What I loved was his fierce enjoyment of things. Can you fiercely enjoy things? I think you can. His enjoyment was, yeah, fierce. A full-on grabbing of everything.
– Piers Gough on Gavin Stamp.1
For half a century, Gavin Stamp (1948–2017) was a major cultural force. This display explores his career as an architectural historian, activist, and draughtsman, mainly through objects in his archive at the Paul Mellon Centre together with loans from his family and friends.
Stamp’s was a distinctive architectural voice: polemical, precise and protean. Following his untimely death, Tristram Hunt labelled him “the most gifted and perceptive chronicler, critic and champion of Britain’s urban civilisation”.2 In Stamp’s work, architectural history emerged as an arena of accountability, enlightenment, and community building. He was a vital figure in the Victorian Society, the Twentieth Century (formerly Thirties) Society, the Lutyens Trust, and the Alexander Thomson Society.
An architectural gadfly, Stamp followed in a long tradition spanning from John Carter and A.W.N. Pugin in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to his heroes Robert Byron (1905–1941) and Ian Nairn (1930–1983). He developed his voice in his monthly column for Private Eye, “Nooks and Corners”, which charted “the latest indignities inflicted by Mammon upon the built heritage” (as Sasha Lubetkin puts it).3 Stamp spread his message through many other platforms: monographs, essays, broadcasts, walking tours, and exhibitions. He was also an active draughtsman and photographer. This display
seeks to showcase how these different mediums were significant discourse makers for Stamp and how they had a wide impact on the way architecture was talked about, perceived, taught, conserved—and canonised.
As this archive reveals, the scope of subjects covered by Stamp is unusually broad. He was a leading expert on nineteenth-century British architecture; although ostensibly opposed as architectural styles, the Gothic Revival and Victorian Classicism were his twin and enduring loves. But his specialist interests extended to the architecture of the inter-war period, industrial archaeology, typography, and sculpture. Always present in Stamp’s work was the Betjemanic theme of neglect. Stamp sought to retrieve, and validate, themes and figures left out of the narrative. While an undergraduate at Cambridge University, he had inherited an anti-modernist view of the past from the reactionary intellectuals cast as the “Peterhouse Right”, including the architectural historian David Watkin, and he was a figurehead of “Young Fogeyism” in the 1980s. His views on modernism later changed. While he had once thought of Ernö Goldfinger, for instance, as representative of the “alien arrogance of the modern movement”, he admitted that “some of us change our minds”.4 He took issue less with modernism, than with the people that the modernists had erected as heroes— the cult of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, say, over “Greek” Thomson. Stamp was also one of the main figures responsible for the late twentieth-century rehabilitation of Sir Edwin Lutyens.
More than anything, Stamp sought to redefine— and very often rediscover—what was “good” about architecture, past and present. What constituted “good” and “bad” architecture, however, was often ambiguous. His position was anything but hackneyed, static, or detached. An architectural historian and critic of the Stamp mould is fiercely independent, public facing and, above all—in the tradition of William Morris— an activist.
Opposite and front cover: Photograph of Stamp, Cambridge, 1971
Standing display case: AN ACTIVIST-SCHOLAR
The display in the upright case and the works shown on the wall are drawn from across Stamp’s lifetime. Together, these reflect the plurality and range of his work and the intersections between scholarship and activism. Several of these exhibits also showcase his talent as a graphic artist.
Below: This National Registration Identity Card is part of a tradition of humorous birthday party invitations produced by Stamp. This one was given to his friend, Andrew Sanders.
1.
Gavin Stamp, Model of a Victorian train (circa late 1960s)
Kindly lent by Cecilia Stamp
Early evidence of Stamp’s enduring interest in railway architecture appears in the form of this model of a Victorian train, made while a boarder at Dulwich College. He gained a place at this independent school as part of the “Dulwich Experiment”, which secured local authority funding for academically bright students. Incidentally, his great-uncle was Lord Stamp, a chairman of the Midland and Scottish Railway.
2.
Gavin Stamp, "High Victorian Rogue Gothic Architecture", Thesis (B.A.) – University of Cambridge, 1971 AR: GMS/TN/3, Box 6
Stamp read history, and then art history, at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. His undergraduate thesis displays his early interest advocating for obscure, forgotten, often wilful architects. Stamp likely found inspiration from H.S. Goodhart Rendel’s well-known talk on Victorian rogues (1949).
Stamp developed his interest in the late Gothic Revival in his PhD dissertation, which was published as An Architect of Promise: George Gilbert Scott Junior (1839–1897) and the Late Gothic Revival in 2002.
Above: Frontispiece from Item 2
Below: Bookplate designed by Stamp from Item 2
3.
Model of a speculative a pyramid, Gavin Stamp (1979)
Kindly lent by Andrew Sanders Stamp enjoyed making satirical models, such as this speculative pyramid. It was a response to the fantasy that pyramids focused energy that kept blades sharp.
4. Gavin Stamp, The Architect’s Calendar: Twelve Architectural Phantasies, One For Each Month (London, 1973)
Kindly lent by Andrew Sanders Stamp was particularly active as a graphic artist across the 1970s, including frequently designing bookplates. The Calendar, akin to the Oxford Almanacks, was commissioned by Christopher Wright and printed at Faith House, Westminster by David Pelling. The cover papers, by the Victorian architect G.F. Bodley, were provided by Watts & Co. The Calendar contains a commendation by Sir John Betjeman. Two hundred copies were made.
5. Gavin Stamp, Temples of Power: Architecture of Electricity in London
(Burford: Cygnet Press, 1979)
Kindly lent by Simon Rendall Stamp published this history of the architecture of electricity with his friend, the artist Glynn Boyd Harte (1948–2003). It was an expensive production with elaborate patterned boards, in a limited edition of 250. Stamp wrote the introduction and architectural summaries, Harte provided the lithographs of power stations, and Sir John Betjeman provided an introduction. The book was launched at the National Liberal Club with an iced cake in the shape of Battersea Power Station.
Right: Title leaf from Item 4
Opposite: Front cover of Item 4
6.
Louis Hellman, “Stump-ed!”, The Architects’ Journal, 29 May 1985. Kindly lent by Rosemary Hill Stamp and the cartoonist Louis Hellman (b. 1936), took centre stage in the Mansion House Square debate, a watershed moment for the conservation movement.
In 1982, Lord Palumbo failed to gain permission to build a huge tower designed by Mies van der Rohe beside London’s Mansion House. The plans were resisted by several groups, and Prince Charles condemned the tower as a “giant glass stump”, a stump that ought, suggests Hellman, to be stumped, as on a cricket ground. In the sketch is Marcus Binney, Palumbo, Stamp, and Patrick Jenkin, Secretary of State for the Environment; the late Mies van der Rohe watches the proceedings from above.
7.
Gavin Stamp, “Nooks and Corners: Islamic Law in Hackney”, Private Eye 482, 6 June 1980 AR: GMS/TN/47, Box 13
Gavin Stamp, “Nooks and Corners”, Private Eye 797, 3 July 1992 AR: GMS/TN/48, Box 13
“The Lord Gnome of London and the Worshipful Company of Hacks and Gagsmiths”, Private Eye Golden Jubilee invitation card, 26 October 2011 AR: GMS/TN/46, Box 13
Using the moniker “piloti”, Stamp authored a monthly column, “Nooks and Corners of the New Barbarism”, in Private Eye magazine from 1978 to 2017. Stamp frequently reminded his readers that “Barbarism” is the column’s “raison d’être, the ubiquitous enemy”. This article was a complaint against “Mockintosh [sic] lamp-standards” in Glasgow.
8.
Gavin Stamp, Proposed PostModern Skyscraper for a Coffee Tavern and an Architectural School for the City of Chaux, annual Stamp Christmas card (1981) Kindly lent by Andrew Sanders
Left: Item 6
Wall-mounted works
9.
Invitation to the statutory listing of Gavin Stamp, 13 March 1998
AR: GMS/TN/4, Box 6
Illustrated on inside front cover
10. Glynn Boyd Harte, Portrait of Gavin Stamp (1978)
Kindly lent by Agnes Stamp
The artist Glynn Boyd Harte (1948–2003), a good friend of Gavin’s, described architecture as his first great love. Harte and Stamp travelled together on several architectural tours. Among the other subjects of Harte’s portraits were: Tom Stoppard, Duncan Grant, Isobel Strachey, and Edward Bawden.
11.
Drawing for the frontispiece of John Betjeman, Gavin Stamp (illustrator), A Plea for Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Street (London: Church Literature Association, 1974) Kindly lent by Andrew Sanders Stamp had great admiration for Sir John Betjeman, a champion of the unsung and unfashionable. They met in 1974 when the incumbent of Holy Trinity church, Sloane Street (by J.D. Sedding, 1890) was aiming to demolish the church and rebuild it. Betjeman asked Stamp to produce drawings of the church to offer to the parish to generate income and publicity. This is the cover of the resulting campaign pamphlet.
The frontispiece and cover of the pamphlet illustrated on these pages were produced using Stamp’s artwork. The original drawing, Item 11, is exhibited in this display.
12.
Gavin Stamp, Altar Frontal for St. Margaret’s Church (1973)
Kindly lent by Kenneth Powell During Stamp’s time as a jobbing draughtsman, he designed several ecclesiastical garments for Watts & Co., an architecture and interior design company with its roots in the Victorian Gothic Revival.
13.
Gavin Stamp, St. Mary’s, Bourne Street poster (1973)
Kindly lent by Kenneth Powell This poster, designed by Stamp, is advertising Sunday services at St. Mary’s, Bourne Street, Belgravia and incorporates an illustration by Martin Travers (1886–1948).
Stamp also lettered the columns to either side of the chancel at St Mary’s in the early 1970s, and later returned to design the lettering and the “heavenly” designs of stars in Roderick Gradidge’s columbarium (circa 1999).
14.
Alan Powers, Watercolour of the Interior of Stamp’s Flat in Pocock Street, London (circa 1981)
Kindly lent by Cecilia Stamp
15. Exhibition plan by Piers Gough of Lutyens: The Work of the English Architect Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869–1944) at the Hayward Gallery, London (1981)
AR: GMS/TN/61, Box 18 This exhibition was organised mainly by Stamp, Colin Amery, and Margaret Richardson. Stamp curated the sections on Lutyens’ war memorials and his work in British India respectively.
16. Posters advertising lectures by Sandy Stoddart at the Mackintosh School of Architecture, 21 November 1997, 7 December 2001 Display copy kindly lent by Joshua Mardell
AR: GMS/TN/65, Box 10
From 1990, Stamp spent over a decade teaching history at the Mackintosh School of Architecture (the Mac) in Glasgow. The Scottish sculptor Alexander “Sandy” Stoddart (b. 1959), an advocate of neo-classicism in civic sculpture, gave several provocative talks for Stamp’s students during this period. To Stamp, Sandy was “a brilliant sculptor … an eloquent and inspiring writer, and a powerful polemicist”.
Opposite and above: Item 16
Large flat display case: NETWORKS & CANONS
The objects in this case pertain to some of the figures central to Stamp’s life and work. These include the travel writer and pioneer conservationist Robert Byron (1905–1941), the architect Berthold Lubetkin (1901–1990), fellow architectural historians Roderick Gradidge (1929–2000) and Sir John Summerson (1904–1992), and some of the principal subjects of Stamp’s scholarship, such as Alexander Thomson (1817–1875), Sir Edwin Lutyens (1869–1944), the Scott dynasty, the Anti-Uglies, and the Scottish architectural practice Gillespie, Kidd & Coia (in its post-war orientation).
Above: Item 17, AR: GMS/TN/9,10, Box 15
Opposite: Front cover of Item 17, LR: 72 SIL (PAMPHLET)
17.
Gavin Stamp, Silent Cities: An Exhibition of the Memorial and Cemetery Architecture of the Great War, 1914–1919 (London: Royal Institute of British Architects, 1977)
LR: 72 SIL (PAMPHLET)
Silent Cities, curated by Stamp and organised with the architectural historian John Harris, was held at the Heinz Gallery at the RIBA. Showcasing Lutyens’ memorial architecture helped establish an appetite for the hugely successful Lutyens exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in 1981. Stamp designed the posters and the accompanying booklet, employing the Roman lettering designed by Max Gill for use on the memorials of the Imperial War Graves Commission.
Two Silent Cities stencils for lettering of exhibition catalogue (circa 1977)
AR: GMS/TN/9,10, Box 15
18.
35mm transparency of a walking stick found at the Lutyens office
AR: GMS/TN/45, Box 18
This transparency was sent to Stamp courtesy of Peter Bareham. The walking stick (silver hallmark, 1895, with measuring rod in the handle) was on display at the Lutyens exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, 1981–1982.
Above: Item 18
19.
Three Anti-Ugly Action nomination cards, and an original seal of disapproval (1962)
AR: GMS/TN/49-51, Box 14
The Anti-Ugly Action group was formed in 1958 by stained-glass students of the Royal College of Art to protest against unthinking or unimaginative new buildings, particularly those in a neo-traditional style. Members of the public were invited to nominate buildings for the “Seal of Disapproval”. The group modelled hyperbolic forms of architectural criticism.
20. Letter from Sir John Summerson to Gavin Stamp, 18 August 1982 AR: GMS/TN/52, Box 7 Stamp was part of an extraordinary network of correspondents. The largest quantity of letters in Stamp’s archive come from Summerson, a kindly and challenging mentor in his life, and date from 1974 to 1991. This letter concludes, “I saw Stonehenge today—the soul of architecture laid bare”.
21.
Postcard advertisement for a Penguin Party in Celebration of the Life and Work of Berthold Lubetkin, Penguin Pool, London Zoo, Monday 3 December 1990
Kindly lent by Kenneth Powell
Two letters from Berthold Lubetkin to Stamp re invitation to lecture at the Architectural Association, 5 and 17 September 1984 AR:GMS/TN/43,44, Box 7
The Penguin Pool, now Grade I-listed, was designed by Berthold Lubetkin and Tecton (with Ove Arup as consultant engineer) in 1934. Stamp was fond of the severe modernism of the Lubetkin variety, and established a friendship with the architect.
22.
Transcript of “Farewell Brunswick Square”, a speech by Robert Byron, 4 January 1938
AR: GMS/TN/63, Box 7
Prompted by the recent demolition of the north side of Brunswick Square, London (built 1795–1802), this speech formed part of a BBC debate on the preservation of Georgian architecture in which Byron and Summerson served as representatives of the Georgian Group. Stamp was a tremendous admirer of Byron. The typescript was gifted to Stamp from Summerson while the former was preparing a history of the Georgian Group in a special issue of the Architects' Journal in 1982.
23.
Roderick Gradidge at home, party invitation, 3 January 1994 Kindly lent by Kenneth Powell
Gradidge and Stamp portrait contact sheet (date unknown).
AR: GMS/TN/64, Box 16
Letter from John Sweet-Escott to Stamp concerning the foundation of a spoof society celebrating the work of the architect Arnold Bidlake Mitchell (1863–1944), 5 November 1998
AR:GMS/TN/58 Stamp was close to the architect and architectural writer Roderick
Gradidge (1929–2000), shown here in his “Teddy Boy” phase with brothelcreepers. They shared an interest in late Victorian/Arts and Crafts architecture, and Sir Edwin Lutyens. They were both stalwarts of the Art Workers’ Guild. Gradidge had a distinctive practice, primarily designing historicist pubs. Stamp briefly worked as a draughtsman for him.
24.
Gavin Stamp (ed.), The Light of Truth and Beauty: The Lectures of Alexander “Greek” Thomson Architect 1817–1875 (Glasgow: Alexander Thomson Society, 1999)
LR: 7 THOM(A).S
While teaching in Glasgow in the 1990s, Stamp lived in the former home of one of his heroes, the neo-classical architect Alexander “Greek” Thomson, at 1 Moray Place (built 1859–1860), which featured characteristic Greek mouldings. Stamp also founded the Alexander Thomson Society in 1991.
Gavin Stamp, "No. 1 Moray Place, Strathbungo", typescript for Glasgow Doors Open Day Festival, September 1991
AR: GMS/TN/60, Box 18
Simon Bullard, Photograph of Gavin Stamp in front of his house (circa 1990s), 1 Moray Place (built by and for Thomson [1859–1860])
Kindly lent by Joshua Mardell
25.
