Arts Bank

Ian Macdonald, who was born in Middlesbrough in 1946, left secondary school to work at the ICI Wilton plant for five years, before attending art schools in Middlesbrough, Sheffield and Birmingham.

Ian taught on a part time basis for many years to help fund his practice as an independent photographer. He continues to create drawings and photographs, many directly inspired by the drama of the hinterland of the river Tees estuary and by the monumental changes witnessed in his lifetime across Teesside. Ian is especially interested in the hands on practice of traditional photography, vividly explained in the documentary film about his work as a photographer, “Shooting Time”, filmed around the Tees estuary in 2007. As Vic Allen, manager of the Dean Clough Galleries in Halifax succinctly states “Ian Macdonald is committed to the inviolability of the negative and the primacy of the print”.

Ian’s work has been widely exhibited and published in this country and abroad.