Archive Some special items from the DPH vault The Machine In Action The computer, which hums a drowsy dirge to itself while working, is only a fraction of the size of the giant Atlas computer at the University (of Manchester) ... The Ideograph analogue computer is a mere two feet square and consists of a host of dials, springs, coils, gears, small electric motors and little flashing lights ... Dr. Henry ... keeps the computer in front of his desk in the bay window of his book-lined study. The computer draws with three individually suspended spring-loaded ball-point pens filled with coloured inks which it wields in its shiny chrome hand. The paper or card on which the drawing is done is attached to an easel which can move in a horizontal plane at the same time as the computer's hand is drawing on it.

Vintage Press Cuttings

	Taken from the Independent 03/11/64.	Remake of an article that featured in the Guardian in 1962.

Rare Sound Files

Desmond Paul Henry - Interview - part1 by Desmond Paul Henry




Desmond Paul Henry - Interview - part2 by Desmond Paul Henry




Desmond Paul Henry - Interview - part3 by Desmond Paul Henry




Desmond Paul Henry - Interview - part4 by Desmond Paul Henry




Desmond Paul Henry - Interview - part5 by Desmond Paul Henry




Desmond Paul Henry - Interview - part6 by Desmond Paul Henry




Desmond Paul Henry - Interview - part7 by Desmond Paul Henry




Desmond Paul Henry - Interview - part8 by Desmond Paul Henry

Desmond Paul Henry's Artistic Career

February 2011

Desmond Paul Henry exhibition opens at the Museum of Science and Industry, Manchester. The exhibition entitiled Desmond Paul Henry; Manchester Pioneer of Computer Art is referenced by the New York Times and the BBC.

February 2010

Kinetica Art Fair, London: Henry exhibited four originals in the Cybernetic Serendipity feature section of this exhibition. Daughter Elaine O'Hanrahan gave a talk on her father's work as an early British Computer Art pioneer.

2005

Henry became the subject of an MPhil thesis entitled ‘Drawing Machines’: The Machine Produced Drawings of Dr. D.P. Henry in Relation to Conceptual and Technological Developments in Machine-Generated Art (UK 1960-68) (Elaine O’Hanrahan, John Moores University, Liverpool).

2001

Henry’s work appeared and discussed in the publication Responses: Intercultural Drawing Practice, published by CAIR: Centre for Art International Research, Liverpool School of Art and Design, JMU).

1990

Henry given pioneer status in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of 1990 under the entry ‘Computer Art’.

1976 (Dec)

Exhibited drawings produced by Drawing Machine Three at Manchester Evening News premises in an exhibition called North West Artists.

1968 (Aug)

Drawing Machine Two together with its machine-generated images exhibited at the I.C.A.’s Cybernetic  Serendipity exhibition (London). This was a major Computer Art show of the 1960’s. This second machine went on tour with this exhibition around the U.S.A., from which it returned completely damaged in 1972.

1965 (July)

Exhibited, together with other artists including L.S. Lowry, at the Frape Memorial Exhibition (Frape was the former director of Salford Art Gallery who died in Nov. 1963).

1965 (Feb)

A performance of creative dance based around the stimuli of Henry’s ‘computer-drawn’ pictures was held at the Mather College, Manchester.

1964 (Oct)

One-man show of machine-produced drawings at Central Library, Manchester.

1963 (Sept)

Henry was interviewed by George Will to be featured in LIFE Magazine. Article scrapped following the assassination of U.S President J. F. Kennedy.

1962 (Oct)

Crumpsall Library: one-man exhibition of machine-drawings. 

1962 (Sept)

Interviewed on the BBC’s first programme in the “North at Six” series. Discussed and demonstrated his first drawing-machine.

1962 (Sept)

One-man exhibition of machine drawings held at Salford Art Gallery and claimed by Henry to be ‘the world’s first one-machine show’.

1962 (Sept)

Henry’s one-man prize-show called Ideographs, held at the Reid Gallery in London’s West End. Here Henry exhibited watercolours, graphics on photo-paper and for the first time, “machine-drawings”.

1961 (July-Aug)

Henry became the winner of a local art competition called London Opportunity organised by Salford Art Gallery. One of the judges for the prize was artist L.S. Lowry, who visited Henry’s home. The picture which won this competition used, as its first stage for inspiration, effects produced using Henry’s unique photochemical technique.

1955 (Sept)

Ink drawing exhibited at Manchester City Art Gallery as part of exhibition entitled: Artists with North Country Associations.

1949-82

Pictures exhibited in staff art shows while a lecturer and reader in Philosophy at Manchester University.

1946-49

Drawings exhibited in student art shows while a student at Leeds University.