Midlands Art Papers 9 (2026)
DOI: TBC
The online journal Midlands Art Papers, produced by the department of Art History, Curating and Visual Studies, connects staff and students with the world class works of art and design in public collections across the Midlands, including our 13 partner institutions.
Craft and the decorative in the Midlands: introduction and manifesto
Introduction and manifestoClaire Jones, editor of this year’s issue of Midlands Art Papers introduces its focus on craft and the decorative in the Midlands. She reflects on the historic and contemporary contexts of the Midlands, introduces the contributions to this special issue, and offers a manifesto of sorts on curating craft and the decorative arts.
Swords Into Ploughshares: Knives Into Jewels
Swords Into PloughsharesDauvit Alexander and Norman Cherry reflect on Swords into Ploughshares: Knives into Jewels, a touring exhibition of work by 38 international jewellery and metals artists that uses knives sequestered by West Midlands Police to comment on the current epidemic of knife-crime in the UK. Each outing of the exhibition has been accompanied by a locally devised workshop for young people to allow them to experience their own version of ‘craft-activism’.
The Overthrow of Pharaoh and his Host in the Red Sea (1892)
The Overthrow of PharaohMaddie Hewitson explores a terracotta relief by the Victorian ceramic art-worker George Tinworth at The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery and traces how it moved between showroom, hospital chapel, and home through different material forms. It shows how craft, class, and religion shaped the ways ordinary people encountered biblical imagery in nineteenth-century Britain.
‘A treasure house of examples for reference and for instruction’
‘A treasure house of examples'Maialen Maugars examines the decorative art collections at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery in relation to late-nineteenth-century artistic training and industrial design in the Midlands, drawing on her recent doctoral research.
Birmingham’s Seventeenth-Century Collections
Seventeenth-Century CollectionsRebecca Unsworth explores changes in approaches towards curating and interpreting decorative art at Birmingham Museums. This essay focuses on Birmingham’s collection of seventeenth-century decorative art, arguing that these objects can be seen as examples of material culture, able to illuminate social, political and cultural histories of the early modern world.
Makers as educators, curators and collectors
Makers as educatorsLily Crowther explores how Louis Jahn (1839–1911) and his sons Albert (1865–1947) and Francis (1871–1967) played foundational roles in the civic museums of Hanley, Wolverhampton and Leamington Spa respectively. With a background in the pottery industry, the Jahns became influential collectors and curators of ceramics and decorative art.
Trajva: Bodies, jewellery and the spaces in between
TrajvaBharti Parmar reflects on the traditional practice of Trajva – tattoos adorning women in rural Gujarat, her ancestral homeland. Trajva represents a codified language, intricately etched into the lives of these women, and serves to communicate deep cultural meanings. Parmar examines how the symbolic and material aspects of these tattoos resonate with her own studio practice, especially through research in material culture studies.
Travelling Folk Objects: Nine Portuguese Baskets
Travelling Folk ObjectsInês Jorge examines nine Portuguese baskets collected by Monica Mander, a British traveller, in the early twentieth century. Their shapes, materials, and journeys into a British museum reveal how traditional basketry was shaped by tourism, social status, and international exchange.
Quilt-Making and the Status of Craft
Quilt-MakingIn our first video for MAP, Ruth Warhurst draws on her own memories of her grandmother quilting, to reflect Dinah Prentice’s quilts in the University of Birmingham’s collections, revealing how traditional quilt-making, artistic innovation, and mythology converge in these works.
Dinah Prentice Unfolded: Status, Archives, Futures
Dinah Prentice UnfoldedRuth Warhurst explores the University of Birmingham’s recent acquisition of works by Dinah Prentice, which shines a long-overdue spotlight on an artist whose contribution to Birmingham’s post-war cultural landscape has too often been overlooked. Working during the 1960s and 1970s, Prentice embraced experimentation across textile, drawing, and print, pushing at the boundaries of artistic practice. These newly acquired works, including her preparatory drawings, offer a rare and vivid glimpse into her creative process, while highlighting her vital role in challenging distinctions between fine art and textile practice at a formative moment in the city’s evolving contemporary art scene.