An interview with Harriet Bridgeman, founder of Bridgeman Art Library

Image courtesy of Guardian News.

An interview with Harriet Bridgeman, founder of the Bridgeman Art Library, has been featured in Guardian Professional. The Bridgeman Art Library is just one of the great image resources we offer through Watzek Library, here at LC. In the interview, Bridgeman - whose vocation is not dissimilar from what we do here at the VRC - discusses her inspiration behind founding the Art Library, balancing copyright and ownership with the increasing availability of art, and being a "successful business woman in the arts," among other topics. Check out the full interview here. Below are some interview highlights:

"I dreamt up the Bridgeman Art Library while editing an art publication and becoming increasingly aware of the problems of sourcing good quality images at short notice, or indeed at even a modicum of notice. Museums and art collections did not have the rights and reproduction departments which are now regarded as the norm, nor were they conscious of the income they could potentially generate by not having efficient operations in this area. As I knew from personal experience, it was very hard for publishers to source images quickly and before the days of the internet, to even know what to source and from where!"

"I  think my passion for art and my entrepreneurial spirit are equally balanced; I am fortunate in that I saw a gap and a challenge in an area for which I had a passion and the two continue to feed into each other."


You can access the Bridgeman Art Library among the Visual Resources offered here at Lewis & Clark College. Check it out @ Watzek Library Subject Guide for Art & Art History