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Dale Devereux Barker, Untitled, 1986, UCL Art Museum LDUCS-7910 © UCL Art Museum courtesy of the copyright holder. Copyright permission obtained via UCL Rightsholder Clearance Project 2021-22.
Joan Hodgkiss, ''Stone Pine'', 1974, UCL Art Museum LDUCS-7894 © UCL Art Museum courtesy of the copyright holder. Copyright permission obtained via UCL Rightsholder Clearance Project 2021-22.
Ian Gordon Harper, Woman's Head, 1983, UCL Art Museum LDUCS-8943 © UCL Art Museum courtesy of the copyright holder. Copyright permission obtained via UCL Rightsholder Clearance Project 2021-22.
Jesse Dale Cast, Head of a Girl, 1926, UCL Art Museum LDUCS-6132 © UCL Art Museum courtesy of the copyright holder. Copyright permission obtained via UCL Rightsholder Clearance Project 2021-22.
UCL Rightsholder Clearance Project 2021-22 Wordcloud © UCL Art Museum
Letter from George Orwell to John Middleton Murry. George Orwell Archive, UCL Library Special Collections ORWELL/G/1 © Orwell Estate
Wendy Yeo, Landscape Composition, 1959, UCL Art Museum LDUCS-6943 © UCL Art Museum courtesy of Wendy Yeo. Copyright permission obtained via UCL Rightsholder Clearance Project 2021-22.
Nora Iniesta, Untitled, 1977, UCL Art Museum LDUCS-7254 © UCL Art Museum courtesy of Nora Iniesta. Copyright permission obtained via UCL Rightsholder Clearance Project 2021-22.
National Archives, Duration of copyright (excluding Crown copyright) flowchart. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Letter from George Orwell to Dame C.V. Wedgwood, 5 July 1949. George Orwell Archive, UCL Library Special Collections ORWELL/G/2 © Orwell Estate
UCL Rightsholder Clearance Project (2021-22)
On the occasion of the Slade 150 anniversary, UCL Art Museum launched the UCL Rightsholder Clearance Project, a multiphase initiative with several objectives: to locate copyright holders for works in the Slade Collections; to rethink the process and methodology of rights tracing; to foster knowledge exchange and cross-disciplinary collaboration; to develop new tools to simplify processes and offer more sustainable solutions to sector-wide problems.
The lack of copyright permissions is a barrier to access and knowledge exchange. The process of securing rights is time-consuming, costly and poses a challenge to many smaller museums and collections, who play an essential role in reshaping narratives by enhancing visilibility of marginalised artists and amplifying under-represented voices in heritage collections. Through this collaboration between UCL museum staff, archivists, developers and technology specialists across various university departments, the Rightsholder Clearance Project offers novel, technological solutions to a long-standing problem, enabling the future participation of smaller museums and collections in the metaverse.
Phase 1 was part of Virtual Exhibitions, a collaboration between UCL Culture and UCL's Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), which explored the potential for next generation 360VR for the cultural and higher education sectors. It was funded by UCL Art Museum with support from UCL Innovation & Enterprise knowledge exchange via the UCL Higher Education Innovation Fund.
Phase 2 expanded the project to collaborate with UCL Library and Special Collections. This phase was supported by a National Archives' Testbed grant (2022).
Plans for Phase 3, a collaboration with UCL Advanced Research Computing Centre, are underway.
Information for potential rightsholders
Do you have any works in the collections of UCL Art Museum or UCL Special Collections?
Are you Slade alumni? Are you a representative of the estate of a deceased artist or author?
Do you have further information to share about other rightsholders or works already online?
If so, we want to hear from you!
Please email culture.copyright.art@ucl.ac.uk or spec.coll@ucl.ac.uk
You can search the UCL Art Museum catalogue or view a selection of artworks here. You can search UCL Special Collections.
- More about UCL Rightsholder Clearance Project - Phase 1
The rich body of artworks in the Slade Collections includes 3,000 drawings, paintings and prints, many of which were accessioned via the Slade’s student prize system and augmented by gifts and works by staff. Prizes have been awarded annually since the establishment of the School in 1871 as an important recognition of the quality of a student’s work. Phase 1 sought to trace rightsholders and to secure copyright permission for works in these collections. Copyright falls under ‘Intellectual Property Rights’ and is a legal right protecting work that is the result of human skill, judgment or labour, and automatically resides with the first creator of an original piece of work (or their employer). Once rightsholders have been identified and permission to reproduce images has been granted, UCL Art Museum can ensure the continued relevance of this renowned collection by providing online and publication access, and increasing wider engagement with the works. This phase also explored a new solution for managing the resulting documentation more effectively. Activities undertaken included the setting up of the due diligence rights tracing process for UCL Art Collections. The team also worked in partnership with developers towards a proof of concept for a new rightsholder database and tracing process, including the automation of rights-consent and licensing by repurposing secure web applications for online surveys and data collection.
- UCL Rightsholder Clearance Project - Phase 2
Phase 2 continued the knowledge exchange and dialogue between UCL museum staff, archivists, developers and technology experts from UCL CASA and UCL Information Services Division. This phase scaled up the ambition for a bold, new approach to the sector-wide problem of securing rights. The project sought to automate and streamline the due diligence process for third-party copyright in art collections and archive collections. This phase focused on testing the proof of concept using two data case studies: a sample of the correspondence section of the George Orwell Archive held by Special Collections, and the recently digitised Stanley Spencer postcard album held by UCL Art Museum.
- UCL Rightsholder Clearance Project - Phase 3
Phase 3 will seek to develop the proof of concept to offer a robust and sustainable software solution to the rightsholder clearance process that is shareable across the cultural and heritage sector.
The project team
The cross-disciplinary project team includes Nina Pearlman & Tashi Petter (UCL Art Collections), Rebecca Sims & Sarah Aitchison (UCL Library Special Collections), Valerio Signorelli & Andy Hudson-Smith (UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis), Jason Lopez (UCL Information Services Division) and Jonathon Cooper (UCL Advanced Research Computing). The project has also benefited from input from UCL Educational Media and copyright and IP guidance from Naomi Korn Associates.
