Helen Ritchie is Senior Curator of Modern & Contemporary Applied Arts at The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. She is responsible for European applied arts dating from 1700 to the present, including the acquisition of work by contemporary artists. Her research interests include British Studio Ceramics, contemporary crafts, European design post-1850, Artist/Designer metalwork and jewellery, and the intersection between applied and fine arts during the interwar period.
She is also a part-time doctoral student in the Department of History of Art at the University of Cambridge, researching the ceramics of Norah Braden (1901-2001) and other interwar women potters.
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 in partnership with Magdalene Odundo DBE (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).
Helen is a Trustee of the North West Essex Collection Trust (on display at the Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden) and an accredited Arts Society lecturer.
