism’). Well-known male artists such as Simeon Solomon, who appears most often in the survey, and Francis Bacon, creator of one of the museum’s most exhibited queer paintings, Figures in a Landscape, 1956, appear alongside nameless figures, such as the maker of ‘Say No To LGBT Racism’ and the people depicted in Mark Salmon’s photograph ‘World AIDS Day 1993’. While it was impossible to show the true breadth of the collection in only ten objects, I found that these objects in particular offer a valuable glimpse into what the museum’s queer stories have to offer.

A project such as this cannot ever be considered complete, as more, consistent work is necessary to represent the wide scope of the queer experience. Often forgotten or hidden, queer stories are a vital part of any museum’s collection and should be treated as such. If we refuse to engage in queer heritage, remove work from its queer contexts, or limit discussions of queer stories to one month a year, we risk obfuscating rather than embracing the queer past. I completed this work with the aim of highlighting both the rich array of stories already captured by Birmingham Museums Trust and hidden within their vast collections, and of identifying the gaps to be filled in the future. My hope is that, in future exhibitions and collecting, Birmingham Museums Trust will refer to my work and use it as a basis from which to provide museum-goers with the vital queer stories that have often been overlooked. 

Natasha Booth-Johnson is a PhD candidate at the University of Birmingham, researching queer fiction by female authors engaged in suffrage and socialist movements at the end of the nineteenth century.  

[1] For a helpful overview on scholarship on LGBTQ heritage in museum collections, see Kris Reid and Richard Sandell, ‘LGBTQ Heritage and Collections – SSN Literature Review’, Queer Heritage and Collections (2021) [accessed 31 March 2025].

[2] See Colin Cruise, Love Revealed: Simeon Solomon and the Pre-Raphaelites (London, 2005).

[3] Emmanuel Cooper, The Sexual Perspective: Homosexuality and Art in the Last 100 Years in the West (London, 1994) and Whitney Davis, Gay and Lesbian Studies in Art History (London, 1994).