Tuesday 15 June 2010

The Stanley Kubrick Archive


I visited the Stanley Kubrick Archive yesterday, which was exciting.  The 'Search Room' (above) was designed in the style of the Hilton Space Station in 2001: A Space Odyssey.  This gives it a unique ambience.

The archive - which is now about 80-85% catalogued - is extremely interesting, even if you are not a Kubrick fan, and includes loads of photographs.  These include colour photographs from the set of Lolita, and Weegee's photographs of the pie fight in Dr Strangelove - the only visual record of the scene, as it was not included in the final film.  There are also mountains of material relating to the process of film making - annotated scripts, call sheets, shooting schedules, set design material, costumes, props...etc

The Kubrick Archive is part of the University of the Arts London Archives and Special Collections Centre, which also has other significant collections - the LCC comic collection, and the Eckersley poster collection.  There are also smaller collections relating to film directors John Schlesinger and Thorold Dickinson. 

According to their information sheet, the centre "seeks to inform, inspire, engage and excite a diverse range of audiences in support of their creativity, learning and research in art, design, fashion, communications and the performing arts," which sounds good to me.

Further information about the collection and about visiting the centre is available on their website.

Further reading
Mahurter, S. (2007).  'The Stanley Kubrick Archive at the University of Arts London.'  EVA London Conference,11–13 July 2007.

'The Kubrick Legacy'University of the Arts London Magazine.  Spring/Summer 2006, pp. 8-17

Stanley Kubrick Archive brochure

Related interest
If you are a Kubrick fan, you may be interested to know that St Albans Museum currently has a Kubrick season (he lived in St Albans).