PHOTOGRAPHS by leading artists such as Hiroshi Sugimoto, Miles Aldridge and John Swannell will be auctioned off by Sotheby’s to support a Bodleian Library campaign.

The images will be sold to raise funds as part of the campaign to save the archive of pioneer photographer William Henry Fox Talbot. Mr Talbot took series of famous photographs in Oxford in the 1840s.

Also on sale at the auction in London on Wednesday, May 7, will be an image which was taken by Martin Parr at Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire, where the Fox Talbot Museum is based.

Bodleian Librarian Richard Ovenden said: “The acquisition of the archive has been an effort to preserve a major archive in the history of photography — a significant part of a collection already dispersed between other institutions — and to encourage scholarly activity.

“We are enormously grateful to the contemporary photographers who have devoted their energy and talent in producing the works which are offered in this auction.

“We warmly encourage bids — acquire a great photograph and help save a major archive, all at the same time.”

The Bodleian has so far raised £1.9m towards the appeal thanks to a £1.2m grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and a £200,000 gift from the Art Fund, plus other donations.

It needs to raise the remaining £375,000 by August.