Douglas Dodds

Victoria and Albert Museum, Word & Image Department, Department Member

University of Sussex, School of English and American studies, Alumnus

University of Sussex, History of Art, Alumnus

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Douglas Dodds is a former Senior Curator in the V&A's Word & Image Department. He was responsible for developing the Department's digital art collections, which range from early computer art to recent born-digital works. Douglas also led a project to digitise the Department's prints, drawings, paintings and photograph collections.
Address: London, London, City of, United Kingdom

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A Sentimental Journey through South Kensington: Laurence Sterne and the V&A

The Victoria and Albert Museum holds a wide range of artworks that relate to Laurence Sterne, but... more The Victoria and Albert Museum holds a wide range of artworks that relate to Laurence Sterne, but some of them are better-known than others. The V&amp;A’s oil paintings are well-documented, but scholars are perhaps less familiar with the Museum’s prints and drawings. This paper will explore paintings such as C.R. Leslie’s My Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman (ca.1831), Charles Landseer’s Maria (ca.1836) and W.P. Frith’s Scene from A Sentimental Journey (1841), comparing them with related artworks in the V&amp;A and other collections. Intriguingly, the Museum also holds a number of original illustrations for various editions of Tristram Shandy, A Sentimental Journey and other works by Sterne. Examples include early drawings by Thomas Stothard and Luke Clennell, plus more recent artworks by Vera Willoughby and others. Some of the drawings have been misattributed in the past, but recent research has helped to clarify their true significance. The Museum also has some hand-coloured fan mounts, similar to those in the British Museum and Shandy Hall. In addition, the V&amp;A’s National Art Library has a number of important editions of Sterne’s works, such as the 2nd (London) edition of Tristram Shandy, plus the Golden Cockerel Press edition and the Arion Press edition with photo-collages by John Baldessari. The paper will also consider the role of collectors such as John Forster, Alexander Dyce, John Jones and John Sheepshanks, who donated or bequeathed many of the works to the South Kensington Museum in the 19th century

Chance and Control: Art in the Age of Computers

Since the 1960s, artists and programmers have used computers to create prints, drawings, painting... more

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Collecting, Documenting, and Exhibiting the Histories of Digital Art: A V Perspective

Museums and Digital Culture, 2019

The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is the UK’s national museum of art and design. In its ea... more The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) is the UK’s national museum of art and design. In its early years as the South Kensington Museum, the institution was involved with various initiatives that bridged art and science. The modern V&A acquired its first computer-generated images as long ago as 1969. Following the acquisition of the archives of the Computer Arts Society (CAS) and the Patric Prince Collection in the mid-2000s, the Museum now holds the UK’s national collection of early digital art. The V&A’s computational art collection includes some 2,000 prints, drawings, photographs and born-digital works, created from the 1960s to the present day (Dodds and Beddard 2010). Pioneering computer artists include Georg Nees, Frieder Nake, A. Michael Noll, Vera Molnar, Manfred Mohr, Colette and Charles Bangert, Harold Cohen and Paul Brown, who were followed by Roman Verostko, Mark Wilson, Barbara Nessim, William Latham and others. The Museum also holds recent born-digital artworks by artists such as Casey Reas, Aaron Koblin, Daniel Brown and Andy Lomas. V&A exhibitions and displays include Decode and Digital Pioneers (both 2009/10), plus Chance and Control: Art in the Age of Computers (2018). This chapter outlines some of the issues involved in acquiring, maintaining, documenting and exhibiting a diverse range of physical and digital artworks created with code.

Art libraries

British Librarianship and Information Work 1991–2000

[Review] The Grove encyclopedia of decorative arts. Edited by Gordon Campbell. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. 2 vols.: ill. ISBN 0195189485; 9780195189483. £120.00/$250.00

Art Libraries Journal, 2007

[Review] Oil paintings in public ownership. The Public Catalogue Foundation. London: PCF, 2004– . £35.00 per volume (hardcover)/£15.00-£20.00 per volume (paper)

Art Libraries Journal, 2006

Documentation systems in Britain’s National Art Library

Art Libraries Journal, 1993

Britain’s National Art Library at the Victoria & Albert Museum joined the OCLC network in 1986, a... more Britain’s National Art Library at the Victoria & Albert Museum joined the OCLC network in 1986, and from 1987 to 1990 created catalogue records in MARC format on the OCLC database pending the introduction of a stand-alone computer system. The Library now employs a Dynix minicomputer system for cataloguing, acquisitions, circulation, serials control, and the provisions of OPACs. About 15% of the Library’s records are available online. Retrospective conversion of older records is proceeding and may be completed by the year 2000. The online catalogue is networked internally within the Museum, and is likely to be accessible to external users via JANET in the future. A number of bibliographic and image databases are also provided in CD-ROM and videodisc format. Future developments will include interface between Museum/image and Library/documentation databases.

