In November 2013, in an antiquarian print shop in Covent Garden I managed to find an original of the engraving by H W Brewer (illustrated above) which is his "Bird's Eye View of Birmingham in 1886". I've long been fascinated by this image, with its Gustav Doré style representation of darkly smoking industry, clustered around a sunlit civic centre which includes the Town Hall, the Council House, the (old) Central Library, and School of Art.
So, in January 2014, for the Birmingham Today exhibition at the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists, I updated and re-imagined Birmingham from the same viewpoint. Some things change, some things remain... here's my version: