Write on Art

Write on Art is a prize for young writers, run by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and Art UK, that highlights the broader benefits of sharing ideas about art through good writing. The prize invites students to pick any work of art from the Art UK website and to write about it. Students are encouraged to write about what matters to them, which often yields a diverse range of approaches and themes. The prize offers the winners a sum of money and the opportunity to be published on the Art UK and Paul Mellon Centre websites.

During the second year of the Write on Art competition, we received 159 submissions in total, with 35 in the Year 10/11 category and 124 in the Year 12/13 category. The essays were submitted from across the United Kingdom. The judging panel consisted of Val McDermid, acclaimed crime writer; Hammad Nasar, curator, writer, researcher and Senior Research Fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre; and Louisa Buck, art critic and contemporary art correspondent for The Art Newspaper.

The winners of the 2018–2019 round were:

In the Year 12/13 category:

First place: Viola Turrell from James Allen's Girls' School, on Blotter by Peter Doig

Second place: Grace Page from Ysgol Bro Pedr Comprehensive, on Greenham, Peace Vigil by Claudia Williams

In the Year 10/11 category:

First place: Jack Harrison from Giggleswick School, on La Mitrailleuse by C. R. W. Nevinson

Second place: Maryam Khan from the Queen’s School Chester, on Bacchus and Ariadne by Titian

In November 2018, in another event geared towards young writers, PMC staff participated in the Association for Art History’s Ways of Seeing conference at the National Gallery. During the lunch break, the PMC hosted a workshop where students learned how to analyse a painting and write effectively.

Write on Art Prize 2018–2019 award ceremony, Paul Mellon Centre, London

This year the work of Research Collections staff was concentrated on the installation of air conditioning in the archive stores. Staff worked with contractors, experts, architects and building-planning officers from Camden Council to plan the project. The archive collections were packed and sent off-site and the building work finally completed in May 2019. The Centre’s archival storage is now compliant with international standards and will help facilitate the long-term preservation of the material. By the end of June 2019, and for the first time in some years, all of the archive collections had been returned to the Centre and were available to researchers: reader numbers in the Public Study Room increased accordingly.

Research Collections staff also played a significant role in the project to digitise the Centre’s photographic archive. They worked alongside the Digital Manager, attending meetings of PHAROS (the International Photographic Archive consortium); planning and participating in user workshops; advising on the conservation of the negatives; and assisting with the re-boxing of the collection.

Despite a three-month closure of all the archive collections and a three-week closure of the Public Study Room during the installation of air conditioning, the total number of readers during the year dropped only very slightly (by 15 per cent). Strikingly, the total number of new readers registered increased significantly: from 171 to 243. Similarly, the total number of website hits for Research Collections pages and for use of the online archive and library catalogues increased considerably. Both of these statistics indicate that the Centre’s research collections are reaching an ever-widening audience.

The first and third Drawing Room displays of 2018–2019 drew from the Centre’s archive collections. They were curated by staff members Nermin Abdulla, Harriet Fisher and Martin Postle, assisted by Research Collections staff. In a new departure, the display in spring 2019 was guest-curated by the artist George Shaw, and consisted entirely of items from his personal collection. Bryony Botwright-Rance was responsible for overseeing and co-ordinating all the displays:

Artists’ Letters: Three Stories from the Paul Mellon Centre Archive Collections (1 October 2018 to 14 January 2019)

Secondhand Daylight: A Display by George Shaw (21 January 2019 to 3 May 2019)

‘Painter, Gardener, Scholar’: Humphrey Waterfield, 1908–1971 (13 May 2019 to 13 September 2019)

In October 2018, the Assistant Librarian went on jury service for six months. Her post was in part covered by Jette Nielsen from October to January, who worked primarily on weeding and completing the creation of skeleton catalogue records for the Brian Sewell library collection.

Mary Peskett Smith’s contract was revised: she now works at the Centre on a permanent basis for two days a week, focusing on various library and archival tasks.

In April 2019, Anthony Day was appointed on a nine-month contract to catalogue various archive collections. He completed work on the Daphne Haldin archive in May 2019 and the John Sunderland archive in June 2019. The resulting catalogue descriptions are now available online.

For the first time, Research Collections staff took part in History Day at Senate House. This one-day event held in November 2018 was a great success and introduced the Centre’s collections and activities to new audiences. Staff were also involved in similar initiatives, including the Association for Art History Annual Conference and the second Easel careers event. In addition, they continued to provide talks and tours of the Research Collections to a broad variety of audiences, and to support the wider initiatives of the Centre – from the Bedford Square Festival to an Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon.

Library

A total of 1,275 books and exhibition catalogues were accessioned during the year.

As well as newly published books, exhibition catalogues, journals and auction catalogues acquired by purchase and gift throughout the year, the library received a donated collection of books relating chiefly to Canadian painting from 1867 to 1939. Collected by Michael Liversidge FSA (b.1947), who taught at the University of Bristol for many years, the collection of one hundred books and exhibition catalogues contains many scarce titles. This generous donation, received in September 2018, fills a major gap in the library’s existing holdings.

An issue of the journal Axis: A Quarterly Review of Contemporary ‘Abstract’ Painting & Sculpture from the Peter and Renate Nahum donation was loaned to the Somerset House exhibition, Print! Tearing it up, during summer 2018. This is the first time that library material has been lent to an external exhibition.

Archive

Two archive collections were acquired during the year. The Gavin Stamp archive was kindly donated to the Centre in July 2018 by Rosemary Hill, Stamp’s widow. Stamp (1948–2017) was a writer and architectural historian who published widely, wrote the ‘Nooks & Corners’ column for Private Eye and appeared in many television programmes about architectural history. Stamp’s archive reflects his varied career and many interests, and contains material created from his undergraduate days to the end of his life.

The John Sunderland archive was kindly donated to the Centre in March 2019 by Sunderland’s widow, Clare. Sunderland (1942–2018) was an art historian with a particular interest in the artist John Hamilton Mortimer Sunderland’s archive contains not only the material he compiled in relation to his publication John Hamilton Mortimer: His Life and Works (1988), but also the research notes of two previous Mortimer scholars, Gilbert Benthall and Benedict Nicolson. As the Centre already holds archive material created by Benthall and Nicolson, the acquisition is a particularly important one – not only filling identified gaps but also illustrating the working practices and collaboration between art historians.

For the first time, archive material held at the Centre was featured in a BBC television programme. The John Hayes and Ellis Waterhouse archives were consulted by the Fake or Fortune? production team during their research into a lost work by Thomas Gainsborough. Filming for the episode, which was broadcast in July 2019, took place in the Public Study Room over three days.

Institutional Archive

Archive staff continued the institution-wide records audit begun in 2018. Working with relevant staff across the Centre, they reviewed record-keeping practices in the Events, Yale-in-London and Grants & Fellowships areas of activity. Recordkeeping tools were updated, and records were destroyed or transferred to the archive in accordance with best practice.

Working with the Digital Manager, Archive staff also oversaw the purchase of Preservica, a system designed to assist with the challenges of preserving electronic records, including email.

Gdpr

The Archivist & Records & Data Protection Manager continued to undertake a thorough review of the personal information managed by the Centre. Working with relevant staff, the HR and Events activities were reviewed and practices updated to ensure compliance with the legislation. In addition, an employee privacy notice was issued to staff and a public privacy notice, covering key areas of Centre activity, compiled and made available on the Centre’s website. In addition, GDPR-related queries and issues arising from everyday working practices across the Centre were addressed.