Treasures of GSA Library

Stoddard Design Library and Inventors of Tradition

2011-09-20T10:52:00.000+01:00

The Stoddard Design Library, part of the Glasgow School of Art Library's Special Collections, features prominently in the new book 'Inventors of Tradition' by Beca Lipscombe and Lucy McKenzie, published by Walther Konig. At the intersection between art, design and social history, The Inventors of Tradition is a subjective study of the history of the Scottish textiles industry since the 1930s. It brings together samples of world-class design through the archive material of individuals and companies.
For the publication and accompanying exhibition, Beca and Lucy selected items from the Stoddard Design Library, the in-house library of carpet manufacturers James Templeton and A. F. Stoddard. It was used to inspire the company’s designers, or to enable them to source motifs that could then be incorporated into their own textile designs. The library was often the starting point in the design process, providing initial ideas for subsequently developed designs.
The library is a rich source of material in the areas of carpet design, textiles, ornament, flat pattern, and textile interiors. It was amassed from the mid-19th century right up to the early 21st century.
Templeton’s and Stoddard’s were alive to contemporary continental developments in art and design, and a good proportion of their library material, especially from the 1880s to the 1930s, was acquired from abroad. The Stoddard Design Library includes volumes from the USA, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Sweden, Finland, China, Japan and India. Many of the volumes are now extremely rare, and often unique. Particular highlights include 11 volumes in pochoir by Eugene Alain Seguy, of which the only comparable collection internationally resides at Princeton.

Bookbindings by Talwin Morris and Charles Rennie Mackintosh

2011-08-31T13:50:00.002+01:00

GSA Library has recently purchased a number of Art Nouveau bookbindings for its Glasgow Style Collection, designed by Talwin Morris and Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
Morris became Arts Manager for Glasgow publisher Blackie & Son in 1898, a position he held until his death in 1911. He became friends with Mackintosh, his wife Margaret, and their circle, and revolutionised bookbinding by using stylised motifs such as birds, roses and briars. He also abandoned the fussy serif fonts that hitherto had been standard.
Newly accessioned titles include:

In 1902 Morris introduced Mackintosh to Walter Blackie, an acquaintance that was to lead to the commission for Hill House, Blackie's home in Helensburgh. Mackintosh also provided Blackie & Son with a small number of binding designs, which were soon repeated across several titles, often in different colours.
Newly accessioned titles include:

GSA Special Collections digitised

2011-08-03T15:52:00.002+01:00

A representative selection of beautifully-illustrated books from GSA's Special Collections have now been digitised and are being made freely available via the Internet Archive. Spanning the art, design and architecture disciplines and ranging from the fifteenth to the twentieth centuries, the 35 books can be 'virtually' paged through and enjoyed, or downloaded in a variety of formats, including to handheld devices.

Histories of Carpet Manufacturers

2011-07-12T10:10:00.008+01:00

GSA Library has recently purchased a number of rare books to complement the Stoddard Design Library, the working library of the A. F. Stoddard and James Templeton & Co. carpet factories that came to the Library in 2009. These books, either published in-house by the companies or written by people connected to them, are important documents in reconstructing the histories of these important manufacturers.

Short Essays Delivered and Now Dedicated to the Workers of James Templeton & Co.'s and J. & J. S. Templeton's Carpet Factories was written by J. Murray Templeton and published in Glasgow by James Maclehose in 1887. It reproduces speeches and lectures given by Templeton and addressed to his staff, normally designed to instill good morals and responsibilities. The subjects covered are diverse, from temperance to the labour programme of America. There's even a lecture on stars and atoms!

A Century of Carpet Making by Fred H. Young provides a short history of James Templeton & Co. by a senior partner in the business. It was published posthumously around 1943 in a limited edition and modest form due to wartime rationing.
In 1953 James Templeton & Co. designed the carpet for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey. Coronation Carpet Review was a trade publication designed to drum up trade and was published in June that year by the British Continental Trade Press. It includes an advertisement to the front for a specially designed Coronation Axminster carpet by A. F. Stoddard and Co.

