The National Art Library (NAL) is a major reference library, situated in the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), a museum of decorative arts in London. The NAL holds the UK's most comprehensive collection of both books as art and books about art, which includes many genres and time periods. [1] The NAL is open to the public, and as a closed reference library, items must be requested through the staff and cannot be removed from the reading room. [2] The collections cover a wide range of art and design topics, including books about artists and art techniques, and consists of many different collections materials, including archival materials, artist's books, and children's literature. [2] The library also serves as the museum's curatorial department for book arts. [3] As a reference library, the NAL also serves as a training library for students, curators and museum staff, and the public. [4]
The current mission of the NAL includes making information about art history and practice widely available, and aims to serve both national and international communities. [5]
What is today the NAL was originally founded in 1837 as the library for the Government School of Design, [6] where it primarily served as an educational tool for craftsmen to learn techniques and aesthetics. [7] It later moved to the current V&A museum site in 1857. [8] While the NAL remains part of the V&A, it was named the National Art Library in 1865 in part to establish its independence as an institution, which allows it to develop collections independently from the work of the museum. [8] However, from 1908 to 1985 the NAL was most often called the V&A Museum Library. [9] By 1852, the library was open to everyone, though patrons were charged a fee. [9]
As the library for the design school, collections were focused on instruction and meant to serve as examples of good design. [7] Early collections associated with the museum depended greatly on donations from artists and collectors. As the collections grew through the early 1900s, patronage consisted mostly of art historians, collectors, curators, and high-profile artists, [6] though it remained focused on the needs of students and others learning about art. [7] Starting in the 1970s and continuing today, students make up a large percentage of patrons visiting the NAL for educational and artistic purposes. [6] Collection of particularly experimental and contemporary artist's books began in the 1980s with the work of Jan van der Wateren, who served as the Chief Librarian. [10] In the early 2000s, the library was merged with the Prints, Paintings and Drawings department to form the Word and Image Department, which serves curatorial staff of the museum. [6]
The NAL is known for publishing the Universal Catalogue of Books on Art in the 1960s, which served as an international bibliography of art books. [6] It was named after previous iterations of the same publication from the late 1800s that served the same purpose. [9]
The General Collection consists of materials whose subjects align with the work of the Museum, including books about various arts (such as painting, woodworking, and ceramics) with a special focus on art and design of the Far East, India, and Southeast Asia. [12] The other main focus of the General Collection is the history of the design and artistry of books, including early printed books and children's books. [12] Most of what can be found in the NAL collections is not available in public institutions.
As part of its work in collecting items and materials specific to the V&A's particular areas of research, the Library takes special care to catalog its collection. For example, the NAL cataloging methods include noting the number of illustrations in a given work, as well as detailing the physical elements of the books in its collections, due to the NAL's focus on the book as object and their value as resources for art history and the history of craft and design. [13]
Special Collections at the NAL are generally more focused on books as objects of study, though they also contain archival materials, artists' letters, artists' manifestos, and manuscripts. [14] Included in Special Collections are a number of Closed Collections, which are collections taken in from an independent collector. The Closed Collections include three collections of Beatrix Potter works. [14]
Because the NAL has a focus on the book as art and object, it has a large collection of artist's books housed primarily in Special Collections. [15] The collection contains items documenting the history of artist's books, including the early livres d'artistes as well as contemporary and experimental book objects. [16] The NAL artists' book collection is one of its greatest strengths, and includes the first artists' book Ambroise Vollard published. [17] The collection also contains books created by artists such as Sol Lewitt, Ed Ruscha, Édouard Manet, and David Hockney. This section of the collections experienced a boom in the 1980s and 1990s, when many contemporary works were collected by artists of various levels of popularity by former Chief Librarian Jan an der Wateren. [16]
Although the collection of artist's books has slowed to allow funds to be used more broadly among the collections, there is still considerable collecting done of individual book objects. [16] Artists represented in the collection also have information files in the library, which include ephemera and information about the artists and their works, even when individual works have not been collected, and some artists' information files have been created even when the library has not been able to collect any works by a particular artist. [16]
To accompany the NAL's artists' book holdings, the V&A has an abridged Artists' Book Visual Database. This online resource allows any patron to view a portion of the NAL's artists' books, which they otherwise would not be able to see. Due to the books' rare nature, the artists' book collection is physically handled only by NAL staff and is available for patron perusal only by request.
Among the NAL's other unique holdings are the Dyce & Forster collection, auction sale catalogues, calligraphy, chapbooks, children's books, comics, documentary manuscripts, early printed books, exhibition catalogues, fine bindings, illuminated manuscripts, and trade literature.
The NAL is a reference library, which means that its materials are available for viewing and use only within the library itself—materials are not available for checkout. Some reference books are out on open shelves, but otherwise, materials must be requested via staff at the reference desk.
The library's catalogue is also available on the web, and materials can be requested in advance of a visit.
A National Art Library card is needed to place requests for library materials and access study rooms at the V&A. To get a library card, users must create an NAL account, which can be done online or in person at the Library. [18]
The National Art Library offers the below services for patrons with disabilities: [19]
More information on accessibility to the V&A, NAL, and study rooms can be found on the V&A website, including a digital map [20] of each floor of the museum.
