Manchester
- Artist: Shirley Baker
- Date: 1967
- Medium: Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper
- Dimensions: image: 213 x 273 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
This is the “Manchester” by Shirley Baker, a 1967 gelatin‑silver print that freezes a fleeting scene of children at play on a Manchester street. Baker grew up in the city and was one of the few women in Britain to practice street photography after the war. Her lens sought the everyday, the honest and the unposed, capturing moments without asking anyone to pose – the kids often ran to her, eager for a picture.
The background of the image shows the worn terraced houses that were being cleared for new towers, a reminder of the rapid urban change happening then. Baker’s work reflects a humanist concern; she was driven by curiosity about how ordinary people lived and by a compassion for social injustice. Her style was shaped by the candid, decisive moments of Cartier‑Bresson and the raw, observational tone of Robert Frank.
This photograph sits in a collection that showcases the quiet, intimate side of Manchester’s streets in the late 1960s, offering a window into a neighbourhood on the brink of transformation and the lives of its youngest residents.
See it in person
Manchester is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