During World War II many of the carpet factories in the area were requisitioned for the war effort and adapted for wartime use. The Stoddard factory at Elderslie becomes a naval laundry, servicing the hammocks, bedding and life jackets of ships on the Clyde. Blackwood Morton & Sons of Kilmarnock moved production from carpets into machine parts and electric hub motors. From Loom to Lathe - And Back Again was published in-house in 1946 to recount the story.

Sydney Smirke, Architect

2011-05-17T10:13:00.005+01:00

When recataloguing our rare books, we often come across annotations, inscriptions or bookplates that reveal the books' previous owners. Our copy of Examples of ornamental sculpture in architecture: drawn from the originals of bronze, marble and terra cotta in Greece, Asia Minor and Italy by Lewis Vulliamy (1791-1871) is no exception.
Published around 1821, the volume includes several engraved plates of sculptural decoration, designed to illustrated their potential application to architecture. The GSA Library's copy includes the bookplate of architect Sydney Smirke, who is best known for the Round Reading Room in the British Museum. This 1857 neo-classical domed building now forms part of the Great Court, but was originally designed as the reading room of the British Library and was used as such until 1997. It's probably very appropriate that an architect so famed for a library should find his own book, some 150 years later, in a small art and design library in Glasgow!

French Republication Calendars

2011-05-17T09:52:00.004+01:00

As part of our ongoing programme to recatalogue GSA Library's rare books, we've just discovered Plans et dessins tires de la belle architecture ou representations d'edifices executes ou projettes en cxv plances : avec les explications necessaires by Christian Ludwig Stieglitz (1756-1836), published in 1801 in Paris.
Although the Library has many 19th century French architectural books, this volume is particularly interesting in that its title page features dates from both the Gregorian calendar (1801) and the French Republication calendar (IX).
The French Republican, or Revolutionary, Calendar was in use for about 12 years after the French Revolution, from about 1792 to 1805, and was briefly resurrected for 18 days during the Paris Commune of 1871. The new Republic was keen to sweep away some of the legal, religious and societal orthodoxes of the ancien regime, and created a new system of measures (the metric system) and a new calendar, beginning at Year I (1792). Our volume dates to year IX (1801).
The calendar was created by a commission of astronomers, geographers, mathematicians and poets, and saw not only a new numbering system for years, but also new names for months, days and seasons. The 12 months were each divided into 3 10-day weeks called decades with the last day in each 10 replacing Sunday as the day of rest. Each month was named after an aspect of nature, for example Vendemiaire (grape harvest) and Frimaire (frost).
Days were divided into 10 hours, each with 100 decimal minutes, creating an hour that lasted a conventional 144 minutes. Traditional French saints days were replaced with days celebrating animals, tools, plants or minerals.

Palladio's 'Four books of architecture'

2011-03-03T10:44:00.003Z

One of GSA Library's greatest treasures is our 1581 edition of architect Andrea Palladio's 'I quattro libri dell'architettura', one of the most influential treatises in the history of architecture. Published in Venice, it is notable for its striking images and the innovative way that drawings of buildings from classical antiquity are juxtaposed with the designs that they inspired. We've just completed a pilot project with the National Library of Scotland and the Internet Archive, which has resulted in a digital copy of this wonderful book being made freely available online via the link above.

Coronation Colours 1953

2011-02-09T09:17:00.007Z

Currently featured in the Library's display of books on colour from its Rare Books and Special Collections is Coronation Colours from the British Colour Council. The document was designed to give very precise instructions to public bodies, organisations and companies on the correct colours to use for bunting, tartans and union jacks on the occasion of the Queen's Coronation in 1953. It includes textile, card and ribbon samples mounted in 6 swatch booklets, some with typewritten colour names pasted on the back, illustrating acceptable colours for use during the 1953 Coronation. The British Colour Council itself was an industry standards organisation, active from the 1930s to the 1950s, which produced indexes of named colours for use by government, industry, academia, and horticulture.

