Institution Profile

The Glasgow School of Art’s Archives and Collections are an exceptional resource for the study of art, design, architecture and art education. Their holdings illustrate the history of the institution and the development of its teaching practices since it was established as a UK Government School of Design in 1845.

 

They still hold many items that were originally acquired as teaching tools in the School’s early period, including plaster casts, ceramics and metalwork. They also hold a range of artworks, architectural drawings, design work and archive material relating to former students, staff and GSA activities. They continue to purchase work from student degree shows, in order to capture the changing teaching practices at GSA and the wider art school landscape.

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Collection Interests

Their archives contain documentation about life at the School from 1845 to the present day, providing information on artists’ training, artistic processes, and changing attitudes to creative practice.

 

They hold material by a number of Glasgow Girls including (but not limited to): De Courcy Lewthwaite Dewar; Jessie Marion King; Ann Macbeth; Frances Macdonald; Margaret Macdonald; Jessie Wylie Newbery; Dorothy Carleton Smyth

 

They also have examples of work by painters Joan Eardley; Bet Low and Josephine Haswell Miller; sculptor, film-maker and theatre designer Helen Biggar; embroiderer Kath Whyte; textile designer Sylvia Chalmers; illustrators Margaret Oliver Brown and Garcia Hunter; and archive material relating to art critics Cordelia Oliver and Clare Henry.

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Further Reading

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www.gsa.ac.uk/archives

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