Birmingham School of Art, the first municipal art school in the country, opened in 1885. Birmingham played an important part in the development of education for both children and adults in the 19th century, and at this time a number of Birmingham institutions were expanding education beyond the walls of universities. The School of Art contributed by instructing students—notably women—in book binding and metalwork in addition to the more conventional subjects of painting and illustration.

The School of Art’s signature style, which became known as the ‘Birmingham School’, was built on the foundations of the Pre-Raphaelite movement. It embraced the Arts and Crafts ethos, which favoured hand-crafts and traditional techniques. In book illustrations, Arts and Crafts features included flattened perspective, mediaeval imagery, and the heavy outlines of woodcuts. Promoting the ‘unity of the arts’, Birmingham School artists often combined text and image. At a time when the education... more