For ten years from 2010 to 2020, Tintype was an established contemporary art space with a reputation for artistic innovation and integrity. It had a proven track record of supporting the work of UK based and international artists through a programme that was led by artists’ practices. Talks, performance events, breakfasts, workshops, and walks, were a regular feature of the gallery program, all open-access and free.

Tintype had a history of presenting exhibitions and organising events that had a strong element of public engagement. Initiatives that began as an experiment became part of the gallery’s ongoing program. Tintype developed the Essex Road project, an annual commission for eight moving-image artists to make short films that were a response to the mile-long street on which the gallery is based. The films were back-projected into the gallery window so it became a public screen. In August, when the gallery was closed, an artist was invited to use the gallery’s large glass window to install a work. Tintype offered a project space to an artist once a year – an opportunity for bold experimentation.

Tintype had a curious osmotic relationship with London’s small trades and businesses; from its birth in a converted furriers in Redchurch Street, Shoreditch, to the old jewellery quarter of Hatton Garden, and finally to the gallery’s permanent home, an old haberdashery shop on Essex Road in Islington. The shop was called Sew Fantastic, next door to Get Stuffed, a famous taxidermist, opposite Steve Hatt, probably the most popular fishmongers in London.

The gallery was started by Teresa Grimes and Pat Treasure in 2010.
Teresa Grimes became sole-director in 2014.

—direct positive

Tintype is a photograph made by creating a direct positive on a sheet of metal that is blackened by painting, lacquering or enamelling.

Please note that we are unable to consider or respond to unsolicited exhibition proposals