Ed's Pics and Clips

What is your role at Bridgeman?

I run Bridgeman's New York office, which covers North, Central and South America. My role is amazingly broad: I will cover everything from putting together budgets and targets for the fiscal year, meeting potential new collections, talking to prospective new clients, visiting tradeshows, and negotiating contracts with our largest accounts, to all the day-to-day activities that go into the running of any company.     
 

What do you love most about the job?

The 3 Cs - the clients, the collections, the content.

Our industry has the best clients. After a brief conversation with a wonderful magazine publisher on the subject of sport, the next day I was court side at Madison Square Garden watching the Knicks beat the Pacers in the playoffs! I've also watched a client perform in a Shakespeare play, and joined other clients reveling into the small hours at our infamous garden parties – it's simply a great community.

We have a close relationship with our collections and I am very fortunate that my role allows me unique access behind the scenes at museums, getting to glimpse art and artifacts in the vaults that are often not accessible to the general public. A lot of us at Bridgeman have art history degrees, so being immersed in the breadth and depth of the Bridgeman content never gets tiring.

2. Medieval Maps

I love medieval and Renaissance maps: their inventiveness and creativity is something to behold. If GPS devices had the same artistic license, what fun my children would have during our 5 hour car journeys, warding off the meanest, baddest beasts approaching 50 yards on our right.

3. Stanley Spencer at Sandham Memorial Chapel

Bridgeman is very fortunate to have been chosen to represent the Estate of Stanley Spencer. My parents live in the next door village to the Sandham Memorial Chapel. The symmetrical brick façade of the chapel gives no clue to the sheer brilliance that lies within. On the facing wall is the Resurrection of the Soldiers which depicts the fallen soldiers climbing out of their graves bearing white crosses and reuniting and embracing their fellow fallen comrades.

The entire cycle of paintings in the chapel demonstrates some of the best British art of the twentieth century and on the 100th anniversary of the First World War, chapels like Sandham Memorial will become more poignant than ever.

4. The Supper at Emmaus

From his scandalous life to mysterious death, the world of Caravaggio has always captivated me. This particular painting is one of my favourites. The intensity of the disciples’ reactions and emotions are so vividly displayed in the foreshortened arms of one and bent arms of the other. The drama is further heightened by the bowl of fruit now teetering on the edge of the table. 

5. Of Bulls and Bears

The New York Historical Society was the first US collection that I worked with when I moved to the US in early-2000. I remember seeing posters of this painting many years prior without appreciating where the original was located, and I think it’s such a significant part of Bridgeman’s role to connect the collection with the client. This is a great depiction of the stock market struggles of the later part of 19th century America, but could just as easily refer to the start of the 21st.

6. Clip: The Question

We represent an amazing animation archive from Halas and Batchelor. Started in the late 1930s, H&B are credited with creating the first ever British animated feature and this piece is one of my favourites. It follows a man who discovers a question mark and tries to work out what it means, resulting in an excellent satirical look at the meaning of life.