Artist's Book Yearbook 2003-2005 - Book Arts - University of the ...

The Special Books Collection of The Scottish
National Gallery of Modern Art
Ann Simpson
The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
first opened its doors to the public in 1960.
The collection spans the major international
art movements of the 20th and 21st centuries
in all media. It was decided early on to develop
a Special Books Collection to document the
interaction of the artist with the book and to
reflect the diversity of format that has
developed during the period. There are now
over 4500 titles in this collection with a
particularly strong holding of Dada and
Surrealist books and over 2050 titles dating
post-1960. The gallery has a dedicated budget
for the collection and each year acquires both
items lacking from the historical collection and
cutting-edge books by contemporary artists.
Among the highlights of the historic collection
are copies of Oskar Kokoschka’s Die Träumenden
Knaben (Leipzig 1917 edition), Wassily
Kandinsky’s Klänge (Munich 1912 [1913]), Der
Blaue Reiter Almanach (Munich 1912) and Ernst
Barlach’s Die Wandlungen Gottes (Berlin 1922).
French publications include Blaise Cendrars
and Sonia Delaunay’s La Prose du Transsiberian,
(Paris,1913), Fernand Léger’s Fin du monde
(Paris 1919), and Henri Matisse’s Jazz (Paris
1947-1948). British artists are represented by
Charles Ricketts, William Nicholson, F.C.B.
Cadell, Paul Nash, Wyndham Lewis and Lucian
Freud.
During the 1990’s the Gallery made a series of
notable acquisitions with the object of building
up its Dada and Surrealist holdings. These
movements involved poets, writers, musicians
and artists who were eager to tear down the
boundaries between art, poetry and literature.
Therefore in order to represent the movements
adequately, it was necessary to extend the
collection into these areas. In 1994 with the
help of the National Heritage Memorial Fund
and the National Art Collections Fund, the
Gallery acquired the Archive and Library of Sir
Roland Penrose, one of three great collectors
of Dada & Surrealism in this country.
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A substantial number of artworks from the
Penrose collection were added shortly
afterwards. The following year we received the
bequest of a second great collection, that of
Mrs Gabrielle Keiller who was one of the
Gallery’s advisors from 1978 - 1985. Included in
the bequest was her library of surrealist books
and periodicals. Together these two collections
give the Gallery a world-class resource of all
types of material relating to Dada & Surrealism.
Roland Penrose was a key figure in the British
art scene from the 1930’s until his death in
1984. He lived in France from 1922 - 1935,
pursuing a career as a painter. Here he
encountered artists and writers of the surrealist
movement; his circle of friends included
Breton, Eluard, Ernst, Miró and Picasso. With
the young poet David Gascoyne, he was largely
responsible for bringing Surrealism to Britain.
He was one of the organising committee for the
controversial but influential International
Surrealist Exhibition held in London in 1936.
His superb collection of mainly cubist and
surrealist art was assembled in the late 1930’s
and included several important works
purchased from Paul Eluard. After the war he
was closely involved with the foundation of the
Institute of Contemporary Arts. He was a close
friend of Picasso and wrote the first English
biography of the artist. He also wrote
biographies of Miró and Tàpies and organised
countless exhibitions, often lending from his
own collection and that of his second wife, the
photographer, Lee Miller.
The Penrose Library is particularly interesting
as it represents the complete working library of
a Surrealist artist and reflects the diverse
concerns of the movement. It comprises over
10,000 books, exhibition catalogues and
periodicals on Dada, Surrealism and modern
art in general. Among them are a number of
important livres d'artiste and artists’ books,
many containing inscriptions, original prints
and special dedicatory drawings. There is a
complete collection of his friend Max Ernst’s
collage novels including an hors commerce,
dedicated copy of Une Semaine de bonté (Paris
1934). Penrose had financed this publication
and the archive contains correspondence about
the development of the project between
Penrose and Jeanne Bucher, the publisher.