How Was The Material Organised?
Organisation
From its inception, the Photographic Archive was always intended as an aid to those working in the field and this aim influenced how the images were organised and presented. In the early years, very little energy was devoted to these issues, as the emphasis was on acquisition. However, by 1973 the backlog of images waiting to be filed had grown considerably and the desire to widen access to the resource had been identified. As a result, in his Annual Report of 1973 Christopher White recognised that it would be “desirable to devote further attention to mounting and arranging images so that students would find them easier to consult”.1 One full-time and two part-time assistants were hired to undertake this work. Considerable energy was devoted to developing strict procedures both for filing but also mounting the images—and for keeping the information up to date. Essentially, the resource would be heavily curated.
The main bulk of the images were organised into a large, A–Z by artist sequence. Significant artists, or those who had been the subject of a “grant-in-kind” project, which had generated a wealth of material, often had multiple folders of images. In these cases, images would be further subdivided by genre or type, depending on the artist. As the Photographic Archive was considered a “live” resource, images in this sequence would also be reorganised by Centre staff following the emergence of new scholarship. In particular, efforts were made to ensure images were organised in “catalogue raisonné order”.
Alongside the A–Z sequence, there were also six smaller, largely self-explanatory, groups of additional material: unidentified artists; sculptors A–Z; sculpture collections; decorative painting; Paul Mellon Collection of paintings and Paul Mellon Collection of prints and drawings. There was also a further idiosyncratic group generated almost exclusively from the Centre’s own photographic project work. This group included photographs of sketchbooks, albums of drawings, manuscripts, rare books, sale catalogues and occasionally works on paper.
The importance of surrounding the images with information was recognised as being of prime importance. The vast majority of images in the Photographic Archive were dry mounted on card and key information about the work—such as artist, title, collection and source of the photograph—recorded on the front of the mount. In some cases, the mount might also include information on provenance, literature, exhibiting history, inscriptions and related prints.2 Again, as the Photographic Archive was considered a “live” resource, staff were instructed to update the mounts when new information came to light, in particular when works passed through the saleroom. All this information was laid out on the card according to a very strict structure and as a result the mounts are impressively consistent, clear and comprehensive compared to other similar external resources. These practices continued throughout the Photographic Archive’s history.
