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‘Activating the archive’:1 the Henry Moore Institute Archive, Leeds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2016

Victoria Worsley
Victoria Worsley*
Affiliation:
Henry Moore Institute, 74 The Headrow, Leeds LS1 3AH, UK
*
Email: victoria@henry-moore.ac.uk
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Abstract

A set of papers becomes an archive when its life as a series of active documents is finished and they are deemed worthy of permanent preservation. Archives are not, however, an ending but rather a beginning. Although one of the major functions of a repository is to store and preserve, one of the other challenges for archivists is how to activate their collections and exploit the latent potential of the silent memory that is stored in the boxes. This article outlines how the archive at the Henry Moore Institute is attempting to do this.

Type
Research Article
Information
Art Libraries Journal , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , 2006 , pp. 22 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © The Art Libraries Society 2006

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Footnotes

1.

This term was used by Barbara Steveni, a co-founder of the Artist Placement Group (APG), at a symposium at Tate Britain on 23 March 2005, to celebrate the recent acquisition of the APG archive and to suggest an approach towards using the archive in the future.

References

2. The four works are called Nightingale, Three forms of sudden death, For all the lives we’ll never live and Exhibition of 1957 re-visited. Google Scholar
3. This title is taken from E Gonzalez-Crussi’s book Three forms of sudden death and other reflections on the grandeur and misery of the body (1986) which explores the myth of how the magical stones called bezoars were made from the tears that deer shed after they had been bitten by venomous snakes and how these stones have come to represent solidified sorrow.Google Scholar
4. Irvine, Jaki, Plans for forgotten works (Leeds: Henry Moore Institute, 2005), 25–28.Google Scholar
5. Jaki Irvine: Plans for forgotten works, Gallery 4, Henry Moore Institute, 2 July-2 October 2005.Google Scholar
6. The centre largely came about through the efforts of Dr Ben Read and Dr Terry Friedman.Google Scholar
7. Ettore Spalletti, Henry Moore Institute, 7 May-7 August 2005. See http://www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk for further details.Google Scholar
8. The event took place at the Henry Moore Institute on 26 June 2005.Google Scholar
9. See http://www.rgap.co.uk (accessed 9 September 2005).Google Scholar
10. We hold early material on Moore including his play Narayana and Bhataryan, c. 1920 and letters from his time at the Royal College of Art which were bequeathed by his friend and fellow sculpture student at Leeds School of Art, Jocelyn Horner (1902-1973). There is also material collected by various Directors and curators of Leeds Museums and Galleries but the main set of his personal papers is held at the Henry Moore Foundation, Much Hadham, Hertfordshire.Google Scholar
11. This archive was deposited through the efforts and connections made by Dr Moriarty, Catherine, who has written a book The sculpture of Gilbert Ledward (Much Hadham: Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries, 2003), and to whom we are indebted.Google Scholar
12. Gallery 4, Henry Moore Institute, 5 November 2005-5 February 2006.Google Scholar
13. This can be accessed at http://www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk.Google Scholar
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15. My personal museum: Ego geometria sum?from the Helen Chadwick Archive, Gallery 4, Henry Moore Institute, 6 March-6 June 2004. We chose this particular work because it was intensely autobiographical and was a means of presenting Helen Chadwick the person as well as her work.Google Scholar
16. The first campaign against the sculptures was unsuccessful and the sculptures were saved but the second campaign led to their destruction. For a full history of these sculptures see Wardleworth, Dennis, Passing by: architectural sculpture in the inter-war period (Leeds: Henry Moore Institute, 2005),Google Scholar
Epstein, Jacob, Let there be sculpture: an autobiography (Michael Joseph: London, 1940).Google Scholar
17. Third campaign to reinstate the sculptures of Jacob Epstein on Zimbabwe House, London. Mezzanine Gallery, Leeds City Art Gallery, 8 January-27 March 2005. Other events have included a flyer campaign, a talk in the gallery space, a talk at the ICA, London, and an event as part of the interventions into the ICA on 16 June 2005.Google Scholar
18. See Neal White’s website http://www.nealwhite.org/thirdcampaign.html.Google Scholar