Munsell's Colour System

2011-02-04T13:19:00.003Z

Our latest display of items from the Library's Special Collections focuses on colour theory, and features a number of 19th and 20th century texts on the science and use of colour.
One of the books on display is an instructional manual on the Munsell Color System. Munsell's system (revolutionary in approach when first published and still in use in many spheres today) provides specifications of colours based on three properties, or 'dimensions': namely hue, value, and chroma. 'Value' roughly equates to lightness, and 'chroma to purity'. The system was created by Professor Albert H. Munsell in the first decade of the 20th century, and Munsell was the first colour scientist to separate hue, value, and chroma into perceptually uniform and independent dimensions, based on rigorous measurements of human subjects’ visual responses to colour. On the Munsell scale, each colour is assigned three numbers that then become its unique specification: these numbers correspond to its position on the hue, value, and chroma axes. The Library's example of this text includes a blank Munsell grid with its 3 axes, and coloured chits for the student to place onto the grid as part of their learning.
The colour science display can be viewed on the ground floor of the Main Library during our normal opening hours.

Ladies' Dress Shoes of the 19th Century

2011-01-31T17:24:00.014Z

Today we look at Ladies' Dress Shoes of the Nineteenth Century by T. Watson Greig, who also authored Ladies' Old-Fashioned Shoes. This volume was published at the turn of the century in 1900 by Edinburgh publisher David Douglas. It includes 20 beautiful full-colour plate of decorative court shoes, with each plate featuring 3 designs. The designs are arrange by colour throughout.
The Library's Special Collections include a number of rare or valuable titles, some dating back to the sixteenth century. These titles are mostly held in the Mackintosh Library. Because of the value of these items, special access arrangement are in place, with viewing strictly by appointment only with our Academic Liaison Librarians.

Inventors of Tradition

2011-01-24T10:03:00.003Z

Items from the GSA Library's Stoddard Design Collection are currently being exhibited as part of The Inventors of Tradition exhibition. The exhibition looks at some of the pioneers of Scottish textile production, alongside the responses of contemporary designers. Open Tues - Sat 11-5, 22 Jan - 26 Feb 2011 at 21 Stockwell Street, Glasgow.

Library Display: Bookbindings by Jessie M. King

2010-11-22T10:15:00.013Z

To complement the Glasgow Girls exhibition which has just opened in the Glasgow School of Art's Mackintosh Gallery, the GSA Library is currently showing a display of bookbindings by Jessie M. King from its Special Collections. The bindings span the entire length of King's career. One cabinet is situated just inside on the Library entrance, with another on the top floor next to the Librarians' Office.
Readers can also download a complete bibliography of bindings and illustrated books by King held by GSA Library at http://www2.gsa.ac.uk/library/bibliographies.html

Street Markets of London

2010-10-15T13:16:00.007+01:00

Today we look at the Street Markets of London by Mary Benedetta with photographs by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
This book takes the form of a sociological description of London street markets accompanied by 64 black and white photographs and a foreword by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. A Hungarian, Moholy-Nagy spent five years at the Bauhaus having been appointed a master by Walter Gropius. The book was published in 1936, just one year before the commencement of Mass Observation in 1937, and during a time when there was great interest in learning about the anthropology of working class communities. Among the locations featured are Petticoat Lane, Farringdon Street, Caledonian Market, Brixton, Covent Garden, Berwick Market, Shepherd's Bush, Brick Lane, Billingsgate and Commercial Road.
The Library's Special Collections include a number of rare or valuable titles, some dating back to the sixteenth century. These titles are mostly held in the Mackintosh Library. Because of the value of these items, special access arrangement are in place, with viewing strictly by appointment only with our Academic Liaison Librarians.