From Analogue to Digital: Word and Image Digitization Projects at the V&A

Journal of Victorian Culture, Apr 1, 2018

In a recent issue of the Journal of Victorian Culture, Zoe Alker and Christopher Donaldson drew a... more In a recent issue of the Journal of Victorian Culture, Zoe Alker and Christopher Donaldson drew attention to 'the dubious habit of treating digital collections as objectively constructed records' . 1 Of course, it is usually dangerous to assume that what is accessible online is all that exists about a given topic, or that it somehow represents the most important material available. In practice, digitization activities tend to be driven by a range of different imperatives, and these do not always coincide with the immediate interests of the researcher. Institutional drivers can include the availability of funding for specific projects such as new galleries, exhibitions and publications, or the sheer practicality of tackling one category of material rather than another. Such factors can have a significant impact on what is -or more importantly, what is not -made available in a digital format.

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Digital Pioneers: Computer-Generated Art from the V&A’s Collections

The Victoria and Albert's acquisition of major computer art collections is part of an ongoing pro... more

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Computer Art and Technocultures: Evaluating the V&A’s Collections in the Digital Age

The presentation provides an overview of the Victoria and Albert Museum's collections of computer... more The presentation provides an overview of the Victoria and Albert Museum's collections of computer-generated artworks, focussing on recent acquisitions such as the Patric Prince Collection and the archives of the Computer Arts Society. The paper then goes on to describe an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project entitled "Computer Art and Technocultures", a collaboration between the V&A and Birkbeck College that is examining the Museum's collections and placing them in a broader art-historical, social and technological context. Outcomes will include a database of artworks, a conference and/or study days, plus one or more publications and a display in the V&A.

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Integrating access to distributed images: the Electronic Library Image Service for Europe (ELISE) project

Art Libraries Journal, 1999

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is a partner in the Electronic Library Image Service for... more The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is a partner in the Electronic Library Image Service for Europe (ELISE) project, which is part-funded by the European Community. ELISE I began in 1993 and was completed in 1995. The V&A’s National Art Library is particularly involved in the second phase of the project, ELISE II, which began in 1996 and is due to finish in 1999. This paper explains the background to ELISE and considers the implications for the V&A and the wider art and design community.

From analogue to digital: preserving early computer-generated art in the V&A’s collections

Art Libraries Journal, 2010

Viewpoint: The future of art bibliography

Art Libraries Journal, 2011

Who needs subject gateways, portals or hubs?

Art Libraries Journal, 2007

Viewpoint

Art Libraries Journal, 2003

The Factory Project: digitisation at the Victoria and Albert Museum

Art Libraries Journal, 2009

The National Art Library, ARLIS/UK and Ireland and the Union List of Art, Architecture and Design Serials

The Serials Librarian, 1997

The UK&#39;s National Art Library holds a major collection of serials in the fine and applied... more The UK&#39;s National Art Library holds a major collection of serials in the fine and applied arts subject areas, and has recently transferred the records for its serials to a computer system. In conjunction with the Art Libraries Society, the NAL is engaged in a project to use these records to create an online union list of the art, architecture

Documentation Systems in Britain's National Art Library

Barcelona, 18-21 de agosto de 1993; Actas del Congreso organizado por la Sección de Bibliotecas de Arte de la IFLA, el Grup de Bibliotecaris d'Art de Catalunya y el Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya / Proceedings of the IFLA Art Libraries Satellite Meetin, 1995

The National Art Library, ARLIS/UK and Ireland and the Union List of Art, Architecture and Design Serials

The Serials Librarian, 1997

Chance and Control : Art in the Age of Computers

Art in Print, 2019

"An indispensable survey of artists who have chosen to share power with machines."

Douglas Dodds

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