Art History Link-Up
Sophie Bloomfield (née Odenthal) currently serves as a Board Trustee for Art History Link-Up since 2023. Prior to this role, Bloomfield was the Head of Briefing and Strategic Engagement in the Office of the CEO and Chairman at NatWest Group from 2021 to 2023. Bloomfield's career at HM Treasury spanned five years, holding positions such as Senior Strategy and Policy Advisor within the Strategy, Planning, and Budget Group, and Senior Strategy Advisor in the Financial Services Group, among others. A brief tenure as a Senior Policy Advisor in Financial Strategy occurred at the Department for Work and Pensions in 2018. Earlier roles included Junior Policy Fellow at the Centre for Science and Policy at the University of Cambridge and various positions as a Fast Stream Trainee within the Civil Service. Bloomfield began professional endeavors as an Associate at MET Commodities London Ltd in 2013. Education credentials include a Master of Arts in Classics from the University of Cambridge, obtained in 2013, after attending Wycombe Abbey School from 2005 to 2010.
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Art History Link-Up
Art History Link-Up is a registered charity providing free acrredited Art History courses for state supported students, in museums and galleries. We want young people from diverse backgrounds to be inspired by Art History and to use it to enhance their life and educational experience. By enabling access, we believe that Art History has the potential to transform students’ lives, and in turn, that they have the potential to transform the sector. Why Art History? Only a handful of state supported schools in the country currently offer History of Art A level yet the creative industries generate £193k each minute for the UK. Our schemes offer benefits to a diverse range of students who might not currently have these opportunities: access to the arts, cross-curricular connections, and enhanced skills and career development. We offer our students support in all these areas, including work experience opportunities, expert mentoring and practise FE/HE inteviews. In 2020, all seven of our students who applied to Oxbridge were awarded places, including two for History of Art at Cambridge University. After our courses, over half our students tell us they want to pursue the subject at university and/or a career in the arts, keeping the subject and sector alive, diverse and vibrant. Our flagship programme, Art History for Everyone is a free Art History A level and EPQ (Extended Project Qualification) course which pre-pandemic was hosted at The Wallace Collection and The National Gallery on term-time Saturdays, and currently operates online. There is significant and increasing demand for places and the majority of students come from ‘widening participation’ backgrounds. We want to build on the expertise developed as a result of this innovative work in order to offer an intorductory course for younger students, and at an age when students may be making A level and career choices.