Sue Breakell

Sue Breakell is Archive Director at the University of Brighton Design Archives, and a Principal Research Fellow. She co-leads the Museums, Archives, Exhibitions strand of the Centre for Design History. In line with the Design Archives’ principle of research-informed stewardship, her research engages with critical thinking about the nature, meaning and practice of archives, focussing on their use in visual arts contexts and in the history and practice of art and design. 

With an academic background in English Studies, Archive Studies and the History of Art, Sue worked for many years in archives in national museums and galleries, before joining the University in 2009, bringing her professional practice into an academic context. She has extensive experience of working with archives of all sizes and kinds, including cataloguing the papers of Kenneth Clark and other large archives of modern British art and artists at Tate Archive; working as both War Artists Archivist and Museum Archivist at the Imperial War Museum, and as Company Archivist at Marks and Spencer.  Prior to her post at Brighton she was head of Tate Archive.

Sue is interested in the diversity of perspectives on the theory and practice of archives, bridging discourses of archive studies and other humanities disciplines, promoting greater cross fertilisation for mutual enrichment and new insights. Her engagement takes place at the intersection of stewardship, research and creative activities, involving a range of approaches to the notional and physical archive.  In both analogue and digital forms, this work in essence reflects on the place and nature of archives in contemporary culture.  Specialising in visual arts archives, her current particular research interests include archival materiality, and practices of archival selection.

Sue’s art and design history research focuses on the collections with which she works: twentieth century British art and design and their contexts, with a particular focus on the mid-century.  Current research includes work on the archives of émigré designers; she has recently published on the design advocacy of the art historian Kenneth Clark, a founding member of the Council of Industrial Design whose archive is held at the Design Archives.  She has worked closely on the archives of the architect Joseph Emberton and the designer HA Rothholz, and is currently working on that of designer FHK Henrion. 

Sue is based at the University of Brighton Design Archives and supervises research on archives in theory and practice, particularly in art and design; and on twentieth century British art and design and their contexts, with a particular focus on the mid-century. She supervises Masters and Doctorate projects both at Brighton and elsewhere, and is happy to hear from potential students with interdisciplinary interests that intersect with archives practice or the Design Archives collections.