Maud Sulter

Born in Glasgow to a Scots mother and a Ghanaian father,[2] Maud Sulter attained a master's degree in Photographic Studies[1] from the University of Derby.[3]

Sulter's photographic practice included contemporary portraiture and montage. Her work typically referenced historical and mythical subjects. Her photography was exhibited in across the UK and internationally, including at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1987; the Johannesburg Biennial (1996); and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2003. She received a number of awards and residencies, including the British Telecom New Contemporaries Award 1990 and the Momart Fellowship at Tate Liverpool,[4] also in 1990.

She worked closely with Lubaina Himid, including on the book Passion: Discourses on Blackwomen’s Creativity, published by Urban Fox Press in 1990.[5]

As well as writing about art history and curating many exhibitions,[6] Sulter was also a poet and playwright, whose works include the 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);[2] Zabat (1989); and Sekhmet (2005). She wrote a play inspired by the background of former Ghana head of state Jerry Rawlings, entitled Service to Empire (2002).[1]

She died in 2008, aged 47, after a long illness.[1]

Maud Sulter's work is held in a number of collections, including the Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum,[7] the Arts Council Collection, the British Council, the Scottish Arts Council and the Scottish Parliament Collection.

In 2011–12, her work was shown at Tate Britain, London, in the exhibition Thin Black Line(s), which was a re-staging of the seminal 1986 exhibition The Thin Black Line at the ICA.[8]

In 2017, her Muses (Calliope: the muse of epic poetry, and Terpsichore: the muse of dance), two portraits were put on show in the Walker Gallery as part of the largest LGBTQ+ art exhibition in the UK, Coming Out: Sexuality, Gender, and Identity.

• As a Blackwoman - poetry (1985)
• Zabat: Poetics of a Family Tree (1989)
• Passion (Urban - ) Discourses On Blackwomen's Creativity (1990), Urban Fox Press. ISBN 1872124305; ISBN 978-1872124308
• Necropolis - novel (1990), Urban Fox Press. ISBN 9781872124063
• Echo: Works by Women Artists, 1850-1940 (1991), Tate Publishing. ISBN 978-1854370815
• Service to Empire (2002), ISBN 978-0954330200
• Sekhmet: A Decade or So of Poems (2005), Dumfries and Galloway Cultural Services. ISBN 978-0946280698
• Deborah Cherry (ed.), Maud Sulter: Passion, Altitude Editions, 2015, ISBN 978-1-906908-36-2
• Deborah Cherry, "The Ghost Begins by Coming Back: Revenants and Returns in Maud Sulter's Photomontages", in Ayla Lepine, Matt Lodder, and Rosalind McKever (eds), Revival, Memories, Identities, Utopias. London: Courtauld Books Online, 2015

• "Passion - Blackwomen's Creativity: an interview with Maud Sulter", Spare Rib, Issue 220, February 1991
• Works from the Zabat series at the V&A
• Maud Sulter on ScottishPoetryLibrary.org
• List of 1996 Johannesburg Biennial artists
• "Maud Sulter - Passion", Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow, 25 April 2015 – 21 June 2015
• "Maud Sulter - About Face", Hillhead Library, Glasgow, 17 April 2015 – 28 June 2015
• "Revisiting 'Two Invisible Case Studies': Maud Sulter & Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé", Malmö Konsthall, 29 July – 7 August 2013