Deanna Petherbridge

39 boxes, 1 portfolio. This collection has not yet been catalogued but a boxlist is available. (Ref DSP)

The archive comprises material created and collected by Petherbridge throughout her professional life from the 1960s to 2020s. It documents her varied career and includes material relating to her work as an educationalist, writer and curator both in the UK and abroad. It also includes a small amount of material pertaining to her work as an artist. There are files relating to her exhibitions, publications, lectures and teaching activities including most notably: The Primacy of Drawing (YUP, 2010; revised 2024); and The Quick and the Dead and Witches & Wicked Bodies, which toured the UK in 1997 and 2013-2014 respectively. The highlight of the collection is a series of nearly two hundred annual files which document the incredibly varied initiatives with which she was involved, in particular her extensive travel. As a visiting artist and academic, and often supported by the British Council, Petherbridge undertook a number of studio residencies, lecture tours and fellowships in countries including Australia, Greece, the United States and, in particular, India – a country she visited many times. The archive includes correspondence, photographs, research notes, sketchbooks, posters, visual material (e.g. flyers) and ephemera.

The Paul Mellon Centre also holds material from Petherbridge’s Library.

Deanna Sheila Petherbridge (1939–2024) was an artist, writer, curator and educationalist, primarily concerned with drawing. She has promoted the importance of drawing in relation to contemporary art practice. She was Professor of Drawing at the Royal College of Art from 1995 to 2001 and appointed Associate Fellow at the Warburg Institute in 2019. A retrospective exhibition of her drawings was held at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester in 2016. She was appointed CBE in 1996.