Gavin Stamp, Black and white photograph of the seminary of St Peter's, Cardross, January 1994
AR: GMS/TN/1, Box 16
Themes & Variations exhibition card for a private view event, 26 January 1999, at the Mackintosh Museum, Glasgow School of Art AR: GMS/TN/54, Box 16
Invitation to the launch of the Mac Journal special issue on Gillespie Kidd & Coia, Glasgow School of Art, 23 September 1994
AR: GMS/TN/2
Stamp developed an interest in the practice of Gillespie Kidd and Coia who designed the Cardross seminary (1961–1966). The building closed in the late 1980s and was left to ruin. Stamp referred to the building as “the supreme manifestation of the enlightened artistic patronage that characterised the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Glasgow in the Fifties and Sixties” and regretted the subsequent “obscene, sacrilegious vandalism” of the site. This photograph was taken by Stamp, a prolific photographer, for reproduction in The Herald.
Oppostite above: Item 25, AR: GMS/TN/1, Box 16
Opposite below: Item 25, AR: GMS/TN/2
26. Joanna Heseltine (ed.), Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects: The Scott Family (Amersham: Gregg International, 1981)
LR: 72 RIB (LARGE)
Stamp worked part-time for the RIBA Drawings Collection cataloguing the drawings of the Scott dynasty of architects, subjects who fascinated him throughout his life.
Below: Item 25, AR: GMS/TN/54, Box 16
Small flat display case: TELEPHONE BOXES
This case charts Stamp’s love of telephone boxes, one of Stamp’s most important causes as an activist, uniting his lifelong interests in industrial design, telecommunications, and the Scott architectural dynasty. With the help of the Thirties Society, he was instrumental in shaping the heritage listing of the K2 (i.e. kiosk no. 2), the famous red telephone box designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. British Telecom, a target of the Thatcher government’s privatisation in 1984, set out to replace the famous red telephone kiosks to replace them with new boxes (the KX series) as a matter of corporate image policy. An indomitable campaign was mounted that included writing to every local authority alerting them to the threat of their own local examples.
Above:
Photographic print of a telephone kiosk, Bedford Square, date unknown.
27. Various postcards and photographs of telephone boxes in Stamp’s collection
AR: GMS/TN/1 1b,12,13,15,18,21,22,23,24,25,35, Boxes 10 and 11. Illustrated overleaf.
28.
Postcard sent to Gavin Stamp by Wynn Wheldon of a General Post Office poster used to publicise the introduction of the new Jubilee kiosk No. 6 in 1936. Postmarked 1985.
AR: GMS/TN/20, Box 11
Left: Item 28. Annotated on the rear: “Dear Mr Stamp. I thought it might be of interest to you that British Telecom is quite happy to make cash out of the memory of the Jubilee kiosk—on the Dodo principle, I suppose. Once a thing is truly extinct our nostalgia can be fully indulged. Yours in indignation, Wynn Wheldon.”
29.
Clive Aslet and Alan Powers, The British Telephone Box: “Take It As Red”, A Thirties Society Report (London: Thirties Society, 1987), and telephone box stickers Display copy kindly lent by Alan Powers
AR: GMS/TN/33, Box 11 This seminal campaign report was written for the Thirties Society. Stamp used his journalistic platform to support the campaign, notably standing up against “British Telecom’s Vandalism” in the Spectator, 9 February 1985.
30. Gavin Stamp, Telephone Boxes (London: Chatto & Windus, 1989) AR: GMS/TN/37, Box 11
31. Campaign slip (date unknown) AR: GMS/TN/14, Box 11 This campaign slip was designed to encourage members of the public to write to the Listing Branch to get statutory protection for their local telephone kiosks.
Below: Item 31
32. Andrew Emmerson (ed.), Exchanges: The Newsletter of the Telecommunications Heritage Group 1 (January 1987)
AR: GMS/TN/27, Box 11
33. Telecom Technology Showcase, Resource Centre Order Form prints of kiosks in their collection, completed by Gavin Stamp (14 October 1988)
AR: GMS/TN/17, Box 11 The London-based Telecom Technology Showcase in Blackfriars was British Telecom’s museum of telecommunications that operated from 1982 to 1997.
Left: Item 33
Opposite: Item 32
34.
