Helen began her career at the National Portrait Gallery, London (2002-2016), where she curated and co-curated over twenty exhibitions surveying historic and contemporary photography. These included Audrey Hepburn: Portraits of an Icon (2015), Snowdon: A Life in View (2014), and Man Ray Portraits (2013).
As Senior Curator of Photographs at the Royal Collection (2016-20), Helen was founding project manager and lead curator of Prince Albert: His Life and Legacy. This project broadened access to the Royal Collection, Royal Archives, and Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 by publishing over 17,500 digitized artworks and records online for the first time. Additional research projects included with Autograph ABP, Barber Institute of Art, and the University of Birmingham. Together these projects demonstrate Helen’s commitment to diversifying representation in collections and expanding curatorial approaches through collaborative practice.
Helen is a committed advocate for the civic role of museum collections to encourage dialogue, facilitate cultural exchange and inspire positive social change. From 2018-2019, Helen was part of the Museums Association Transformers Program, a leadership program addressing the civic role of museums in contemporary society.
Featured here are curatorial projects which reflect Helen’s diverse expertise in photography.
Prince Albert: His Life and Legacy
Project Manager and Lead Curator
From 2017-2020, Helen was project manager and lead curator of this collaborative digitisation project, which will make available some 23,500 items from the Royal Collection, Royal Archives and Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. Explore more at albert.rct.uk
A general view of Rome by T Carr, 1854 © Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2020
17-21 January 2018
Curated by Hemera Collective, which specialises in photography and lens-based media. Helen is a former member and contributed to Photo50 in 2018.
© Foundland Collective, The New World, Episode 1, 2017, video still. (http://www.foundland.info/)
Josef Breitenbach Research Fellowship, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona
2016
Project ‘Shared Vision: Experiments in Photography Education: 1945-1975’ sought to examine the history of photography education in the US in the post-war period.
Photography class at Black Mountain College © Barbara Morgan / Western Regional Archives, State Archives of North Carolina
Audrey Hepburn: Portraits of an Icon
2 July – 18 October 2015
Co-curator
This record-breaking exhibition organised with support from the Audrey Hepburn Estate, examined the development and lasting legacy of Hepburn’s image.
Installation photograph © Tori Miller / National Portrait Gallery, London
26 September 2014 – 21 June 2015
This display celebrated a major gift of photographs from Lord Snowdon to the National Portrait Gallery in 2013, and coincided with a new monograph published by Rizzoli.
Installation photograph © Tori Miller / National Portrait Gallery, London
Michael Peto Photographs: Mandela to McCartney
17 September 2013 – 1 June 2014
This series of displays in London, Edinburgh and New York, organised in collaboration with the University of Dundee, explored the work of photojournalist Michael Peto.
Installation photograph © Tori Miller / National Portrait Gallery, London
7 February – 27 May 2013
Associate Curator
This first major museum retrospective of Man Ray’s innovative photographic portraits featured over a hundred works surveying his career in America and Paris between 1916-68.
Self-portrait with Camera by Man Ray, 1930. © 2008 Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris 2012
Fred Daniels: Cinema Portraits
28 September 2012 – 24 March 2013
This display celebrated the career of Fred Daniels, pioneer of ‘stills’ and portrait photography, known especially for his work with filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger including on A Matter of Life and Death (1946).
Filming Victoria the Great (1937) by Fred Daniels © Estate of Fred Daniels
Twentieth Century Portraits: Photographs by Dmitri Kasterine
11 September 2010 – 3 April 2011
Dmitri Kasterine began his career working for Jocelyn Steven’s Queen magazine before enjoying a long association with film director Stanley Kubrick. This display of portraits presented a cross section of major cultural figures of the twentieth century.
Dame Muriel Spark by Dmitri Kasterine, 1978. © Dmitri Kasterine (https://www.kasterine.com/)
Format Photography Agency: 1983-2003
21 January – 8 August 2010
Format photographers documented epoch changing events such as the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp (1981-2000) and the 1984-5 Miners’ Strike; and participated in movements that brought social change.
Women protestors at Greenham Common, 1983 © Estate of Raissa Page
1 December 2009 – 5 April 2010
This display coincided with the publication of Jane Bown’s book Exposures (2009). Photographs for The Observer were shown alongside unpublished pictures for the first time.
Southend on Sea, Essex, 1954 © Estate of Jane Bown