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The archive of LCC’s Val Williams is to become part of the nationally and internationally significant photography collections at the new Library of Birmingham. The archive consists of papers, letters, audiotapes, video, manuscripts, published material, invitations, posters, press cuttings and research materials documenting the work of one of the UK’s most important curators and writers on photography. The material spans Williams’ entire career from the early years of Impressions Gallery through to more recent exhibition projects and books including The Other Observers (1986), Who’s Looking at the Family (1994), How We Are (2007) and a full archive of Val’s writing about photography in publications such as Creative Camera, the New Statesman, The Guardian, The Independent and many other publications.
Highlights of the archive include a collection of letters from Martin Parr, many written while he was working and living in Ireland at the end of the 1970s, the handmade dummy book for Daniel Meadows’ National Portraits, the original manuscript for The Other Observers: Women’s Photography in Britain, published by Virago in 1986, the exhibition files made by Val Williams and Susan Bright for How We Are at Tate Britain (2007) and the vintage projection slides for Plastic Metropolis, the outdoor projection for the 1998 Shoreditch Biennale, featuring the work of Derek Ridgers, Hannah Starkey, Nick Knight and many others.
Preserved by Val Williams over the last 40 years the archive represents a unique record of one of the most important periods in British photographic history. The archive will form a major new research resource at Birmingham. It will be made available after an extensive cataloguing programme undertaken in collaboration with the University of the Arts London, where Val is Professor of the History and Culture of Photography.
