Bournville School of Art Collection

Ruskin Hall was purpose-built as an art school in 1903 and became part of Birmingham Polytechnic (the forerunner of Birmingham City University) in 1988. By the 1980s, the School also had use of the Maple Road building that originally housed the Bournville Day Continuation School opened in 1925 and built to educate Cadbury workers. The staff there ran the Foundation Course, the BA in Art and Design and short courses for the local community. Alumni of the school include photographer Richard Billingham, artists Roger Hiorns and Donald Rodney, illustrator John Shelley and actress Marjorie Yates.  

Birmingham City University no longer offers a Foundation Course in Art and Design, and the BA in Art and Design was moved to Margaret Street in 2013, when BCU’s International College took over the site. It was at this time that the collection was offered to the Arts, Design and Media Archives. It contains documentary material including prospectuses dating from 1919-20 to 1982-83, course brochures, exhibition catalogues, administrative records and invitations to student shows as well as student artworks, two boxes of lantern slides of Bournville, architecture, relief carvings and textiles; black and white photographs, both of students’ work and the School buildings; architectural plans relating to improvements to Ruskin Hall; prints of Bournville School of Art and its surroundings, and a research project on the history of Bournville Village Trust.