Fresh Air for The Potteries
The Photography of William Blake
Until 1 April 2025, Art Gallery, Chancellor's Building, Keele University

William Blake (1874–1957) was a photographer and stationer based in Longton. His most famous photographs are known as the ‘smokies’, such as the wryly-captioned Fresh Air for The Potteries. They depict the landscape of smoking chimneys and industry that once dominated the area.

But Blake didn’t restrict himself to industrial landscapes. He travelled throughout The Potteries and into the adjacent towns, villages and countryside. The photographs he took tell us stories about people and places in and around north Staffordshire. They reveal his concern for social issues, a curiosity to explore, and an obsession to record his surroundings.

Blake died in 1957 and his surviving photographs form a unique archive that captures the working lives, social history, and landscapes of our region in the early 20th century.

Acknowledgements:

This exhibition is kindly on loan from the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery. Images from the Warrillow Collection are kindly supplied by Keele University Library, Special Collections and Archives. Thanks to Jon Heal for his support in research and image selection, and for loaning several postcards from his collection for scanning.

You can find an online version of this exhibition here: https://www.stokemuseums.org.uk/pmag/exhibitions/fresh-air-for-the-potteries/ 

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ACCESS: Chancellor's Building is fully accessible. There are a number of disabled parking bays in close proximity on C3 car park. There is ramped and flat access from the car park. Chancellor's Building is busy teaching building on campus during a weekday; if you prefer a quieter time to visit we suggest after 5pm on a weekday or going along on the weekend. 

 

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