The Perspectivists - catalogue.
Curated by Richard Brook and Martin Dodge
A compact exhibition of perspective paintings made up of lost and forgotten artefacts uncovered by the curators in the process of their research.
Martin Dodge has spent the last few years compiling the built history of the University of Manchester and Richard Brook has been in and out of mid-century Mancunian estates for as long as he has been in the city.
On their travels they have encountered paintings in cupboards, in dreary meeting rooms and filed amongst architectural drawings in plan chests, which they have assembled for this show.
All of these paintings are being shown in public for the first time. It is not just the objects that are forgotten, the lives of the artists are also massively under celebrated. In their day, they were seen as providing a service. Perspective paintings had a job to do - to sell the idea of a building to a client, to the public or to an investor.
The artists often went uncredited and were frequently disregarded as commercial artists, not fine artists. Here, with some historical distance, we want the viewer to join us in celebrating these works that are fine in their own right and present a skill that waned in the face of computer generated imagery.
