Founded by industry veteran George Sinclair, Chicago- and
London-based Universal Images Group has announced that it now represents The
British Empire & Commonwealth Museum. This includes more than 4 million still
images dating back to 1860 and roughly 2,000 hours of footage and audio that
start in the early 20th Century. To make the pictures publicly and commercially
available, the Museum has begun a digitization process. UIG will represent the
content exclusively under a five-year contract.
Sinclair’s other company, Virtual Picture Desk, has struck a
deal with the Lake County Discovery Museum, which houses Golden Books
illustrations and the Curt Teich Postcard Archives—one of the largest private
collections that includes 355,000 cards spanning 1890 to 1960. Much of the
imagery has already been digitized and released for distribution through the
UIG network, which includes Getty Images, Photolibrary, Learning Pictures and
specialized agents.