Helen Ritchie

Senior curator, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

As senior curator of modern and contemporary applied arts at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, Helen Ritchie has had a hand in some of the most significant UK exhibitions of craft of the last few years. She curated ‘Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Pottery’ (2018) in partnership with the Yale Center for British Art, ‘Designers & Jewellery 1850–1940’ (2022–23) – and was the author of the accompanying book – and was the organising curator of ‘Magdalene Odundo in Cambridge’ (2021–22), and ‘Flux: Parian Ware at The Fitzwilliam Museum’ (2018). Her exhibition with Odundo was awarded the Association for Art History Curatorial Prize in 2022. Ritchie has expertise in various aspects of art and craft: after a masters in fashion curation at the London College of Fashion, she began working with the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection at Kensington Palace. Her research areas include British studio pottery, metalwork and jewellery, and the intersection of fine and applied arts between the wars. She is currently writing a doctoral thesis on the work of British potters Norah Braden and Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie.

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