Blog

News, articles and stories from the V&A

Posted by:
Zorian Clayton

Curator of Prints, Art, Architecture, Photography & Design

My work primarily covers 19th and 20th century prints, particularly posters and paper ephemera from the 1880s to the 1960s. I have contributed to several V&A displays and exhibitions including 'Facing History: Contemporary Portraiture' (2015), 'Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear' (2022), and 'Aubrey Beardsley: A Singular Prodigy' (Japan, 2024-5). Publications include chapters for 'The Poster: A Visual History' (V&A/Thames & Hudson, 2020) and editing 'Calling the Shots: A Queer History of Photography' (V&A/Thames & Hudson, 2024). As co-chair of the LGBTQ Working Group, I have co-organised numerous events at the Museum since 2012 including three queer Friday Lates, multiple gallery tours and talks, festival link-ups, study days, and live performances galore. For more information on this work, please visit www.vam.ac.uk/lgbtq

Kenneth Romney Towndrow’s divine dust jackets

One of the greatest privileges of working at the museum is the facility to discover incredible artists from yesteryear who have perhaps fallen out of widespread knowledge or...

Transgender Awareness Week

Print of the month

Print of the month

Print of the month

Print of the month

Print of the month

Print of the month

Print of the month

World AIDS Day

Blood Equality posters

Chez Madame Palmyre

Ernest Thesiger: Singularly sybaritic

Caring for our collections

Marie Laurencin and the lesbian Left Bank

Out in the Museum

Balenciaga: Love and Hats!

This blog is by Anne-Margaux Illido, a postgraduate student in Art History and Museum Curating at the University of Sussex, currently completing a placement at the V&A with...

Out in the Museum

Last week of ‘The History of Photography: The Body’

Catch the final week of ‘The History of Photography: The Body’ display in Gallery 100 of the Museum, which has been extended until March 9th. If you have been on any of our...

Out in the Museum

The metamorphosis of Anton Prinner

Last week I was excited to discover a transgender artist in the collection called Anton Prinner. Born in Hungary in 1902, he moved to Paris at the end of the Roaring Twenties,...

Out in the Museum

From Shanghai to Sevenoaks – the Denton Welch bequest

For every large bequest of objects and artworks donated to the museum over the years, there are hundreds of smaller donors who leave intriguing collections of personal treasures...

Tales from the Archives

A Tale of Two Ernsts

Last week I fell victim to a Surrealist joke, some 80 years after its creation! A sure-fire way to discover new things in the Word & Image department is to have a gander at...

Out in the Museum

Queer disobedience

‘Disobedient Objects’ is a ground-breaking exhibition bringing objects of art and design produced by grassroots social movements and international activists into the...