David Bowie archive has been acquired by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum
The extensive archive of the late David Bowie has now found a permanent home and has now been acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Bowie, who grew up in the city, passed away in 2016 aged 69.
As the Associated Press reports, the vast collection is comprised of costumes, instruments, letters, photos, lyrics and more items. In 2025, they will be homed in a new public arts centre, The David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performing Arts. This will be a part of the V&A East Storehouse, which is currently being constructed in East London’s Olympic Park.
Highlights of the collection include one of Ziggy Stardust’s jumpsuits, costumes from the Alladin Sane tours, handwritten lyrics for the hit 1977 single ‘Heroes’, and the various notebooks that Bowie kept throughout his life. The museum secured the items from David Bowie’s estate.
“With David’s life’s work becoming part of the UK’s national collections, he takes his rightful place amongst many other cultural icons and artistic geniuses,” Bowie’s estate said of the collection finding a new home.
Kate Bailey, the V&A’s senior curator of theatre and performance, labelled the archive an “extraordinary” record of a creative whose “life was art”.
“Bowie’s a polymath, he’s multifaceted. He was inspired by all genres and disciplines,” she continued. “He’s an artist who was working really in 360 — drawing from literature, but also drawing from art history … (and) the places that he’d been to.”
Elsewhere, the director of the V&A and former Labour Party politician, Tristram Hunt, described the late Bowie as “one of the greatest musicians and performers of all time.”
“Bowie’s radical innovations across music, theatre, film, fashion, and style — from Berlin to Tokyo to London — continue to influence design and visual culture and inspire creatives from Janelle Monáe to Lady Gaga to Tilda Swinton and Raf Simons,” he concluded.