The Communists of Paris 1871 by Bertall

2010-06-10T11:37:00.012+01:00

Today we look at The Communists of Paris 1871 by Bertall.
This satirical work is by artist, writer, caricaturist and illustrator Charles-Albert d'Arnoux a.k.a. Bertall. Bertall changed his name after a suggestion by Balzac for whose Oeuvre he produced the illustrations. The topic of this work is the Paris Commune of 1871, a government that briefly ruled Paris in 1871 and has been viewed, by Karl Marx among others, as the first Socialist government. Here, Bertall (an Englishman residing in Paris) describes the Paris Commune satirically in 40 plates, each including a hand-coloured illustration by the artist of a Commune stereotype.
The Library's Special Collections include a number of rare or valuable titles, some dating back to the sixteenth century. These titles are mostly held in the Mackintosh Library. Because of the value of these items, special access arrangement are in place, with viewing strictly by appointment only with our Academic Liaison Librarians.

Anatomia per Uso et Intelligenza del Disegno by Genga Bernardino

2010-06-08T11:49:00.010+01:00

Today we will look at Anatomia per Uso et Intelligenza del Disegno by Genga Bernardino (1620-1690), published in Rome in 1691.
This book comprises a series of copperplate engravings of the anatomical studies of Bernardino Genga by the artist Charles Errard (1606-1689). Giovanni Maria Lancisi (1654-1720), the Papal physician, edited the work and provided much of the commentary. The first 23 engravings deal with osteology and myology, with the remainder consisting of representations of antique statues viewed from different angles, including the Farnese Hercules, the Laocoön, the Gladiator, the Borghese Faun, the Venus de Medici, the Youth Pulling a Thorn from his Foot, and the Amazon of the House of Cesi. The frontispiece engraving features a memento mori of emblems of death.
Genga died in 1690 in Rome, where he practiced surgery in the Hospital of Santo Spirito in Sassia. He was a scholar of Classical medical texts, editing several works of Hippocrates. He also had a great interest in the preparation of anatomical specimens as well as the anatomy of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. These interests led to his work at the Accademia di Francia delle Belle Arti in Rome, where he taught anatomy to artists.
The Library's Special Collections include a number of rare or valuable titles, some dating back to the sixteenth century. These titles are mostly held in the Mackintosh Library. Because of the value of these items, special access arrangement are in place, with viewing strictly by appointment only with our Academic Liaison Librarians.

Codex Seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini

2010-05-21T13:45:00.010+01:00

Today we look at the Codex seraphinianus by Luigi Serafini.
Written and illustrated during 30 months, from 1976 to 1978, the book is a visual encyclopedia of an unknown alien world, written in an alien script and language. The first section describes the natural world, dealing with flora, fauna, and physics. The second deals with the humanities and the various aspects of human life: clothing, history, cuisine, architecture and so on. The illustrations are often surreal parodies: bleeding fruit; a plant that grows into the shape of a chair; a lovemaking couple that metamorphoses into a crocodile. Others depict odd, apparently senseless machines.
The Library's Special Collections include a number of rare or valuable titles, some dating back to the sixteenth century. These titles are mostly held in the Mackintosh Library. Because of the value of these items, special access arrangement are in place, with viewing strictly by appointment only with our Academic Liaison Librarians.

The Naturalist's Library II

2010-05-19T10:55:00.014+01:00

In our last post we looked at Sir William Jardine's Naturalist's Library, a 40 volume set on the natural world arranged in 4 groups: Fishes, Insects, Birds, and Mammals. Following the images from Insects in our last post, here are some more images, this time from the Birds section.
The Library's Special Collections include a number of rare or valuable titles, some dating back to the sixteenth century. These titles are mostly held in the Mackintosh Library. Because of the value of these itmes, special access arrangement are in place, with viewing strictly by appointment only with our Academic Liasion Librarians.

