David Hockney, 1977, by Schwartz © National Portrait Gallery, London The gift will also lead to other archive acquisitions (he is in final-stage talks for four more) and several photography exhibitions the archive itself will go on show in 2025. In the library’s hushed low-lit rooms, he unpacks the archive – much of which, such as the sitting notes and correspondence, has not been seen before. “It’s going to make us an institution that’s as well regarded as the V&A or the National Portrait Gallery for photography,” says Phillip Roberts, the man who has been hired as the Bern and Ronny Schwartz Curator of Photography. The Prince of Wales, Nureyev and Lester Piggott are each asked if they like ‘body-surfing’ It has allowed the Bodleian to hire a curator of photography for the very first time, who will be able to marshal a huge and disparate holding that ranges from William Henry Fox Talbot’s personal archive to extensive photography of the anti-apartheid movement. If the Foundation has already given gifts and prints to various non-profit institutions, as part of its aim to preserve Bern’s legacy, this is its biggest cash donation ever. They have been given Schwartz’s entire archives – a time capsule of 1970s portraits, negatives, faded typewritten notes, thank-you letters and Schwartz’s favoured camera (a Hasselblad medium-format) – alongside a gift of £2mn by The Bern Schwartz Family Foundation, now headed up by his three children and a family friend. These are the brightest traces of the Bodleian Libraries’ latest big acquisition. “Just as if someone was calling a dog.” King Charles III (then Prince of Wales), 1977, by Schwartz © National Portrait Gallery, London “In America, he’s called ‘Prince’ all the time,” records Schwartz. He assures us that the future king has a “very, very warm manner” Charles’s only request was that he not be called “Prince”. They are by Bern Schwartz, the businessman who made a surprising and successful late conversion to professional photography. “He is an unusually good-looking young man, better-looking than I thought from his pictures” read the notes on the royal sitting, which took place in March 1977. Schwartz’s photograph of the newsreader Angela Rippon, 1977 © National Portrait Gallery, London King Charles III, then Prince of Wales, grins in a carefree way not seen much in the five decades since. David Hockney stands pensively beside a portrait of his own father, while Rudolf Nureyev sits in his chair, slightly tense. Angela Rippon, the newsreader, prances gaily in a chiffon dress Margaret Thatcher smiles as only she can. Somewhere inside Oxford’s austere Weston Library, a vast, deep part of the city’s Bodleian Libraries that holds a fair chunk of its 13 million items, figures from the gloriously mahogany mid-1970s come to life. Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
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