On the waterfront at Mann Island, overlooking the River Mersey, Open Eye Gallery occupies a purpose-built building that has been its home since 2011. The only gallery in North West England dedicated to photography and related media, it operates as a non-profit organisation and registered charity. Large-scale graphic art installations cover its external facade, making the building itself part of the visual experience before visitors step inside.
A Gallery That Has Moved With the City
Open Eye Gallery was founded in 1977, opening first on Whitechapel in Liverpool city centre. Over the following decades it moved to Bold Street (1989-1995) and then Wood Street (1996-2011) before settling at its current waterfront address. The interior is divided between an exhibition floor and a separate archive floor, giving equal weight to showing work and preserving it. Lorenzo Fusi was appointed artistic director in 2013, with Sarah Fisher taking over as executive director in 2015.
The Open Eye Archive
The Open Eye Archive was formed in 1980 and now holds around 1,600 prints from more than 100 photographers, with a focus on portraiture and documentary photography. Among the most significant holdings are works by Bert Hardy, including Chinese Hostel (1942) and Is There a British Colour Bar? (1949), alongside bodies of work by Edith Tudor-Hart, Tom Wood, Chris Steele-Perkins and Michelle Sank. The archive also holds prints by Martin Parr, Bruce Gilden, Joel Meyerowitz, E. Chambré Hardman, Peter Kennard and many others. Sank’s project The Water’s Edge, documenting women who work or worked on the Liverpool waterfront, was published in 2007 in partnership with Liverpool University Press.
Notable Exhibitions
Since its founding, Open Eye Gallery has shown work by photographers of international standing. Early highlights included Toshio Iwai (1995) and Jacob Aue Sobol (2006). The gallery’s Mann Island era has brought exhibitions by Mitch Epstein, Tim Hetherington, Alvin Baltrop, Letizia Battaglia and Tom Wood. The 2017 group show North: Identity, Photography, Fashion, curated by Lou Stoppard and Adam Murray, later travelled to Somerset House in London. More recently, Craig Easton‘s exhibition Is Anybody Listening? ran in 2023.