The Naturalist's Library I

2010-05-17T13:55:00.010+01:00

Today we look at Sir William Jardine's hugely ambitious natural history venture, The Naturalist's Library, published in 1843.
Jardine's aim was to make natural history available to all levels of Victorian society and he achieved this by editing and issuing 40 volumes of The Naturalist's Library. The series was divided into four main sections: 7 volumes on Entomology (insects); 6 volumes on Ichthyology (fishes); 14 volumes on Ornithology (birds); and 13 volumes on Mammals. Each volume features exquisite illustrations by, amongst others, Edward Lear. Once printed, these were then hand-coloured by a team of 20 - 30 women, with the books selling initially for 6 shillings. The GSA Library has an almost complete set, with just 5 of the 40 volumes missing.
The Library's Special Collections include a number of rare or valuable titles, some dating back to the sixteenth century. These titles are mostly held in the Mackintosh Library. Because of the value of these itmes, special access arrangement are in place, with viewing strictly by appointment only with our Academic Liasion Librarians.

Bowater Papers

2010-05-13T10:27:00.014+01:00

Today we feature the Bowater Papers, a trade journal from the Bowater Paper Corporation of London published irregularly from 1950. The Library holds issues 3 (1954) and 4 (1958).
William Vansittart Bowater founded the Bowater company in London in the 1880s as a paper wholesaler and agent for the purchase of newsprint on behalf of newspaper publishers. Following the founder’s death in 1907, Bowaters became a limited liability private company named W V Bowater and Sons Ltd. Bowaters’ first step towards becoming a paper manufacturer was in July 1925 at Northfleet. Bowaters’ business plan was based on rapid expansion and by the end of 1930 the company produced 22% of the total UK output of newsprint. After the war, a rapid revival of demand for newsprint appeared unlikely so the company diversified into paper packaging. This strategy continued to be effective so that by the mid 1950s the company entered into the rapidly growing tissue market. The company was taken over by the Scott Paper Group in the mid 1980s.
The Bowater Papers features articles on paper manufacture and packaging design, but rendered through highly innovative typographical and mechanical means to impress both clients, shareholders and competitors alike. As the public-facing vehicle for the company's work, the journal was consciously designed to impress through technical skill and bright modernist designs. Devices such as fold-outs, punch-throughs and packaging inserts were used liberally.
The Library's Special Collections include a number of rare or valuable titles, some dating back to the sixteenth century. These titles are mostly held in the Mackintosh Library. Because of the value of these itmes, special access arrangement are in place, with viewing strictly by appointment only with our Academic Liasion Librarians.

Macao et Cosmage by Edy-Legrand

2010-05-12T12:06:00.000+01:00

This book for French children was published in November 1919, when Edouard Leon Louis Legrand (known as Edy-Legrand) was just 18. It's brightly coloured illustrations show the contemporary influence of Fauvism and jazz, and are rendered in the technique of pochoir in which is pigment is applied to the page through stencils. The book presents a very colonial view of island territories in which life is depicted as invariably happy and tranquil; indeed it is subtitled "the experience of happiness". Now very rare, the book is now seen as pivotal in moving children's illustration out of the heavy and ornate Victorian style of Dulac and others into an avowedly Modernist style.
The Library's Special Collections include a number of rare or valuable titles, some dating back to the sixteenth century. These titles are mostly held in the Mackintosh Library. Because of the value of these itmes, special access arrangement are in place, with viewing strictly by appointment only with our Academic Liasion Librarians.

Sights and Scenes in Fair Japan by Ogawa Kazumasa

2010-05-12T12:00:00.005+01:00

Today we look at Sights and Scenes in Fair Japan.
This album appeared in many forms in Japan throughout the 1910s, and is based on a suite of 50 photos by Ogawa Kazumasa. It was published by the Imperial Government Railways. Whilst some editions featured black and white plates, the Library's edition features full-colour plates and 2 full-page maps. Our edition is also bound in beautiful (if a little frayed!) embroidered silk covers depicting a mounted nobleman and his retinue traveling in the shadow of Mount Fuji. The binding is held with golden thread ties, with a cut-away spine revealing golden foredge decoration.
The Library's Special Collections include a number of rare or valuable titles, some dating back to the sixteenth century. These titles are mostly held in the Mackintosh Library. Because of the value of these itmes, special access arrangement are in place, with viewing strictly by appointment only with our Academic Liasion Librarians.

