Alf Ward Collection: From the Streets of London

Alf Ward Guitar Collection: From the Streets of London

Alfred D. Ward made his first guitar in 1959 and took it to Birmingham during his graduate degree at the Birmingham College of Art. He was then able to purchase a professional guitar when he joined Christine McVie’s (then Christine Perfect ) band “The Hookey Walkers” in 1963. See “Brumbeat” on the internet here. Ward was a friend of Spencer Davis and the “Spencer Davis Band”, including Stevie Winwood and Muff Winwood. In 1965 Ward moved to London and, whilst lecturing at the University of London Shoreditch College he did performances with Joy Webb and the Salvation Army’s “Joyfolk” across Europe and the USA. BBC Television performances included a joint program with “The New Seekers” and charity performances with Dana, Hatti Jacques, Henry Cooper, and Beryl Reed – plus Radio broadcasts with Cliff Richards. In the USA, the band covered ten states and appeared on Cincinnati and Columbus Ohio television, and Disney World in Los Angeles.

Alfred D. Ward is an internationally known designer and fine artist. He served as consultant designer for Spink & Sons in London (by appointment to her Majesty the Queen), where he designed and produced presentation pieces for the Royal Family, Revlon of Paris, Dunhill, the Royal Air Force, and the United Arab Emirates, among others. Ward became a professor of Design Technology at the University of London in 1966. The Design Technology program developed at the university, for which he was instrumental, became a mandatory element of design education in British high schools in 1984. In 1973 Ward became Head of the Department of Silversmithing, Jewelery, and Allied Crafts at the Sir John Cass College of Art within City of London Polytechnic. Having moved to the United States in 1981 he taught design studies at the University of Michigan and Center for Creative Studies in Detroit. In 1975 he was appointed Director of the Appalachian Center for Crafts in Tennessee and finally became Chairman of the Department of Art and Design at Winthrop University in South Carolina in 1989.

Ward was awarded the Distinguished Professor Award at Winthrop University in 2009 and received the Medal of Honor in the Arts in 2011. His work was part of the permanent collection of Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Ogden Museum of Art in New Orleans, the Washington State Museum of Art, the Florida Gulf Coast Art Center, and several other museums in England and America.