Lydia Heeley has been appointed the Bern and Ronny Schwartz Curator of Photography at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, and will start in post on 2 October 2024. She replaces the inaugural curator Phillip Roberts who was appointed in 2022 and left earlier this year. The post was advertised in May.
Lydia brings curatorial experience from her most recent post as Assistant Curator, Photography, at the museums of St Andrews University a role she has held since December 2022. Prior to this she was Digitisation Officer responsible for 3D and 2D digitisation at the museum, and has been at the university in various part-time and voluntary roles, including work on the James Valentine collection and on the St Andrews Photography Festival.
Her MPhil thesis which was undertaken at St Andrews, supervised by Luke Gartlan was titled Scottish documentary photography and the archive: George M. Cowie, Franki Raffles and Document Scotland in the University of St Andrews Photographic Collection. The first major retrospective of Raffles' work was shown at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art and remains on view until 16 March 2025. Lydia blogged about her work on the exhibition.
The curatorial post at the Bodleian was first announced in 2021 with the objective of caring for, and developing, the libraries' growing photography collections. It was realised through a 'transformational' gift of £2 million from The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation. The endowment accompanies the Foundation's donation of the archive of renowned American portrait photographer and businessman, Bern Schwartz, and the Bodleian will be delivering an exhibition of Schwart's photography.
The Bodleian houses a significant and growing collection of photography. It has major holdings of significant photographers such as William Henry Fox Talbot, Julia Margaret Cameron, Helen Muspratt, Bern Schwartz, Daniel Meadows, and Paddy Summerfield; photobooks from the Sir Charles Chadwyck-Healey Collection; prints gifted by James and Claire Hyman; albums from the Michael and Jane Wilson Collection of Nineteenth Century Photographs; as well as huge volumes of photography present in the Libraries' wider archive and print collections, for example the extensive photographic component within the archive of Oxfam GB. The study of and research into photography is increasing in prominence at the University of Oxford, and the post will be key to bringing together different strands of the University for research collaborations with various faculties, museums within the University, other organisations in the city, and with the History of Art department under the leadership of Professor Geoffrey Batchen, whose work focuses on the history of photography.
See Lydia's Linkedin profile here
The Baltic's Franki Raffles exhibition details are here
Portrait image: Lydia Heeley / Linkedin.
