The Victor Newsome Archive
- Submitting institution
-
Leeds Beckett University
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 11
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
-
-
- Location
- Casina Pompeiana, Naples, Italy; Tate Britain; Ferens Art Gallery, Hull
- Brief description of type
- Curated Archive
- Open access status
- -
- Month
- -
- Year
- 2019
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
-
-
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Bowen’s investigation into the life and work of the artist Victor Newsome demonstrates that his oeuvre was more than simply a series of distinct bodies of work that altered drastically over the decades - an initial impression exacerbated by Newsome’s own evasion of formal collations or statements of context, being a notably private and difficult man. Through her primary research, Bowen re-evaluated the development of Newsome’s practice over his lifetime.
Bowen organised, directed, filmed and edited a new archive of interviews with 15 of Newsome’s friends and colleagues who each played a significant role in his life and career. Additional primary research materials were gathered by Bowen who gained exclusive access, through Newsome’s daughter Susanna, to Victor Newsome’s letters, photographs of his studio, memories of his childhood, and documents from the archive of the British School at Rome. These materials were subsequently analysed by Bowen and woven into the narrative of the films Bowen produced for the archive she created.
As the archive demonstrates, Bowen found that Victor Newsome’s work evolved as a continuum, not as a series of distinct and unconnected phases as might appear the case. Through the archive, Bowen supports this understanding of the development of Newsome’s work over his lifetime through a meticulous illustration of his working methods, the context of his practice and his life, his contribution to the arts, and his personal, aesthetic and pedagogic impact.
In 2019 The Victor Newsome Archive was exhibited at Casina Pompeiana, Naples, Italy, and was selected by Tate Britain to be added to their permanent archives. Since 2019, the Ferens Art Gallery in Hull has also used interviews from Bowen’s archive for artwork-specific resources designed to introduce school children to Victor Newsome’s work in their collection.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