An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the practice continued into secular texts from the 13th century onward and typically include proclamations, enrolled bills, laws, charters, inventories and deeds.
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
Provenance is the chronology of the ownership, custody or location of a historical object. The term was originally mostly used in relation to works of art but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including archaeology, paleontology, archives, manuscripts, printed books, the circular economy, and science and computing.
Ephemera are transitory creations which are not meant to be retained or preserved. Its etymological origins extends to Ancient Greece, with the common definition of the word being: "the minor transient documents of everyday life". Ambiguous in nature, various interpretations of ephemera and related items have been contended, including menus, newspapers, postcards, posters, sheet music, stickers and valentines.
Sir Hugh Maxwell Casson was a British architect. He was also active as an interior designer, as an artist, and as a writer and broadcaster on twentieth-century design. He was the director of architecture for the Festival of Britain on the South Bank in 1951. From 1976 to 1984, he was president of the Royal Academy.
The Courtauld Institute of Art, commonly referred to as The Courtauld, is a self-governing college of the University of London specialising in the study of the history of art and conservation. It is among the most prestigious specialist colleges for the study of the history of art in the world and is known for the disproportionate number of directors of major museums drawn from its small body of alumni.
An art exhibition is traditionally the space in which art objects meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhibition". In American English, they may be called "exhibit", "exposition" or "show". In UK English, they are always called "exhibitions" or "shows", and an individual item in the show is an "exhibit".
The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose object is the design and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. It includes most of the arts making objects for the interiors of buildings, and interior design, but not usually architecture. Ceramic art, metalwork, furniture, jewellery, fashion, various forms of the textile arts and glassware are major groupings.
Young V&A, formerly the V&A Museum of Childhood, is a branch of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which is the United Kingdom's national museum of applied arts. It is in Bethnal Green and is located on the Green itself in the East End of London and specialises in objects by and for children.
Levina Teerlinc was a Flemish Renaissance miniaturist who served as a painter to the English court of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. She was the most important miniaturist at the English court between Hans Holbein the Younger and Nicholas Hilliard. Her father, Simon Bening was a renowned book illuminator and miniature painter of the Ghent-Bruges school and probably trained her as a manuscript painter. She may have worked in her father's workshop before her marriage.
The Royal Library of Belgium is the national library of Belgium. The library has a history that goes back to the age of the Dukes of Burgundy. In the second half of the 20th century, a new building was constructed on the Mont des Arts/Kunstberg in central Brussels, near the Central Station. The library owns several collections of historical importance, like Library of the Dukes of Burgundy, and is the depository for all books ever published in Belgium or abroad by Belgian authors.
Die-Cut Plug Wiring Diagram Book is an artist's book by the English artist Mark Pawson, originally published in early 1992. Originally consisting of 36 full-size reproductions of British AC power plug wiring diagrams printed in various colours, the book has become celebrated as an example of English sociological art, and is sometimes referred to as part of the New Folk Archive. Online gallery Hayvend described it: "the ultra-obsessive die cut plug wiring diagram book [is part of] an avalanche of essential ephemera [collected] by unashamed image junkie Mark Pawson".
'Many of the items [Pawson] produces are made out of his or other people's waste material including comics, flyers, glossy fashion magazines, children's colouring books, braille hymn books, antique paper, wood-chip wallpaper and the odd pornographic magazine. Pawson's most successful pieces are usually made of the most simple materials.'
Albert Maurice Bender was an American art collector who was one of the leading patrons of the arts in San Francisco in the 1920s and 1930s. He played a key role in the early career of Ansel Adams and was one of Diego Rivera's first American patrons. By providing financial assistance to artists, writers, and institutions, he had a significant impact on the cultural development of the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.
The Chipstone Foundation is a Wisconsin-based foundation dedicated to promoting American decorative arts scholarship. Originating from the private collection of Stanley and Polly Stone, the foundation uses its objects and resources to support decorative arts projects and publications at other institutions, seeking to find "newer ways to look at old things.".
IUPUI University Library is the university library of Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. IUPUI is an urban campus of Indiana University and Purdue University in Indianapolis, Indiana. Indiana University is the managing partner.
The radiography of cultural property is the use of radiography to understand intrinsic details about objects. Most commonly this involves X-rays of paintings to reveal underdrawing, pentimenti alterations in the course of painting or by later restorers, and sometimes previous paintings on the support. Many pigments such as lead white show well in radiographs.
Bev Pike is a Winnipeg-based visual artist who paints large cinematic baroque landforms. Grottesque, her current work on climate catastrophe, is a series of interconnected underground sanctuaries based on seventeenth century shell grottos. Pike also creates video art and publishes artist's books as well as opinion pieces for CBC, MSN, and the Winnipeg Free Press among others.
Michael Clark is a contemporary British artist. His work spans a broad range of media including painting, drawing, sculpture, film, photography, installation, video, performance and artist's books. Clark was born in Manchester and lives and works in London.
Carol Tulloch is a British author and academic who is a Professor of Dress, Diaspora and Transnationalism at the University of the Arts London, known for her work on cultural heritage, auto/biography, personal archives and style narratives.