David Bowie

Costumes, albums, lyrics and videos from 80000-strong collection will go on show at the V&A East Storehouse from 2025.

[opened in 2013](/2012/09/01/david-bowies-outrageous-stage-costumes-to-go-on-display) and included original album art, photographs, and videos drawn from the Bowie archive. “What is exciting is that this is a collection and archive from across Bowie’s entire artistic career. “The donation will help us to catalogue the collection and create the centre,” Kate Bailey, the senior curator for theatre and performance at the V&A, tells The Art Newspaper.

The exhibition, which first went on show 2013, will now be housed in the new David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performing Arts at the V&A's East Storehouse, ...

This is a truly great piece of news, which deserves the sincerest gratitude and congratulations to all those involved who have made it possible.” “Our new collections centre, V&A East Storehouse, is the ideal place to put Bowie’s work in dialogue with the V&A’s collection spanning 5,000 years of art, design, and performance. A spokesperson from the David Bowie Estate added: “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. Ten years later, the continuing regenerative nature of his spirit grows ever further in popular resonance and cultural reach down through younger generations. The V&A is thrilled to become custodians of his incredible archive, and to be able to open it up for the public. V&A Director Dr Tristram Hunt said: “David Bowie was one of the greatest musicians and performers of all time.

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is to create a centre dedicated to David Bowie following the acquisition of the English singer-songwriter's archive.

The acquisition and creation of the centre has been made possible thanks to the David Bowie Estate and a £10m donation from the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group. From 2025, the archive will be made available to the public through the creation of the David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performing Arts at V&A East Storehouse, in Stratford’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Our new collections centre, V&A East Storehouse, is the ideal place to put Bowie’s work in dialogue with the V&A’s collection spanning 5,000 years of art, design, and performance.”

The extensive archive of the late David Bowie, has been acquired by London's Victoria and Albert Museum, featuring clothing, instruments, notes and more.

The museum secured the items from David Bowie’s estate. In 2025, they will be homed in a new public arts centre, The David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performing Arts. Bowie, who grew up in the city, passed away in 2016 aged 69.

London's V&A has announced today it will secure the archive of David Bowie for the nation – revealing the creative processes of one of the most pioneering ...

The acquisition follows the V&A’s ground-breaking 2013 exhibition, David Bowie Is…, which marked the first time a museum had been given unprecedented access to the David Bowie Archive. This archive promises to be an unparalleled display of individual artistic brilliance, invention, and transformation. It also includes more intimate writings, thought processes and unrealised projects, the majority of which have never been seen in public before. My deepest thanks go to the David Bowie Estate, Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group for helping make this a reality and for providing a new sourcebook for the Bowies of tomorrow.” Encompassing more than 80,000 items, the archive traces Bowie’s creative processes as a musical innovator, cultural icon, and advocate for self-expression and reinvention from his early career in the 1960s to his death in 2016. Dr Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A, said: “David Bowie was one of the greatest musicians and performers of all time.

Over 80000 items from David Bowie's collection are to go on display for the first time, following the donation of the archive to the V&A.

“Bowie’s hand in everything – sketching out costume ideas and album covers, song notes, details of collaborations. [the David Bowie Is exhibition](https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/david-bowie), which went on a five-year run around the world, concluding in New York’s Brooklyn Museum. Over 80,000 items from David Bowie’s collection are to go on display for the first time, following the donation of the archive to the V&A.

Bowie's radical innovations across music, theatre, film, fashion, and style – from Berlin to Tokyo to London – continue to influence design and visual culture ...

Dr Tristram Hunt, director of the V&A, said in a statement: "The V&A is thrilled to become custodians of his incredible archive and to be able to open it up for the public. In 2025, the institution will launch The David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performing Arts – described as a "sourcebook for the Bowies of tomorrow" – which will be located at the new V&A East Storehouse, in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford. "Our new collections centre, V&A East Storehouse, is the ideal place to put Bowie’s work in dialogue with the V&A’s collection spanning 5,000 years of art, design, and performance.

From 2025, the archive will be made available to the public at The David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performing Arts at V&A East Storehouse, in Stratford's ...

Tilda Swinton, one of David Bowie’s friends and collaborators, added: “In 2013, the V&A’s David Bowie Is… A spokesperson from the David Bowie Estate, said: “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. My deepest thanks go to the David Bowie Estate, Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group for helping make this a reality and for providing a new sourcebook for the Bowies of tomorrow.” This archive promises to be an unparalleled display of individual artistic brilliance, invention, and transformation. The V&A is thrilled to become custodians of his incredible archive, and to be able to open it up for the public. Dr Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A, said: “David Bowie was one of the greatest musicians and performers of all time.

LONDON — More than 80,000 items belonging to British rock legend David Bowie, including costumes, handwritten notes, sheet music and art, will go on display ...

“We’re so pleased to be working closely with the V&A to continue to commemorate David’s enduring cultural influence.” “The V&A is thrilled to become custodians of his incredible archive, and to be able to open it up for the public,” said the museum’s director, Tristram Hunt. “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,” the estate said in a statement. He went on to pen hit songs, notably “Changes,” and “Starman,” and he appeared in the 1976 movie, “The Man Who Fell to Earth.” But he was better known for a series of glamorous, androgynous alter egos, including Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane. It follows a popular 2013 exhibition celebrating Bowie’s life at the same museum and an international tour that drew 2 million people around the world.

Costumes, handwritten lyrics and musical instruments are among the more than 80000 David Bowie items going on public show for the first time, ...

The V&A is thrilled to become custodians of his incredible archive, and to be able to open it up for the public. which, according to the museum, was seen by more than 2 million people as part of its international tour. Tristram Hunt, director of the V&A, said in the release: "David Bowie was one of the greatest musicians and performers of all time. The archive aims to reveal "the creative processes of one of the most pioneering and influential figures in the history of live and recorded music, film, fashion and beyond," according to a Fans will delight in seeing the handwritten lyrics for hits such as "Fame," "Heroes" and "Ashes to Ashes," as well as examples of Bowie's "cut up" writing method inspired by writer William Burroughs, where he would cut up a line of words and rearrange them to come up with new lines and meanings. According to the museum, it also features "more intimate writings, thought processes and unrealised projects, the majority of which have never been seen in public before."