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Extravagant Delights and Global Fantasies: Papers of Andrew Logan

Andrew Logan is a sculptor, jewellery maker, designer, performance artist, and LGBT+ icon; whose archives DMU is delighted to have. Logan donated his collections to De Montfort University after being won over by the staff and the other fashion collections. Leicester also has a personal significance to him since it was his mother Irene Logan’s hometown.

Above: Photograph of  Logan with his handmade jewellery. 

Logan graduated in 1970 from the University of Oxford School of Architecture. Becoming bored with architecture he was moved to create sparkling artworks such as his mirror portraits and the Cosmic Egg, covered in shards of glass. His love of broken glass can also be seen in his jewellery, which he describes as wearable art.

Logan invented a competition in 1972 based on the dog show Crufts and called it the Alternative Miss World (AMW). It has been held 15 times and in 2022 the 50^th anniversary took place at the London Globe Theatre with the theme of ‘Gold’. For each event, he wears a host/hostess costume that is half 'masculine' and half 'feminine'.

Above: Royal Imperial themed host/hostess, AMW, 1981.                                  Above: Circus themed host/hostess, AMW, 1978.

In 2022 DMU Special Collections was awarded an Archives Revealed grant funded by The National Archives, The Pilgrim Trust, and The Wolfson Foundation. Archives Revealed is an initiative dedicated to cataloguing and unlocking archives. The generous grant was assigned to DMU because the Logan collection was recognised for being important to LGBT+ history and 1970s London culture.

The project will be completed February 2024, with the primary aim to create a comprehensive catalogue for the collection, this will allow people to understand and easily access the items.  DMU Special Collections is committed to increasing access to archives, and has previously received a cataloguing grant for sports archives. The project archivist Louise Bruton worked on various sporting collections and documented her progress here.

  Above: The Logan collection is held in the archive store inside acid-free folders and boxes.                                                                                           

Currently there is a rudimentary box list for the Papers of Andrew Logan, giving the basic contents for 73 boxes. These include documents, photographs, transparent film, and audio-visual materials such as VHS tapes.  The list is available on the DMU cataloguing management system here. The number of boxes will possibly increase; part of reorganising the materials includes re-packaging them with the help of volunteers.

 Above: Volunteers in DMU Special Collections working on the Logan collection in the reading room. 

So far there have been two volunteer weeks dedicated to helping the Logan collection. The most recent week was this month where 8 people gave a total of 48 hours to aiding me in my work. They repackaged and reorganised hundreds of items. The next volunteer opportunity will take place in June 2023. 

Two of these large plastic boxes contained mounted 35mm film slides, which the volunteers carefully moved into archival-quality packets. These will protect them from dirt and moisture so the materials will be better preserved.

 Above: A 42 litre tub of Logan materials containing photographs and mounted slides.                Above: Slides were safely transferred into acid-free slide holder sleeves and then placed in an archive ring binder.                                                                                                 

Along with cataloguing the materials I have been involved in events to bring attention to the project. In December 2022 myself and Katharine Short the Special Collections Manager, attended the LGBT+ History and Archives Conference at the London Metropolitan Archives. We explained the plan to catalogue the vast arrangement and encouraged people to visit and engage with us online. As well as that, we attended talks from other institutions and discussed how they dealt with their LGBT+ collections. It was a way of connecting with other archives who also care for collections specific to this community.

 Archivist Marina Afonso with Logan display at the London Metropolitan Archives. 

On Thursday 17^th February in the library foyer outside reception I put on a display of items from the Andrew Logan collection as well as the Bryony Lavery collection. This was for #DMUPride, a series of events taking place in February as it is LGBT+ History month. Andrew Logan is a gay man who created art that encouraged the free expression of sexuality and gender at a time when LGBT+ discrimination was widespread in the UK. He also raised funds for AIDS charities and supported those with the condition. Bryony Lavery is a lesbian playwright who is known for her feminist plays. She wrote several lesbian love stories for the stage, as well as a gender-bent Peter Pan. Her collection includes correspondence, promotional materials, scripts for staged plays and her unproduced work. A box list is available for these items and can be accessed online.

These are the two collections at DMU that are the most relevant to the LGBT+ community and their history, so I was glad to be able to promote them and explain why it is important to preserve these archives. 

Above: Display in the DMU Library foyer.

Separating the Andrew Logan collection into categories will take time as it includes items from Logan’s professional work as well as correspondence and photographs of his personal life. I am currently enjoying slogging through the Alternative Miss World category, carefully creating item-level descriptions for each year the event took place. I will be writing more blog posts with updates on the project so expect more shiny art pieces.

If you have any questions about the Andrew Logan collection and the project to catalogue and promote it, please email me at marina.afonso@dmu.ac.uk or contact me on              Twitter Marina Afonso (@marina_af100) / Twitter