Bunker Talk #151: Manchester Academy of Fine Arts

MAFA presents a discussion on “Looking Back, Moving Forward – Creating, Collecting and Conserving Art in Manchester”. Contributors include Hannah Williamson, Curator of Fine Art at Manchester Art Gallery, Peter Davis, MAFA Archivist and Wendy Levy, Gallerist in Manchester for 40 years. Chairing the discussion will be Dr Fionna Barber, Reader in Art History in the Department of Art and Performance at Manchester School of Art.

Hannah Williamson has been a Curator at Manchester Art Gallery for 12 years. Previously she worked at Hat Works, the hat museum in Stockport, and at the National Trust’s Quarry Bank Mill. She is interested in connecting industrial and social history with art history, and in exploring lesser-known art movements. Her favourite curating cuts across time to make unexpected combinations, and her keenest professional pleasure is found in talking about art. Hannah has recently started a PhD in museum history at Manchester Metropolitan University. She lives in Macclesfield and is proud to serve on the board of trustees of Macclesfield Silk Museum.

Peter Davis has been the Archivist for MAFA since 2022. During recent exhibitions he has produced several public presentations for visitors to Manchester Art Gallery, Dean Clough, and Stockport War Memorial Art Gallery related to the MAFA archives which are housed at Manchester Art Gallery. He is a Northwest based professional artist, currently creating urban realist and contemporary figurative paintings. He has exhibited in numerous mixed exhibitions throughout the UK, in addition to MAFA exhibitions; in 2020, he was selected for the John Moores Painting Prize. As well as being a member of MAFA, Peter also belongs to the Contemporary British Portrait Painters (CBPP) and Castlefield Gallery Associates.

Wendy Levy is a patron of MAFA. Wendy’s career as a gallerist began in 1971 at the Pitcairn Galleries Knutsford, learning her gallery skills under the guidance of Peter Burdett, the founder and proprietor, eventually taking on the gallery as her own.

Pitcairn Galleries showed work by eminent artists including Sir Matthew Smith, L.S. Lowry, Joseph Herman, David Bomberg, and Elisabeth Frink, as well as the newer artists of the day such as William Ralph Turner, Geoffrey Key and Dawn Rowland. Later, she went on to show work by Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, Ben Nicholson, Winifred Nicholson and many others from the St Ives School. From 2000 until 2013, Wendy continued showing work by renowned artists in her new gallery in Didsbury;

in addition, helping newer North West artists, including Manchester Academicians, by representing, nurturing and assisting in establishing their careers. She continues to support them by presenting exhibitions in her online gallery, working on a one to one basis with collectors. 

This talk is a precursor to an exhibition by the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts at Manchester Cathedral entitled ‘Voyages’ ( July 2nd – August 31st 2025), where the idea of discovery through a voyage personal to the artists is reflected in their works. The catalogue accompanying the exhibition will feature contributions by the participants extracted from the Bunker Talks.

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Find out more about MAFA at www.mafa.org.uk