V&A secures David Bowie archive, will make public in 2025

London's V&A museum said on Thursday it had secured the archive of late music star David Bowie for the nation, acquiring more than 80,000 items spanning his career that will be made available to the public from 2025.

The museum, which hosted the critically acclaimed David Bowie Is exhibition in 2013, will open The David Bowie Centre for the Study of Performing Arts at its V&A East Storehouse in east London, where fans, school pupils and researchers will be able to gain insight into the pioneering British singer-songwriter's creative process.

The archive features Bowie's handwritten lyrics for songs like Fame and Heroes, sketches, letters, costumes -- including his Ziggy Stardust pieces -- stage props, and instruments, as well as intimate writings and unrealised projects, many not seen before in public.

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There are also more than 70,000 pictures, prints, slides, negatives, large format transparencies and contact sheets taken by famed photographers including Terry O’Neill and Helmut Newton.

"The archive is fascinating, it follows David Bowie's career and his life was art," Kate Bailey, senior curator and producer, theatre and performance at the V&A, told Reuters.

"It has insights into the creative process behind so many of his music videos, his songs, his stage shows, his theatre shows.”

Bowie, a visionary rock star who straddled the worlds of music, fashion, drama and art for five decades, died from cancer in 2016, aged 69.