Stuart Croft Archive

Stuart Croft’s archive comprises a variety of documentation and ephemera including notebooks, scripts, drawings and correspondence, as well as finished film works and moving image material on a variety of tape and disc formats.

Included within the physical archive is an extensive collection of material that had been boxed by Stuart himself. The artist had carefully maintained this living archive within his studio and the contents reflect the coalescence of his working life through his thoughts and his unique creative process as an artist. The depth of information contained within the archive provides a rich, valuable resource for artists, researchers, curators and scholars.

The Stuart Croft Foundation inherited the archive and one of our core aims is to ensure the preservation of Stuart’s legacy.

BFI National Archive

In October 2017, it was announced that Stuart’s films and working documents have placed within the BFI National Archive. In January 2018, the Foundation provided funds to employ a dedicated archivist, Fabian Macpherson, who joined the BFI Special Collections Team to formally appraise, catalogue and carry out basic preservation for both paper and digital documents within the archive. Fabian completed this work in September 2018 and the Stuart Croft archive catalogue is now available online via BFI Collections Search.

Founded in 1935, the BFI National Archive develops, cares for, and interprets one of the largest and most important collections of film and television in the world, that illustrates the art, history and impact of film. The BFI is an international leader in film preservation and the guardian of Britain’s unparalleled film and television screen heritage. The BFI’s artist moving image collection includes close to one and a half thousand titles, and it traces the development and changing nature of the experimental practice, going from avant-garde early cinema and underground film to conceptual video art and contemporary artist film.

The BFI’s aims compliment those of the Stuart Croft Foundation, namely, to: encourage the development of the moving image; promote education about the moving image; promote access to and appreciation of the widest possible range of British and world cinema; and, establish, care for and develop collections reflecting the moving image history and heritage of the United Kingdom. State of the art facilities will ensure the preservation and conservation of both Stuart Croft’s moving image and paper materials at the BFI.

Access and permissions

The Stuart Croft Foundation is committed to promoting public access and scholarly research into Stuart’s archive.

To access the Stuart Croft archive catalogue, visit the BFI Collections Search webpage.

For all image and licensing enquiries, visit the Stuart Croft page on the Artimage website.

Century City (2006)

Actress Pippa Hinchley plays Nancy Delport, the Cape Town detective investigating a murder thousands of miles away in Hollywood.

Comma 39 (2011)

Stuart Croft directs the dancers Greig Cooke and Michela Meazza, who play an aristocratic beauty and a wounded man dance on an endless dance of desire and betrayal. Commissioned by Bloomberg.

The Death Waltz (2008)

A Scottish man recites an endless, gothic ghost story to a group of silent dinner guests in a film where the actors also had to be the camera operators.

Drive In (2007)

Actor Camilla Arfwedson plays a woman delivering a circular shaggy-dog story about paradise to a man who drives an endless road journey, shot on the streets of east London.

Hit (2003)

Two characters played by three actors are caught in a circle of shifting identity and noirish revenge, employing a structure in which the same seven minute script is shot three times.

Questions (2014)

A disgraced former US politician, played by Martin Turner, is endlessly interviewed about political fraud, financial corruption and marital infidelity.

Remetior (2015)

Actor Akie Kotabe plays a commander of a spacecraft, kidnapped aboard his own ship and reciting a poem to himself on an endless loop. Croft’s final work, funded by Arts Council England and Royal College of Art.

The Stag without a Heart (2011)

Actor Martin Turner is a brilliant storyteller, playing a man in mourning who delivers a recurring fable about deception, guilt and the temptation of power.