Maud Sulter

Maud Sulter (19 September 1960 – 27 February 2008)[1] was a Scottish contemporary fine artist, photographer, writer, educator, and curator of Ghanaian heritage. She first worked as a writer and poet, later turning the visual arts.[2] Sulter was known for her collaborations with other Black feminist scholars and activists, capturing the lives of Black peoples in Europe.

Maud Sulter
crop of a self-portrait
Born19 September 1960
Glasgow, Scotland
Died27 February 2008(2008-02-27) (aged 47)
Dumfries, Scotland
NationalityBritish
OccupationContemporary fine artist, photographer, writer and curator
Children3[1]

Early life and education

Maud Sulter was born on 9 September 1960 in Glasgow, Scotland to a Scots mother and a Ghanaian father.[3] Maud Sulter attained a Master's degree in Photographic Studies[1] from the University of Derby.[4] Her maternal grandfather had been an amateur photographer.[1]

Career

Black Women's Creative Project

Sulter worked with Sheba's Feminist Publisher's Collective starting in 1982.[5] As the only Black woman writer at the time, Sulter recognized an increasing need for writing tailored to Black women and co-founded the Black Women's Creative Project with Ingrid Pollard.[5] The magazine created a variety of content ranging from "hair braiding, poetry and performance".[5]

Art, photography, poetry

The Thin Blackline (1985) exhibition created by Lubaina Himid, marked the beginning of Sulter's art career.[6] The exhibition displayed the art of highly esteemed Black and Asian women artists, re-centering the visibility of Black and Asian art in the British art scene. She worked closely with Lubaina Himid, including on the book Passion: Discourses on Blackwomen’s Creativity, published by Urban Fox Press in 1990.[7]

Sulter's photographic practice included contemporary portraiture and montage. Her work typically referenced historical and mythical subjects. Her photography was exhibited in across the UK and internationally, including at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1987; the Johannesburg Biennial (1996); and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2003. She received a number of awards and residencies, including the British Telecom New Contemporaries Award 1990 and the Momart Fellowship at Tate Liverpool,[8] also in 1990.

As well as writing about art history and curating many exhibitions,[9] Sulter was also a poet and playwright, whose works include the collections As a Blackwoman (1985; her poem of the same title won the Vera Bell Prize from ACER, the Afro-Caribbean Education Resource, the previous year);[3] Zabat (1989); and Sekhmet (2005). She wrote a play inspired by the background of former Ghana head of state Jerry Rawlings, entitled Service to Empire (2002).[1]

She was a Lecturer of Fine Art at Manchester Metropolitan University.[10]

Death and legacy

She died in 2008, aged 47, after a long illness.[1] She was survived by two daughters and a son.

Her work also created coalitions between Black feminist and lesbian groups. Through collaborations with Black women artists, writers and photographers across the world, Sulter successfully brought awareness to the histories and continued presence of Black women figures. Sulter is contemporarily recognized as a significant contributor to the History of feminism.

Maud Sulter's work is held in a number of collections, including the Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum,[11] the Arts Council Collection, the British Council, the Scottish Arts Council and the Scottish Parliament Collection.

In 2011–2012, her work was shown at Tate Britain, London, in the exhibition Thin Black Line(s),[12] which was a re-staging of the seminal 1986 exhibition, The Thin Black Line at the ICA.[12]

