Maud Sulter

Maud Sulter (19 September 1960 – 27 February 2008) was a Scottish contemporary fine artist, photographer, writer, educator, feminist, cultural historian, and curator of Ghanaian heritage.

She began her career as a writer and poet, becoming a visual artist not long afterwards.

Born on 19 September 1960 in Glasgow, Scotland, to a Scottish mother and a Ghanaian father, Maud Sulter attained a master's degree in Photographic Studies from the University of Derby.

Her maternal grandfather had been an amateur photographer.

In Sulter's Call and Response, she raised the topic of "the finest" and radical artists in London at the time identified as lesbians.

Sulter noted that lesbian-identifying women typically went unspoken, then said: "I sensed a danger there, a danger that pulled me back from the brink of desire, the desire to know myself truly, and it took time to resolve the need to confront the danger head on."

Sulter wrote of her poetry: "The central body of my poetic work is unequivocally the love poetry which is addressed to both genders."

lectured at a number of other English universities, and curated her own and other artists' work at British galleries since the mid-1980s, including at The People's Gallery in London, Tate Liverpool, Touchstones Rochdale, Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow, with Himid at the Elbow Room in London and at her own gallery, Rich Women of Zurich in London.

Sphinx was Sulter's first major series of photographs.

By the end of 1985 she had shown her artwork in three exhibitions and her first collection of poetry had been published.

Sulter was known for her collaborations with other Black feminist scholars and activists, capturing the lives of Black people in Europe.

She was a champion of the African-American sculptor Edmonia Lewis, and was fascinated by the Haitian-born French performer Jeanne Duval.

Sulter participated in The Thin Black Line exhibition, curated by Lubaina Himid at the ICA in London in 1985.

The exhibition displayed the art of Black and Asian women artists, re-centring the visibility of Black and Asian art in the British art scene.

Sulter and Himid worked closely together on projects, curating and exhibiting their work together.

Maud Sulter worked across photography, film, installation, collage and photomontage, sound and performance.

Her work typically referenced historical and mythical subjects.

Her publications works include the poetry collections As a Blackwoman (1985; her poem of the same title won the Vera Bell Prize from ACER, the Afro-Caribbean Education Resource, the previous year); Zabat: Poetics of a Family Tree (1989); and Sekhmet: A Decade or So of Poems (2005).

Her photography was exhibited across the UK and internationally, including at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1987, the Johannesburg Biennale (1995), and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2003.

This series of nine black and white photographs shot in The Gambia (Harris Museum and Art Gallery Preston) was first exhibited at Sulter's solo exhibition at The Black Art Gallery in September 1987.

The exhibition brochure includes a poem and statements and her manifesto: "We the women will fight... We the women will win."

Maud Sulter defined "Zabat" as "a sacred dance performed by groups of thirteen", "an occasion of power", possibly the origin of witches sabbat, "Blackwomen's rite of passage".

In this series of nine large-scale cibachrome photographs, contemporary black women artists, musicians and writers pose as ancient muses.

Each portrait represented a different muse of Greek mythology.

Sulter wrote a series of prose poems for each muse, titled "Zabat Narratives".

She received a number of awards and residencies, among them the British Telecom New Contemporaries Award 1990 and the Momart Fellowship at Tate Liverpool, also in 1990.

As well as writing about art history and curating many exhibitions, Sulter was a poet and playwright.

Created by Sulter in 1991 on a Momart residency at Tate Liverpool, Hysteria, according to the artist's accompanying text, "a tells the story of a 19th-century Blackwoman artist who sails from the Americas to Europe to seek fame and fortune as a sculptor. Having achieved a successful career, she disappears." Hysteria was inspired by the life and career of Edmonia Lewis, a sculptor of African-American and Chippewa heritage.

This series of black-and-white and colour photographs includes eight portraits, four pairs of still lives, each pair representing the seasons, and engraved marble plaques, initially arranged around a massive piece of marble.

Sulter was Principal Lecturer in Fine Art at Manchester Metropolitan University, from 1992 to 1994.

An art series named in Welsh "Syrcas" (English translation: Circus) was produced by Sulter in 1993, and is about reviving the forgotten history of black Europeans during the Holocaust and their genocide.

It includes a fictional character related to the historical background of her piece created by Sulter named Monique.

Sulter created a complementary poem called "Blood Money", which has been republished in English.

You can access this poem by clicking this link. This series consists of a 16-work photomontage and is presented in five subdivided sets in close proximity.

The photomontage artworks were created on top of postcards with landscapes on them and multiple layers of different images collaged.

Her play, Service to Empire (2002), was inspired by the background of former Ghana head of state Jerry Rawlings.

Two poems by Sulter are accessible online: "Gone But Not Forgotten" and "If Leaving You".

Sulter's writings are available at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh, Glasgow Women's Library, the Stuart Hall Library, London, Poetry Society, London, Tate Library, London, and many other libraries.

This work has been in an exhibition in the Chapelle de la Charité d'Arles, in Arles, France, in 2016.

To view these works you can click this link and view pages 3-5.