Bob McClelland

. . . was born in Blackley, Manchester (England). On leaving School he went on to pursue a career in Organic Chemistry, a subject in which he had an interest of long-standing, and subsequently spent many years involved with chemistry and computing in the Research Department at Imperial Chemical Industries.

It was in his leisure time that he began to become actively involved with visual art, and with photography in particular. ‘To be engaged in an artistic activity,’ Bob maintains, ‘is more properly to be viewed as a privilege rather than as a given right.’

Bob sees photography as being a medium which facilitates the capturing of something that, at a particular moment in time, had existence within the framework of what is generally accepted to be the 'real' world.

About photography in general he believes that:

' No matter how beautiful, romantic, or aesthetically pleasing an image may be, the essence of all valid photography is finally conceptual in nature and documentary in effect'.

EXHIBITIONS - one man:

North West Arts 1977 (A Sense of Reality)

Rochdale Art Gallery 1983 (Urban Images)

Chapman Gallery, Salford University, 1984 (and touring)

Abilene Centre for Contemporary Art, Texas, USA, June 2000

EXHIBITIONS - Group:

Colin Jellicoe Gallery, 1969

Manchester University, 1972

Gallery 39, Summer, 1976,1977

Uppermill Photography Gallery 1982 (NW Photography Group Shows)

Lancaster University 1982

Brunel Photo- show 1983 (Touring)

Sheffield Polytechnic, 1984 (Expanded media show)

Buckham Gallery, Michigan, USA, February 2000, March 2004.

COLLECTIONS, public and private include:

Government Art Collection, London

North West Arts Collection

Rochdale Art Gallery Collection

Salford University Collection

Arts Council Loan Collection

MISC

Featured in Penrose Graphic Arts International Annual 1975.

North West Arts Award Winner,1976,77,82

Essays and reviews in BJ Phot, Creative Camera, 1967-83