Exhibitions gallery
A selection of past exhibitions from SC&A collections
At the Sign of the Dial: Charles Ricketts and the Vale Press 1896-1903
Charles Ricketts (1866-1931) was a versatile and innovative craftsman active throughout his life variously as an illustrator, typographer, wood engraver, publisher, theatre designer, painter, sculptor, jewellery designer, connoisseur, art adviser, and writer. Among other things he exerted a powerful influence on the development of modern book design. More...
Smokescreen: The Victorian Vogue for Tobacco
John Fraser (1836-1902) was the Secretary of the printing and publishing department of Cope’s Tobacco Company in Liverpool from the 1860’s until about 1900. He collected books and pamphlets relating to the history of tobacco, and examples of the firm's advertising material, including posters, a literary review, and Smoke Room Booklets. More...
Return of the Triffids: From the John Wyndham Archive
The science fiction novels of John Wyndham are among the most potent descriptions of the collective unconscious of 1950s Britain. The threat to a normality so painfully won after the Second World War, the shadows of the Cold War and Britain's loss of Empire creep fitfully though his four major novels: The Day of the Triffids (1951), The Kraken Wakes (1953), The Chrysalids (1955) and The Midwich Cuckoos (1957). More...
Picturing Gypsies: From the Gypsy Lore Society Archive
The Gypsy Lore Society started in 1888, but foundered in 1892. In 1907, Robert Andrew Scott Macfie, a Liverpool businessman, was persuaded to revive the Society, or "set the old vardo in motion again". The Society's collections (1888-1973) include his own lively correspondence, folk-tales, narratives of Gypsy life, songs, Romani vocabularies, and pictures. More...
The Art of the Book: Rare printed books
The University's rich printed book collection is used to explore the advent of printing and its impact on the development of western civilization. Printing revolutionised what, why, and how we read, learn and view the world around us, and transformed the speed of communication and the spread of knowledge with a rapidity unmatched until our present age. More...