Archive
The Deanna Petherbridge Archive is held at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London. The archive comprises material created and collected by Petherbridge throughout her professional life, spanning from the 1960s to the 2020s. An exceptionally rich resource, the archive offers detailed insight into her wide-ranging career as an artist, writer, curator, and educationalist; the incredibly varied initiatives with which she was involved; and her extensive travel.
A particular highlight is a series of more than 150 ‘Annual Files’, which record her extensive professional outputs and diverse interests across decades of practice. These files provide a structured and expansive account of her working life, and evolving concerns and interests.
Beyond documenting Petherbridge’s career, the archive serves as a valuable resource for researchers across multiple disciplines. These include studies of sponsorship and patronage in the arts; public art; vernacular architecture; solo travel; drawing practice and theory; freelance and self-employed artistic careers; the role of women in the arts, and art and architectural history; and the intersections between art and architecture.
The collection contains extensive personal and professional correspondence, revealing the international networks within which Petherbridge operated, including exchanges with artists, academics, and gallery and museum professionals worldwide. As a visiting artist and academic—often supported by the British Council—Petherbridge undertook numerous studio residencies, lecture tours, and fellowships in countries such as Australia, Pakistan, United States, and especially India, which she visited on many occasions.
The archive also demonstrates how Petherbridge contributed to scholarly and artistic discourse from the perspective of a practitioner, offering insights that differ from those of purely academic approaches.
Materials in the archive include correspondence, photographs, research notes, sketchbooks, and visual materials such as flyers, posters, and a wide range of ephemera.
The archive is currently in the process of being catalogued, for more information please contact the Paul Mellon Centre.
Library
The Paul Mellon Centre also holds select books from Petherbridge’s Library, which she donated to the Centre in November 2022. It consists of books on art and architecture by Petherbridge, as well as catalogues of her own exhibitions and those that she curated. It reflects her varied working life and is particularly rich in material on drawing.
This material has been fully catalogued on the Library and Photographic Archive catalogue.