Helen Ritchie

Senior Curator Modern & Contemporary Applied Arts

Helen Ritchie is responsible for researching, interpreting and curating modern and contemporary European Applied Arts at the Fitzwilliam Museum. Her research interests include contemporary crafts, design post-1850, British Studio Pottery, Artist/Designer metalwork and jewellery and the intersection between applied and fine art during the interwar period. In 2024, she was named by Apollo magazine as one of the top “40 under 40” in the world working in the field of craft.

She is also a part-time doctoral student in the Department of History of Art at the University of Cambridge, researching the studio ceramics of Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie (1895–1985) and Norah Braden (1901–2001). She is supervised by Prof. Rosalind Polly Blakesley.

Helen was the sole curator of the exhibition Designers and Jewellery 1850-1940: Jewellery and Metalwork from The Fitzwilliam Museum (2018) and author of the accompanying catalogue. She was the organising curator of exhibitions, Magdalene Odundo in Cambridge (2021-22), Things of Beauty Growing: British Studio Pottery, in partnership with Yale Center for British Art (2018) and Flux: Parian Ware at The Fitzwilliam Museum, in partnership with artist Matt Smith (2018). She has worked with a number of contemporary artists, including Jennifer Lee OBE, Elspeth Owen and Matt Smith. In 2022, her exhibition Magdalene Odundo in Cambridge (curated with the artist) was awarded the Association for Art History Curatorial Prize.

Helen is a Trustee of the North West Essex Collection Trust (on display at the Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden), a member of Clare Hall’s Ceramics Management Board and an accredited Arts Society lecturer.

Publications

Sole-authored publications

Ritchie, H. (2018) Designers and Jewellery 1850-1940: Jewellery and Metalwork from The Fitzwilliam Museum. London: Philip Wilson Publishers. 176 pp.

Ritchie, H. (2014) A Passionate Collector: Mrs Hull Grundy and Jewellery from the Harrogate Collection. Harrogate: Harrogate Borough Council, 96 pp.

Peer-reviewed Articles

Ritchie, H. (2024) ‘Ursula Mommens (1908–2010): Studio Potter’, in The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society, no. 48, 2024, pp. 100-19.

Ritchie, H. (2024) ‘Disrupting the Estate: Katharine Pleydell-Bouverie at Coleshill’ in Women’s History Review, vol. 33, issue 6, special issue, ‘Power and Patriarchy in the British Country House’, pp. 909-926, available online open access: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09612025.2024.2382638

Ritchie, H. (2020) ‘The Portrait Jewels of Charles Ricketts (1866–1931)’ in Jewellery History, 2020/3, pp. 1-17 (available online).

Ritchie, H. (2020) ‘A true patron: John Keatley and The Keatley Trust Collection at The Fitzwilliam Museum’ in The Journal of the Decorative Arts Society, no. 44, 2020, pp. 110-29, https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.55467

Ritchie, H. (2020) ‘The Goodison Gift of Contemporary British Crafts to The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge’ in Furniture History, vol. LVI, 2020, pp. 291-302, https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.56492

Ritchie, H. (2012) ‘A Superb Service of Toilette Plate: historicist plate in the Royal Collection’ in Silver Studies 2012: The Journal of the Silver Society, pp. 101-111.

Selected shorter writing

Ritchie, H. (2025) Gone to Earth, catalogue essay published to accompany an exhibition of Akiko Hirai’s work at Goldmark Gallery, March–April 2025.

Ritchie, H. (2024) ‘‘Life is richer than that’: Angus Suttie thirty years on’, in Angus Suttie, published to accompany an exhibition of the same name held at The Sunday Painter, London, 14 September–26 October 2024.

Ritchie, H. (2023) Introductory essay to Jennifer Lee: ceramics & drawing, catalogue published to accompany the exhibition of the same name held at Sokyo Gallery, Kyoto, 11 May–30 August 2023.

Ritchie, H. (2023) ‘‘Such privacy attracts public interest’, Lucie Rie at Albion Mews’ in exhibition catalogue, Lucie Rie: The Adventure of Pottery. Cambridge: Kettle’s Yard, pp. 182-95. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/eaa50eff-98f6-4896-a3b4-0cb30d38d7e3

Ritchie, H. (2023) ‘The Art Collection of Ricketts and Shannon’, celebratory 600th guest blog post on website Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon, published 1 February 2023 (available online).

Ritchie, H. (2022) Review of Diana Davis, Oliver Fairclough and John Whitehead (eds), Ceramics as Sculpture (2020) and Claire Jones and Imogen Hart (eds), Sculpture and the Decorative in Britain and Europe, Seventeenth Century to Contemporary (2020) in Sculpture Journal 31.1 (2022), pp. 118-23. https://doi.org/10.3828/sj.2022.31.1.09

Ritchie, H. (ed.) (2021) Magdalene Odundo in Cambridge. The Fitzwilliam Museum, 64 pp.

Ritchie, H. (2020) ‘Studio Pottery at The Fitzwilliam Museum: The Dr John Shakeshaft Bequest’ in Ars Ceramica, no. 32, 2016 – published September 2020, pp. 62-67.

Ritchie, H. (2020) ‘Curator’s Choice’ in Ceramic Review 304, July/August 2020, p. 78.

Ritchie, H. (2020) ‘Become an Instant Expert on Leach Pottery’ for The Arts Society, published online 23 June 2020 (available online).

Ritchie, H. (2019) ‘A Contemporary Commission: The Schiele Chair’ in The Furniture History Society Newsletter, no. 213, February 2019, pp. 2-6.

Ritchie, H. & P. Rogers (2016) ‘The Studio Pottery Collection of Dr John Shakeshaft’, in The St Catharine’s Magazine, 2016, pp. 128-129.

Ritchie, H. (2014) ‘Mourning and Memory: Queen Victoria’s jewellery in the ‘Albert Room’ in Jewellery History Today, the newsletter of the Society of Jewellery Historians, issue 19, Winter 2014, pp. 5-7.