Dining Pub, Restaurant, Function Rooms – and a Portrait Gallery. The Albert Square Chop House, Manchester launches a new photographic portrait exhibition by Paul Wolfgang Webster on February 28th.
It features 100 photographic portraits of famous Northerners, all captured by fine art photographer Paul, a former Rochdale College student who has four portraits in the National Portrait Gallery in London.
These images of the late TV steeplejack Fred Dibnah, Professor Brian Cox, architect Ian Simpson and entrepreneur Debbie Moore, are included in the Manchester show.
Paul documents the people of Northern England mainly in their places of work, using the available lighting. The portraits are displayed on the walls of the eating and drinking spaces, and the stair ways connecting them inside the Grade 2 listed Venetian Gothic-style Memorial Hall.
The building has been transformed by a £3.5m refit into a dining pub, an 80-cover restaurant, a private dining boardroom and a function room with 21st century facilities.
Chop House owner Roger Ward is Paul’s patron. Roger first met Paul in 2010 and says: “Paul is capturing OUR people, our heritage and our times. It’s a snapshot of the people of the North. Each of these subjects has helped, in their own way, to make the North what it is today.”
This new exhibition includes 40 new images including trade union leader Arthur Scargill, Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, Dame Joan Bakewell, actresses Suranne Jones and Julie Hesmondhalgh, and musicians Graham Nash, Graham Gouldman and Johnny Marr.
They will hang alongside other images of notable and influential Northerners including the late Anthony Wilson and Bernard Manning.
Paul has his own Gallery, in Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire, and a Portrait Gallery at Petrillo Studio, Didsbury, Manchester www.wolfgangwebstergallery.co.uk
