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A New V&A Experience

July 9, 2025

By Louise Irvine

Visiting the new V&A East Storehouse was one of the highlights of my recent trip to London. I visited this new Victoria & Albert Museum facility to study the latest approach to visible storage as we plan for the new WMODA in Lake Worth Beach. The Storehouse opened on May 31 after 10 years in the making and houses more than 250,000 objects, 350,000 library books and 1,000 archives. And I thought we had moving challenges at WMODA!

The new center has been described as an infinite cabinet of curiosities, featuring over half a million precious objects that represent the pinnacle of global cultures in a wide range of creative disciplines. Visitors can roam around four floors and explore the shelves in this ground-breaking museum, which makes storage and conservation a public part of the experience.

In this radical “inside-out” museum, paintings, furniture, ceramics, and glass are shown alongside artifacts from popular culture and the performing arts. Visitors choose their own path through the self-guided experience featuring 100 mini displays in storage racks. As I explored the metal bays, I was intrigued to discover several objects that resonate strongly with the WMODA collection.

It was a surprise to come face to face with a twin of our fabulous Mermaids centerpiece made by the Minton pottery. The monumental majolica design was first exhibited at the 1867 Paris World’s Fair. Our version with a grey shell was formerly in the Warner Brothers Studio collection in California and was used as a movie prop in the 1982 musical Annie. It was featured in the center of the dining table in the home of Daddy Warbucks to display his affluence. The story of our Mermaid centerpiece, also known as the Flower Bearers, is featured in my Curator’s Choice video, which can be viewed below.

 

This ebony cabinet inlaid with twelve stoneware plaques by George Tinworth was strapped to a shelf along one of the passageways. The cabinet was designed by Charles Bevan for Gillows as a vehicle for Tinworth’s ceramic designs. It was formerly on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in Kensington, where the Doulton Story exhibition was held in 1979. A decade later, the cabinet featured in the Royal Doulton Story movie, starring Patrick Macnee, and V&A curator Jennifer Opie explained its significance. It was one of Tinworth’s early Doulton commissions and was shown at the International London Exhibition of 1871, where it was acquired for the national art and design collection. Eight of Tinworth’s panels depict parables, and four feature scenes from the Old and New Testaments. WMODA has similar panels on display in the Victorian Gallery in Hollywood.

As I walked through the storage bays, a story about curating undervalued women artists caught my attention. Could the potter Margaret Thompson mentioned in the text be the Royal Doulton Faience artist who is so highly regarded at WMODA? A few bays along, there was a display of her work acquired from the collection of Ian and Rita Smythe, who were dealers in Victorian art pottery in the 1960s before it became fashionable. I wrote about the Smythe’s bequest to the V&A and the Artistic Home exhibition in 2023. On display in the Storehouse is the pair to our Royal Doulton Rose Fairy vase at WMODA alongside many other fine examples of Miss Thompson’s work. Coincidentally, WMODA just acquired a most unusual tile panel of the Four Seasons designed by Margaret Thompson, which is now on display.

It was wonderful to get close to two of the Sèvres porcelain figures from the Scarf Dance table center set. The Art Nouveau figures were first exhibited at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair and were inspired by Loie Fuller, the American dancer and choreographer, who was a sensation in fin-de-siècle Paris. Draped in swathes of diaphanous silk, La Loie danced sensuously with colored light projections, creating ethereal effects.  The Sèvres figures later inspired Charles Noke to create his dancing figure, which was gifted to WMODA by Caroline D’Antonio.

The most nostalgic discovery was the Greene King brewer’s sign, which was last displayed on the wall of the public house display in The Doulton Story exhibition at the V&A. The Doulton stoneware plaque was designed in 1933 by George Edward Kruger Gray, a distinguished Royal Academy artist. I wrote about these pub signs last year when we featured them in the Cheers exhibition.

I must admit I was sometimes distracted from my original mission while exploring the Storehouse, and often had flashbacks to my early career at the V&A.  Their new approach to museum interpretation and visible storage is inspirational. Next, I hope to visit the Glasgow Museums Resource Center in my home city, where my interest in museums first began.

Watch the video about the Mermaids centerpiece at WMODA

Curator’s Choice | Wiener Museum

Read more about the Ian and Rita Smythe collection featuring Margaret Thompson

The Artistic Home | Wiener Museum

Read more about the Greene King pub signs

On the Tiles | Wiener Museum