Portraits of the Forty-Seven Ronins by Umesaburo Tanaka

2010-05-12T11:57:00.005+01:00

Today we look at The Portraits of the Forty-Seven Ronins by Umesaburo Tanaka.
This volume was published in Yokohama in 1886 and features over 5o pages of beautiful full-colour woodblock illustrations of Japan's ronins. The ronins were samurai with no lord or master during Japan's feudal period of 1185–1868. A samurai could became masterless from the ruin or fall of his master, or after the loss of his master's favour or privilege. The Library's volume tells of the famous exploits or battles of these ronins, with each depicted in traditional Japanese ceremonial robes or battle dress.
The Library's Special Collections include a number of rare or valuable titles, some dating back to the sixteenth century. These titles are mostly held in the Mackintosh Library. Because of the value of these itmes, special access arrangement are in place, with viewing strictly by appointment only with our Academic Liasion Librarians.

Deutsche Ortswappen

2010-05-12T11:56:00.005+01:00

Today we look at the Library's 9 volumes of Deutsche Ortswappen.
The albums were published in the early 20th century by the Kaffee Handelsgesellschaft AG (known as Kaffee HAG or Coffee Hag) in Bremen, Germany, starting with heraldic stamps and collectors' albums. This, the second series, was published as Deutsche Ortswappen between 1927 and 1938, and superseded the earlier series of 1913-1918. The arms were issued as loose sheets which were exchanged for coupons acquired with purchases of coffee, and could be stuck into either 4 large albums or 10 small albums (or Hefts). The Library's copies have been assembled in 9 of the smaller Hefts. Each page contains spaces for 9 labels with the arms formally arranged by German province or state. In reality the albums were often filled randomly by collectors, as with the Library's copies.
The Library's Special Collections include a number of rare or valuable titles, some dating back to the sixteenth century. These titles are mostly held in the Mackintosh Library. Because of the value of these itmes, special access arrangement are in place, with viewing strictly by appointment only with our Academic Liasion Librarians.

Ishihara Colour-Blindness Tests

2010-05-12T11:53:00.008+01:00

Today we look at Tests for Colour Blindness by Shinobu Ishihara.
The Ishihara Colour Test is a test for red-green color deficiencies. It was named after its designer, Dr. Shinobu Ishihara, a professor at the University of Tokyo, who first published his tests in 1917. The test consists of a number of colored plates, called Ishihara plates, each of which contain a circle of dots, randomised in color and size. Within the pattern are dots which form a number visible to those with normal color vision and invisible, but difficult to see for those with a red-green colour vision defect. The full test consists of 38 plates. Common plates include a circle of dots in shades of green and light blues with a figure differentiated in shades of brown, or a circle of dots in shades of red, orange and yellow with a figure in shades of green.
The Library's Special Collections include a number of rare or valuable titles, some dating back to the sixteenth century. These titles are mostly held in the Mackintosh Library. Because of the value of these itmes, special access arrangement are in place, with viewing strictly by appointment only with our Academic Liasion Librarians.

Adam Gowans' Scrapbook of Historiated Initials

2010-05-12T11:50:00.006+01:00

Today we look at a scrapbook of historiated initials, collected by Adam Gowans in the early 20th century.
Adam Luke Gowans graduated with an MA from the University of Glasgow in 1895 before entering publishing. This scrapbook was probably used to compile examples of historiated initials and letters that could be used as the basis for those in his published works.
The Library's Special Collections include a number of rare or valuable titles, some dating back to the sixteenth century. These titles are mostly held in the Mackintosh Library. Because of the value of these itmes, special access arrangement are in place, with viewing strictly by appointment only with our Academic Liasion Librarians.