In 2017, her Muses (Calliope: the muse of epic poetry, and Terpsichore: the muse of dance), two portraits were put on show in the Walker Gallery as part of the largest LGBTQ+ art exhibition in the UK, Coming Out: Sexuality, Gender, and Identity.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
Date Name Location Notes
1987 Sphinxx - A Black Photographic Herstory The Black Art Gallery, London, England [13][14]
1991–1992 Maud Sulter: Hysteria Various locations: London, Liverpool, Birmingham [13][15]
1991 Zabat Camerawork, London, England [13]
1993 Akwaba Artspeak Gallery, Vancouver, Canada
1993 Proverbs of Adwoa Steinbaum Krauss Gallery, New York City, New York
1994 Plantation University of Leeds Gallery, Leeds; Plug In, Winnipeg, Canada
1994 Syrcas Wrexham Library Art Centre and Tour, Wrexham, Wales
1995 Alba Glasgow: Centre for Contemporary Art; Belfast: Ormeau Baths; Preston: Harris Museum and Art Gallery
1995 Syrcas at Africus Johannesburg Biennale. Johannesburg: Greater Johannesburg Transitional Metropolitan Council
1999 My Father's House Rich Women of Zurich, London, England
2000 Plantation Centre for Contemporary Art, University of Central Lancashire, Preston, England
2003 Scots Poets St Andrews: Stanza at the Byre Theatre
2003 A Dozen Kisses Dundas Street Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
2003 Jeanne Duval: A Melodrama Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland
2004 About Face. Edinburgh, Scotland Organised by the Scottish Poetry Library.
2005 Sekhmet Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries
2016 Passion Impressions Gallery, Bradford, England [16]

Group exhibitions
Group exhibitions
Dates Name Artists Location Notes
1987 Lubaina Himid: New Robes for MaShulan Maud Sulter, Lubaina Himid Rochdale Art Gallery, Rochdale, England The work, A Room for MaSHULAN.
1988 Gold Blooded Warrior Maud Sulter, Lubaina Himid Tom Allen Centre, London, England
1989 Blackwoman Song Maud Sulter, Lubaina Himid Sisterwrite Gallery, London, England
1990 Treatise on the Sublime: Maud Sulter, Lubaina Himid Maud Sulter, Lubaina Himid Phebe Conley Art Gallery, California State University, Stanislaus, Turlock, California
1995 Word Not Found. Maud Sulter, Lubaina Himid Galerie Palais Walderdorff, Trier, Germany
2002 Speak English Maud Sulter, Lubaina Himid Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, Scotland
2002 Encontros Da Imagem photography festival Braga, Portugal
2006 Reading the Image: Poetics of the Black Diaspora Maud Sulter, Deanna Bowen, Christopher Cozier, Michael Fernandes. Thames Art Gallery, Chatham, Canada [17]
2008 Black Womanhood, Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body Various locations: Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth, Davis Museum and Cultural Centre, San Diego Museum of Art
2011 Thin Black Line(s). Maud Sulter, Sutapa Biswas, Sonia Boyce, Lubaina Himid, Claudette Johnson, Ingrid Pollard, Veronica Ryan Tate Britain museum, London, England [1]
2012 What We Have Done, What We Art About To Do Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow, Scotland
2012 Seduced by Art, Photography Past and Present London: National Gallery; Barcelona: CaixaForum and Madrid: CaixaForum
2013 'Two Invisible Case Studies' Maud Sulter, Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé Malmo Konsthall Curated by Mother Tongue
2013 Looking in: Photographic Portraits by Maud Sulter and Chan-Hyo Bae. Maud Sulter, Chan-Hyo Bae Ben Uri Gallery, London, England
2017 Coming Out: Sexuality, Gender, and Identity Maud Sulter, Andy Warhol, Sarah Lucas, Grayson Perry, David Hockney, Francis Bacon, Steve McQueen, Derek Jarman, Sunil Gupta, Chila Kumari Burman, Linder, Richard Hamilton, Gillian Wearing, Eric Bainbridge, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, Robert Colquhoun, Kate Davis, Jez Dolan, Mario Dubsky, Harry Diamond, Mark Francis, Anya Gallaccio, Colin Hall, Andrea Hamilton, Margaret Harrison, David Hurn, Bob Jardine, Isaac Julien, Karen Knorr, Hilary Lloyd, Robert MacBryde, Zanele Muholi, Catherine Opie, Hadrian Pigott, Charlotte Prodger, Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings, James Richards, Derek Ridgers, David Robilliard, Keith Vaughan, John Walter, Annie Wright, Vanley Burke Walker Gallery, Liverpool. [18]

