McManus exhibition for former lecturer

Dundee's McManus Galleries is currently exhibiting previously unseen work by Joseph McKenzie - a giant in modern Scottish photography and former DJCAD lecturer.

McKenzie generously gifted 448 vintage prints from his never-before-exhibited Hawkhill study to the McManus Galleries. Over 150 of the photographs are being shown for the first time ever.

The powerful images were taken between the mid 1960's and early 1980's, a time of great upheaval in Dundee. McKenzie captured these images during his lunch hours, when he left the photography department at what was then Dundee Art College to explore the Hawkhill and its surrounding streets. Tenement properties, cottages, trees and gardens were being condemned to demolition, with the occupants moving out to new housing schemes on the periphery of Dundee.

Dereliction is the main theme of the study, which is interspersed with delightful portraits of children, students and old people still living in the Hawkhill.

McManus Galleries Curator Clara Young said, "This is McKenzie's most focused and analytical study. It is a passionate work, and is his protest at the devastation created by the controversial slum clearance of one of the most densely populated and animated areas in Dundee."

In connection with the exhibition, the McManus Galleries hosted a unique evening reception to which former students of DJCAD were invited. Convener of Leisure and Arts, Bailie Charles Farquhar, said, "We wanted to invite people who had attended the college between 1955 and 1975. Many have strong memories of the Old Hawkhill, this event offered an opportunity to reminisce with fellow alumni over a glass of wine."

Hawkhill: Death of a Living Community 2 April - 12 June 2005 McManus Galleries, Albert Square, Dundee