Letter from John Nathan-Turner, BBC’s Doctor Who Producer to Gavin Stamp, 7 December 1988
AR: GMS/TN/30, Box 11
Opposite: Item 34
Below: Item 35
35. Colour photograph of three K7 kiosks designed by Neville Conder (date unknown)
AR: GMS/TN/34 Box 11
The K7 was designed by Neville Conder in 1959. Twelve prototypes were introduced in 1962, but it never entered final production. Only five were placed on streets. One example can be found in Avoncroft Museum.
36.
Letter from Bruce Martin to Gavin Stamp, 30 March 1989
AR: GMS/TN/36, Box 11
The K8, the last in the series of red telephone kiosks, was designed by Martin in 1965–1966 and introduced in July 1968 following the General Post Office’s dissatisfaction with Conder’s K7.
37. Photograph of neo-classical telephone kiosk designed by John Simpson & Partners for Mercury Communications, Waterloo Station (1988)
AR: GMS/TN/26, Box 11 Mercury (owned by Cable and Wireless Plc.) was a rival telecommunications provider to British Telecom. It commissioned John Simpson, Machin Designs and Fitch & Co. for a series of new kiosks. Simpson’s cast iron kiosk has fluted columns, sphinxes flanking the Mercury logo, and an acanthus finial.
38.
Gavin Stamp, Script written for audio recording made for Dulwich Picture Gallery (circa 1988)
AR: GMS/TN/28, Box 11 Dulwich Picture Gallery (1811–1814) was designed by Sir John Soane. It is widely held that Sir Giles Gilbert Scott took inspiration for the roof of the K2 from the Soane family tomb in the churchyard of St. Pancras Old
Church. British Telecom installed one of the K2 kiosks in the grounds of Dulwich in January 1988, and the following month, its director, Giles Waterfield, asked Stamp to record a history of “the powerful influence of Soane on Scott and the supreme quality of the box”.
Endnotes
1. Piers Gough, in conversation with Joshua Mardell, 30 October 2022.
2. Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A, Twitter (31 December 2017).
3. Letter from Sasha Lubetkin to Stamp (1 September 1990), Gavin Stamp archive, box 13. Sasha Lubetkin was the former Director, Bristol Architecture Centre, and the daughter of the architect Berthold Lubetkin.
4. Gavin Stamp interviewed by Cathy Courtney (2 February 2000), British Library Sounds, C467/48.
Archives & Library Fellowship
Dr Joshua Mardell is an architectural historian. He is a Research Tutor at the Royal College of Art, and a coeditor of the Journal of Architecture His publications include Queer Spaces: An Atlas of LGBTQIA+ Places & Stories (RIBA, 2022), and essays on the Buckler dynasty of antiquaries and architects in Architectural History (vol. 63) and The Antiquaries Journal (vol. 102).
Joshua is the PMC’s first Archives & Library Fellow. He was awarded the fellowship in 2020. For more information about this funding stream/fellowship, please visit: https://www.paul-mellon-centre. ac.uk/fellowships-and-grants/ archives-and-library-fellowship
About the Gavin Stamp Archive
On the date of the publication of this pamphlet, the Gavin Stamp Archive had not yet been fully catalogued, but a detailed boxlist was available online. The material itself remains unsorted and its original order. File titles included in the boxlist are those assigned by Stamp. For more information about the Gavin Stamp Archive, or any other archives in the PMC’s research collection, please contact: collections@paul-mellon-centre. ac.uk
Acknowledgements
Display and text prepared by Joshua Mardell (Royal College of Art / Research Collections Fellow 2020/2021).
Display and booklet coordinated by Martin Myrone, Bryony Botwright-Rance, and Hannah Jones.
Pamphlet design by Luke Gould.
The Paul Mellon Centre owes special thanks to Rosemary Hill, Kenneth Powell, Alan Powers, Simon Rendall, Andrew Sanders, Agnes Stamp, Cecilia Stamp, and Sandy Stoddart for generously loaning objects for this display. We are also grateful to Alan Powers for his Stamp-style numbering.
The Centre is confident that it has carried out due diligence in its use of copyrighted material as required by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended).
If you have any queries relating to the Centre’s use of intellectual property, please contact: copyright@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk
For more information about our research Collections see our website: www.paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk. Alternatively contact us by email at collections@paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk or phone 020 7580 0311