Bibliography

Books by Sulter
  • Sulter, Maud (1985). As a Blackwoman, Poems 1982-1985. Urban Fox Press. ISBN 9781872124001.
  • Sulter, Maud (1989). Zabat: Poetics of a Family Tree. Urban Fox Press. ISBN 9781872124056.
  • Sulter, Maud (1990). Passion: Discourses on Blackwomen's Creativity. An Urban Fox Press cultural studies imprint. Urban Fox Press. ISBN 9781872124315.
  • Sulter, Maud (1990). Necropolis. Urban Fox Press. ISBN 9781872124063.
  • Sulter, Maud (2002). Service to Empire. A19. ISBN 978-0954330200.
  • Sulter, Maud (2005). Sekhmet: A Decade or So of Poems. Dumfries and Galloway Cultural Services. ISBN 978-0946280698.

Books about Sulter
  • Echo: Works by Women Artists 1850-1940 (Exhibition book). London, England: Tate Gallery Publications. 1991. ISBN 9781854370815.
  • Cherry, Deborah (2015). Maud Sulter: Passion. London, England: Altitude Editions. ISBN 978-1-906908-36-2.
  • Lepine, Ayla; Lodde, Matt; McKever, Rosalind (2015). Revival: Memories, Identities, Utopias. Courtauld Books Online. ISBN 978-1-907485-04-6. In the section by Deborah Cherry, "The Ghost Begins by Coming Back: Revenants and Returns in Maud Sulter's Photomontages"

References
  1. "Maud Sulter" (obituary), The Herald Newspaper, 22 March 2008.
  2. Stevenson, Sara; Morrison-Low, A. D.; Simpson, Allen; Lawson, Julie (1995). Light from the Dark Room: A Celebration of Scottish Photography, a Scottish-Canadian Collaboration. National Galleries of Scotland. p. 122. ISBN 9780903598583.
  3. Margaret Busby (ed.), "Maud Sulter", Daughters of Africa, London: Vintage, 1993, p. 921.
  4. "PART ONE: Contemporary Biographies: MAUD SULTER", EBSCO, January 2006.
  5. "Interview Passion Blackwomen's Creative, An Interview with Maud Suiter". Spare Rib. 220: 6–8. February 1991 – via British Library.
  6. Lubaina, Himid; Eyene, Christine (26 February 2015). "Thin Black Line(s)". Making Histories Visible. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
  7. "Maud Sulter" at Diaspora Artists.
  8. "Centre of the Creative Universe: Liverpool and the Avant-Garde: Timeline". tate.or.uk.
  9. "Maud Sulter", Autograph ABP.
  10. Stevenson, Sara; Morrison-Low, A. D.; Simpson, Allen; Lawson, Julie (1995). Light from the Dark Room: A Celebration of Scottish Photography, a Scottish-Canadian Collaboration. National Galleries of Scotland. p. 122. ISBN 9780903598583.
  11. "Urania (Portrait of Lubaina Himid); Zabat". Victoria & Albert Museum.
  12. "Thin Black Line(s)", Making Histories Visible.
  13. Keen, Melanie. (1996). Recordings : a select bibliography of contemporary African, Afro-Caribbean and Asian British art. Ward, Elizabeth., Chelsea College of Art and Design., Institute of International Visual Arts. London: Institute of International Visual Arts and Chelsea College of Art and Design. ISBN 1-899846-06-9. OCLC 36076932.
  14. "Sphinx | A Black Photographic Herstory". Diaspora Artists. Retrieved 3 September 2020.
  15. "Hysteria | Photoworks by Maud Sulter". Diaspora-artists. Retrieved 3 September 2020.
  16. "Maud Sulter retrospective: Passion". Amateur Photographer. 5 May 2016. Retrieved 3 September 2020.
  17. "Reading the Image: Poetics of the Black Diaspora". Diaspora-artists. Retrieved 3 September 2020.
  18. Jansen, Charlotte (31 July 2017). "Celebrating gender identity, a new exhibition brings together a diverse cache of LGBT art". Wallpaper* Magazine. Retrieved 3 September 2020.
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