Archives and Library

Throughout much of the year, the Archives and Library, along with the rest of the Centre, were closed to the public due to the coronavirus pandemic. With staff working almost exclusively from home, it was difficult to continue various projects within the Archives and Library remit. These projects will be revisited in 2021–22.

The Public Study Room was opened three days per week whenever government guidelines permitted. Staff continued to liaise with external colleagues and professional bodies on a regular basis in order to keep up to date with relevant responses to coronavirus and to plan for the regular public service changes that were required.

Despite only being open for forty-eight days during the year, with room for only four readers per day due to social distancing and with many readers unwilling or unable to travel, reader numbers were steady. When possible, staff went to the building to answer remote enquiries, and this service was extremely popular and answered a real and urgent need for many.

Staff also embarked on a major project to review and revise public access to the Centre’s Archives and Library services generally, the aim being to ensure that the collections are readily available to anyone who is unable to visit the Public Study Room in person. This project supports the Centre’s wider equity, diversity and inclusion aims. As a result, significant changes will be made to public service provision. Alongside enhanced remote enquiries and digital copying services, we aim to ensure that the information about our collections online will be accessible and appropriate for the widest possible audiences, encompassing both academic and non-specialist interests.

Alongside conducting extensive research in the field, liaising with colleagues in other institutions and attending workshops and training sessions, the Archives and Library also took part in the Archives and Records Association National Distance Enquiry Survey, where users who made enquiries with repositories across the country were asked their views on the service provided. The results pertaining to the Paul Mellon Centre were overwhelmingly positive, with 95 per cent of respondents rating our service ‘good’ or ‘very good’.

PMC Research Collections Fellowships

The first of the Centre’s Research Collections Fellows embarked on their research projects during the year. The first recipient, Joshua Mardell, was awarded the fellowship in spring 2020 for the project ‘Finding a Historiography for Gavin Stamp’, but his start was delayed due to the pandemic. The spring 2021 recipient, Hans Hönes, also began his project ‘Fundaments of Knowledge: Art History in Britain c.1940–70’, looking across various archive collections in the Archives and Library.

Archive Students from University College London (UCL)

The Archives and Library hosted four students from UCL’s postgraduate Archives and Records Management course on their work placement in May 2021. This was the first time the Centre had taken part in the initiative. Due to the pandemic, the placement was entirely virtual, with students being supported by Centre staff and completing the project remotely. The students wrote research guides with the aim of facilitating the widest possible access to the Centre’s extensive and complex holdings on particular artists. Thirtythree guides were completed for artists including Kneller, Gainsborough and Hockney. They will be made available online.

Drawing Room Displays

There was only one Drawing Room Display during 2020–21. ‘New Books from the Paul Mellon Centre’ was an informal display of the nine titles published by the Centre during the previous year. Put together by Bryony Botwright-Rance and Jenny Hill, with assistance from Emily Lees and Tom Powell, it was on view until 27 August 2021. There was no accompanying booklet.

Collections in Focus

Three online ‘Collections in Focus’ features were created over the year.

‘Damaged & Destroyed’ was launched in July 2020. This feature consists of three stories of preservation and loss from the PMC’s Photographic Archive, written by Freddie Pegram.

‘The Paul Oppé Library and Archive’, written by Anthony Day and Lucy Kelsall, was launched in February 2021. This feature explores the life and work of Paul Oppé, describes the Centre’s acquisition of his library and archive, and provides a detailed study of both collections.

‘The Leicester Galleries and its Exhibition Catalogues’ went live in April 2021. Written by Emma Floyd, it focuses on the donation of Leicester Galleries catalogues to the Centre by Peter and Renate Nahum in 2020. It explores the history of the gallery and covers three main themes: the gallery’s exhibitions during the First World War; its promotion of European art in the 1920s; and its exhibitions of sculpture throughout the first half of the twentieth century.

Staff

Anthony Day completed a nine-month contract to catalogue Paul Oppé’s personal papers in April 2021. He then embarked on an additional six-month contract to plan a workshop on Oppé, due to take place in October 2021, and to publicise the Oppé papers, focusing particularly on the non-art-historical content visible in the online catalogue.

In July 2020, Lucy Kelsall embarked on a temporary contract to undertake the cataloguing of some of the Library’s smaller donations. Natasha Held left her post as Assistant Librarian in January 2021 and, after advertising and interviewing, Lucy Kelsall was appointed in her place, taking up the post in March 2021. An experienced cataloguer, Lucy joined the Cataloguing & Classification Committee of ARLIS/ UK & Ireland in spring 2021.

Library

A total of 301 new books and exhibition catalogues were acquired and accessioned during the year.

A number of previously received donations were accessioned into the collection and fully catalogued during the year. Lucy Kelsall, first as a project cataloguer and then as Assistant Librarian, completed a number of projects: the Brinsley Ford collection (100 titles); Geoffrey Beard’s library (50 titles); books from the Wilson Centre for Photography (64 titles) and Charles S. Rhyne’s library (50 titles). The Librarian catalogued the Paul R. Joyce collection of pamphlets (80 titles) and the Fleming-Wyfold Art Foundation’s library (250 items). The completion of the latter project was celebrated with the online event, French Art and Scotch Ideas: The Scottish Enlightenment and The Dawn of Modernity in French Art, in February 2021.

In addition to the completed projects, staff embarked on some largerscale cataloguing projects. The Assistant Librarian catalogued most of the exhibition catalogues on British artists in the Brian Sewell library (1,700 of 2,800 titles were catalogues). The Librarian started cataloguing the Michael Liversidge and Giles Waterfield libraries. This exceptional cataloguing output has considerably reduced the cataloguing backlog. All the Library’s catalogue records are also exported to Library Hub Discover.

The Centre’s extensive collection of auction catalogues was completely catalogued on the Library’s online catalogue during the year. This entailed an import of nearly 6,000 records of unbound auction catalogues, and the completion of a project undertaken by the Archives and Library cataloguer to catalogue, from scratch, the Library’s bound sequences of auction catalogues. These bound catalogues include those formerly belonging to William Roberts and Ellis Waterhouse (5,000 titles) and the art dealers Arthur Tooth & Sons (3,000 titles). The completion of this project and the overhaul of the relevant webpages has led to a huge increase in requests for these catalogues, some of which are very rare or heavily annotated with prices and buyers’ names.

Archive

Four archive collections were offered to the Centre from private donors during the year. Following careful assessment against the Centre’s published Archive Collection Policy Statement and, in some cases, an on-site appraisal, one collection was declined and three were put on hold due to the pandemic (which made travelling to assess material impossible). These offers will be revisited when restrictions are lifted.

Cataloguing of the Paul Oppé personal papers was completed, and the resulting descriptions were published online on the Centre’s website, Archives Hub, The National Archives’ Discovery and Archives Portal Europe in April 2021.

Significant work was carried out with regard to the appraisal and cataloguing of two of the Centre’s most valuable and important collections: the Frank Simpson and Ben Nicolson archives. Work on both collections will be completed by the end of 2021 and resulting descriptions published online.

Institutional Archive

Due to coronavirus restrictions, work on an institution-wide records audit and the implementation of Preservica (a system designed to assist with the challenges of preserving electronic records) was suspended until 2021–22. A small amount of work was undertaken to review and transfer key records –such as minutes of meetings – to the Institutional Archive.

Gdpr

The Archivist, Records & Data Protection Manager continued to work with staff to ensure that both new Centre initiatives and everyday working practices were compliant with GDPR. This work encompassed all areas of Centre activity but particularly focused on the British Art Network, Early Career Researchers Network and Doctoral Researchers Network, publications (payment of royalties) and events (recording proceedings).