Published 20/09/2018
Project Manager, Heidi Bonfante talks about her many and varied roles at the London and Paris offices, and shares her favourite pictures and clips from the archive.
What is your role at Bridgeman?
I have been working for five years at Bridgeman Images. I have started as the personal assistant of our CEO Victoria Bridgeman. Through that role, I have also become the “bridge” between the offices and the management. This gives me the opportunity to deal with every aspect of the company - a touch of Marketing, Finance, HR but also Cataloguing and IT.
This position led me to become the Project Manager for Bridgeman Images. As opposed to our upfront Sales team, I work closely with our IT Team always in the background making sure things run smoothly, I work on creating and improving our current systems to embrace the digital changes in our industry.
What do you love most about the job?
What I love about my job is the diversity of it - I never have a precise idea of how my day will go. I can spend a whole day on solving technical issues for our team, or brainstorming about a new project, testing a new system.
Half of my work as well is to support our cataloguing team with clients or internal requests, making sure we have the right tools and process to work on our archives.
I also have the chance to interact with every department across all our offices on a daily basis (Berlin, New York, Paris and Italy).
What misconceptions do clients most commonly have about the archive?
People around me tend to imagine that I work in a quiet, traditional library surrounded by images on shelves. However, everything is digitalised and available on our website. Also, when I explain what I do, I realise a lot of people don’t know that image libraries exist and are unaware of all things concerning licensing and image rights.
I have learnt a great deal myself after joining Bridgeman, and I always try to do my best to educate people on the use of images in general.
Heidi Bonfante's favourite images and clips in the archive are...
Rue des archives - La Grande Vadrouille
Louis de Funès and Bourvil were the most popular actors on the French Comedy scene during the 60’s and 70’s. I grew up watching all their movies with my grandparents. My ultimate favourite film is La Grande Vadrouille, in which De Funès and Bourvil have to cross German occupied France to help a Royal Air Force crew escape arrest. I was happily surprised to discover that our collection Rue des Archives is dedicated mainly to French cinema, with images from all these cult French movies and French actors. Rue des archives is definitely one of my favourite collections within Bridgeman. |
Classical painting - Simonetta de Vespucci, by Piero di Cosimo
I have a background in Studio Art, History and Art History. I used to draw a lot at school and in my spare time, and female subjects are my absolute favourite.
This portrait of Simonetta Vespucci by Piero di Cosimo holds a special place for me as it was the one of the first posters of the “Classics” I owned, and I still have it.
I am a Fine Art person at heart, and Bridgeman Images offers an important selection of these well-known masterpieces that I am so fond of.
Japanese prints and Ukiyo-e style - Bullfinch and Weeping Cherry-Tree by Hokusai
I have always been fascinated by the aesthetic of Japanese prints and Ukiyo-e style. Artists such as Hiroshige and Hokusai are amongst my favourite. They remind me of the comic books or colouring books I spent hours poring over when I was a child.
Bridgeman offers a large and fascinating selection of Ukiyo-e images and currently one decorates my desktop.
A.Richard Allen and Bridgeman Studio - Catwalk by A.Richard Allen
As I mentioned before, I love the diversity of our archives. Alongside our Fine Art imagery, we have developed Bridgeman Studio and Bridgeman Editions: you now have the opportunity to purchase print on demand or original prints as you would in a gallery.
I particularly like the work of Bridgeman Studio artist A.Richard Allen. I love his style of illustration, and Catwalk is my favourite work of his. I am obsessed with cats as well as illustration, so obviously this image sums me up perfectly. I might get it for Christmas!
I have already purchased a print for my birthday, by another Studio artist called Katie Edwards.
Bridgeman Footage - Footage of German occupied Paris, WWII
I have an Art Business degree and also a History degree. History was always my favourite subject at school, and besides the Antiquity period, I have developed a great interest in the Second World War. Being more of a bookworm, Bridgeman Footage definitely offers a new angle to rediscover all these important and famous moments in history. It is also a great source of quirky and unusual clips about pretty much anything.
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