David Bowie’s extensive collection of personal items – including his flamboyant Ziggy Stardust costume, handwritten lyrics and the Stylophone used in “Space Oddity” – have been donated to the Victoria and Albert Museum in England by the late rock artist’s estate.
The V&A will display more than 80,000 pieces, most of which have never been in the public domain, at a new hub in east London from 2025. It has refused to give it archival value.
The pioneering musician, whose ideas also influenced film, art and fashion, is a collector of material related to the creative process and output for six decades. He died of cancer in 2016.
Bowie’s archive includes letters, set designs, thousands of slides, contact sheets and transparencies from photographers such as Terry O’Neill and Helmut Newton, as well as costumes made by fashion designers Alexander McQueen and Kansai Yamamoto.
David Bowie wearing a striped bodysuit designed by Kansai Yamamoto for his ‘Aladdin Sane’ tour in 1973 © David Bowie Archive/PA
There are also “intimate notebooks” filled with Bowie’s ideas, projects and musings, which the V&A says will shed new light on his creative thought process, as well as “cut” lyrics, an experimental songwriting process introduced to Bowie by the author. William Burroughs.
Guitars, amps and other gear include Brian Eno’s synthesizer from Bowie’s 1977 album. moderate.
Kate Bailey, the V&A’s senior curator for theater and performance, said it was “unprecedented” for global artists to curate an archive of this scale.
“He saves and documents his creative process, whether it’s album covers, song lyrics, stage sets or performances . . . The fact that he has the vision to record and archive is unbelievable,” he said, adding that Bowie was a lens through which to explore many cultural genres. .
The history of pop and rock will be held and displayed at the newly created David Bowie Performing Arts Study Center at the V&A East Storehouse in Stratford, east London, with items changing regularly.
Due to open in 2025, the center will be funded with £10 million donated by record label Warner Music Group, which owns Bowie’s songbook, and the Blavatnik Family Foundation.
Cut-up lyrics to ‘Blackout’ from David Bowie’s 1977 album ‘Heroes’ © David Bowie Archive/PA
Bowie has a long-standing relationship with the V&A, allowing access to the effects to carry out a 2013 temporary exhibition, David Bowie it iswhich is one of the most popular exhibitions in the museum, drawing 2 million people in 12 international venues.
Bailey said the show has been spoiled by multimedia displays. Visitors hear different tracks from Bowie – delivered through German partner Sennheiser’s headphones – as they walk between rooms.
Bailey said the V&A had not taken a similar approach to displaying the archive, but added: “In the spirit of Bowie, we had to do something that would follow his creativity and his vision.”
He said detailed plans for how to display the collection are in the early stages, but the center aims to digitize objects and written documents as part of conservation work and increase access to archives.
“His music is eternal. But when you start to see the sense of visual travel that he does and his personal research, it takes on another richness.