Our next display will be curated by ECA PhD student Emily Clarkson and will explore the world of Fluxus artist Takako Saito.
artworks
ECA Library Prize winner at 2025 RSA Annual is announced!
We are delighted to announce that Christian Sloan has won the 2025 RSA Annual ECA Library Prize.
Christian wins a one year free borrowing membership to the ECA Library collections, which is part of the University of Edinburgh Libraries.
Congratulations Christian, we look forward to welcoming you back to ECA Library.
ECA Bookmarks Bookfair: 5th March 2025
Make your way to the ECA Sculpture Court at Lauriston campus Main Building from 1.00pm to 7.00pm to enjoy the annual ECA Bookmarks Bookfair! Your opportunity to buy prints, zines, artists’ books, cards, pin badges, t-shirts and other wonders made by our ECA Art and Design students, and friends from Scottish colleges and arts organisations.
Poster art by Rosie Wang, ECA Illustration student, rosieee_art on Insta…
New display at ECA Library
Our new display explores journeys to islands both real and imaginary, centering on Voyage Boxed: sea journeys, island hopping & trans-oceanic concepts, by Imi Maufe and others, (2014), and including in addition, an Atlas of Remote Islands, by Judith Schalansky (2010), The Fascinating secrets of oceans and islands, (Reader’s Digest Association, 1972) Archipelago: an atlas of imagined islands, by Huw Lewis-Jones (2019) and Dreaming the Gokstadt: northern lands and islands, Thomas Joshua Cooper, (1988).
LAST CHANCE TO SEE our autumn 2024 Oak Tree display
Our display at ECA Library focuses on book works by artist Jane Hyslop, including a recent acquisition: The Oak Tree: a tribute to eternity.
Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s novel Orlando, a biography, and spanning over 700 years, The Oak Tree: a tribute to eternity weaves historical and contemporary fact with fiction, and marks the pivotal point at which we now find ourselves in the face of climate change and declining biodiversity. It follows Woolf’s groundbreaking novel in drawing attention to the very moment of the present, while urging us to look to the future.
Taking the form of an imagined visual edition of the manuscript the eponymous character writes throughout the novel, the artist’s book is accompanied by an introduction and notes written in collaboration with Professor Bryony Randall.
Other works featured in the display include Edinburgh: a visual handbook, 2007, and An Experiment, 2010.
The display closes on 5th November.
Library in focus 3: National Galleries of Scotland: Modern Two Reading Room
This is the third post in the Library in Focus series, exploring other libraries that could be useful to ECA students.
Today we look at the archive and library at Modern Two, part of the research facilities offered by the National Galleries of Scotland.
The reading room at Modern Two is open by prior appointment Monday to Friday, 10am–1pm and 2pm–4.30pm.
The Library at Modern Two covers the history and theory of art from the early fourteenth century to the present. The library has around 100,000 items accessible in the Reading Room, including monographs, catalogues raisonnés, exhibition catalogues, periodicals, auction sales catalogues, audio-visual material, accession files and ephemera. The gallery accession files (sometimes referred to as dossiers) are a unique curatorial resource on every work in the collection, from Titian to Tanning.
The library has been developed to support research into the Collection and the holdings reflect this, with particular strengths in Scottish and European art, and Dada and Surrealism.
The Archive contains over 140 holdings relating to twentieth and twenty-first century artists, collectors and art organisations, and is particularly rich in papers relating to art and artists in Scotland. These include documents, drawings, sketchbooks, correspondence, photographs, textiles, artists’ materials and tools, diaries, newscuttings, audio-visual material and other printed ephemera. There are significant holdings on Eduardo Paolozzi, Joan Eardley and Richard Demarco.
The archive also includes primary materials of international importance in the Roland Penrose and Gabrielle Keiller collections of Dada and Surrealism.
Over 6,000 artists’ books and special books are also available to view in the Reading Room. This collection contains many of the most significant books by artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, and includes a world class collection of Dada and Surrealist publications drawn from the book collections of Roland Penrose and Gabrielle Keiller.
To book a visit and find out more about the collections click here.
Bookmarks Winners Display 2024
We are delighted to introduce the 2023 Bookmarks Prizewinners in the exhibition at ECA Library, Evolution House, West Port, 3rd April – 12th May 2024.
During the 2023 Graduate show a panel was tasked to select a group of students who demonstrated in their work an appreciation of the book and an ambitious approach to using it within their practice.
These Prizewinners were then invited to return to ECA and showcase their work at Bookmarks 2024, and now a selection of their work can be viewed at ECA Library.
Prizewinners are as follows:
Innes Clark – Illustration BA Hons
Instagram: @innesclarkillo
Charlene Scott – Intermedia BA Hons
Instagram: @charlenescottart
Daisy Whittle – Illustration BA Hons
Instagram: @daisywhittle.illustrator
BOOKMARKS 2024
Bookmarks 2024 took place at ECA on Wednesday 27th March from 1.00pm to 7.00pm at the ECA Sculpture Court.
This annual event is a fantastic opportunity to meet artists’ books and zines makers, buy and swap stuff, and attend workshops!
Check out the new ECA website for more info.
On a Clear Day: Bookworks and Poem-objects responding to Agnes Martin
11 January 2024:
ECA Library is delighted to host a new display featuring works by Julie Johnstone of Essence Press, and Alan Shipway, painter. Julie has long been drawn to the painter Agnes Martin (1912-2004). For this project she decided to address her interest in Agnes Martin directly, in order to see the body of work that might result when Martin’s life and work ‘met’ her own practice. She was interested in asking what it was that draws us to a particular painter or work of art – that affinity or resonance one feels – and how one might be inspired by that. Also on display are two watercolours by Alan Shipway who is also an admirer of Agnes Martin.
The show is open now until the end of February 2024.
Please do come along to ECA Library, level 1 of Evolution House, West Port, to take a look at our 3 display cabinets and the wonderful works inside.
NB: Evolution House is open to the public Monday – Friday, 9.00am – 4.45pm only. Sometimes our reception needs to close over lunchtime, at short notice, so please either phone ahead to check the building is open or arrive between 9am and 12, or 2pm and 4pm. You can reach ECA Library on 0131 651 5700. Thank you!
For more information go to the Essence Press website
New display in ECA Library features works by Julie Johnstone and Essence Press
The ECA Library artists’ books collection includes an extensive range of bookworks by Julie Johnstone and the Essence Press. This display features fourteen works from 2006 to 2020.
