New Acquisitions

The Harris have acquired this wedding dress from a Preston dressmaker, Hatfield and Butler, in purple grosgrain silk with ruffled cream silk collar and cuffs and pearl border trim. The wedding dress was made by a Preston dressmaker and has their label on the inside waist tape, which reads Butler & Hatfield, Costumier & Milliners, Preston.

In the 19th century, there was a fashion for British dressmakers to style themselves as ‘costumiers’ to sound more attractive to the fashionable elite. This dress was worn by the great grandmother of the donor’s husband and the wedding took place on 20th May 1899.

The Harris is excited to announce that we acquired two significant pieces for our fashion and textile collection – a yellow dress and bra worn by Claire, the alter ego of one of Britain’s most celebrated contemporary artists, Grayson Perry.

Claire’s dress is in her signature baby-doll style with a high waist and an above-the-knee length skirt. The raw slubbed yellow silk is printed with an abstract black and white pattern and applied with colourful vinyl shapes. The Peter Pan collar is made from white vinyl, edged with a black border. Claire’s bra has exaggerated cups made from polyester wadding and elastic straps.

Read how this new acquisition fits in with our other iconic yellow dresses here!

We love this set of 5 prints by artist Tony Heaton OBE. The prints, SUITE: FRUITS 2019, have been acquired alongside Green Loop, pictured here below the print on the right.

We recently caught up with Tony to discuss the newly acquired items and the inspiration behind them. Click here to see what he had to say!

In 2019, local Preston artist Gavin Renshaw flew in a light aircraft above Preston. He created a bird’s-eye view drawing looking down on the city during the Covid-19 pandemic. The detailed line drawing is titled ‘Corona’ and is 1.5 metres long.

The drawing depicts the university buildings, and student houses are in the foreground. The public buildings and high-rise towers sit in front of the Higher Walton’s hill. This will be displayed on a light box on the ground floor in the ‘Heart of Preston’ display when we reopen.

Gavin is currently re-inking the drawing in preparation for the light box and we interviewed him to see what we can expect from his work. Click here to see what he had to say.

Credit: Unapologetic is a co-commission with The Harris, Preston. Photo: Azraa Motala

The Harris have acquired a new contemporary portrait painting created by Azraa Motala. Azraa has visited the Harris since she was a child, and recognised that she could not see herself represented in the collections. She worked with us to develop a new project called ‘Unapologetic’ in 2021.

Motala created a call out through South Asian women’s network and groups, her own contacts and social media to invite women to participate as collaborators and subjects in the series of portraits. Once selected the women spent time with her in facilitated conversations about their experiences of identity, culture, misrepresentation and self-representation. The group worked with curators at the Harris to investigate the collections in order to interrogate the representation of women and the lack of representation of women like them.

Azraa’s painting will be displayed in the Art Gallery alongside a portrait of her choice from the Fine Art Collection. This portrait is of local UCLan graduate Samiya who previously represented Lancashire in Cricket. ‘A big part of my life is to do with sports and being a girl from the BAME community where there isn’t much representation in sports teams I feel it is important to be a role model for others and myself’.

The portrait was part of the exhibition titled Unapologetic at Blackburn Museum as part of the British Textile Biennial in 2021.

Our second acquisition from Christine Cherry is this Ceramic Fairy Mug. Inspired by a ceramic tea set that she created during her time on the Channel 4 programme, this beautiful mug features a small fairy frolicking amongst delightful flowers and ladybugs. The mug will be displayed alongside Christine’s self-sculpture when we reopen.

We recently caught up with Christine to discuss the newly acquired items and the inspiration behind them. Click here to see what she had to say!

As seen on Channel 4’s Great Pottery Throwdown, Christine Cherry created the self-sculpture to represent her battle with breast cancer, in what she described as a truly cathartic experience. Christine’s sculpture will be on display at The Harris when we reopen in 2025.

Textile Artwork ‘Sweetest Devotion’, 2020. Credit: Presented by the Contemporary Art Society through the Collections Fund at Frieze, 2021/22

The Harris acquired this contemporary art piece ‘Sweetest Devotion’, by Billie Zangewa. Marvel at the hand-stitched silk collage created by Malawi-born, Johannesburg-based artist.

Billie Zangewa captures a touching moment of a child and his uncle during the pandemic.

This art is part of a new collection of works that explore the many facets of family life, chosen because of your feedback through the Harris Your Place project.

To commemorate the history of textile manufacturing in the Preston area, the mural celebrates the journeys, long and short, that Courtaulds Ltd employees made drawing attention to the diversity of the workforce that came together and continues to contribute to Preston’s rich textiles heritage.

Year 9 students from Penwortham Priory Academy and Christ the King Catholic High School took part in a series of workshops with local artist Gavin Renshaw and illustrator Toya Walker to develop key themes for “The links in the chain are of equal strength”, creating artwork to be incorporated into the planning stages of development.

Local industrial heritage is the main focus of the mural, which features a collage of images including portraits of former employees who worked at Courtaulds Ltd factory in Preston. Opening in 1939, the factory quickly became one of the biggest employers in Preston at the time.

Beginning with a series of oral history recordings of former Courtaulds Ltd employees, students considered their own connections to themes around migration and textiles heritage, thinking about what it might have been like to work in the textiles factories in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Students explored the history and processes of the mill through drawing, collage and mark making with ink. Following these initial workshops in March 2022, artist Gavin Renshaw developed further on the poignant messages the students identified in their artwork.