Author, curator and antiques expert Jeremy Cooper donates significant part of his collection of rare 1990’s British art ephemera to The Glasgow School of Art

January 28, 2025


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Jeremy Cooper, the British novelist, author, art historian, and former antiques dealer has donated a collection of rare artist’s ephemera to The Glasgow School of Art Library.  

 

This unique personally curated collection is principally focused on the Young British Artists (YBAs) of the 1990s and early 2000s, including materials related to Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Gilbert & George, Rachel Whiteread, Tim Noble and Sue Webster.

 

The collection includes limited edition labelled beer bottles, hundreds of books, artist multiples, T-shirts, framed flyers, exhibition catalogues and monographs, and related ephemera.  The generous donation, which will be catalogued in The Glasgow School of Art’s Library, is part of a series of donations Cooper is making across leading museums and institutions, including The British Museum, the National Trust, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Pompidou Centre and the Victoria & Albert Museum.

 

“We are so thrilled that Jeremy has chosen to donate his wonderful collection of artists’ multiples, ephemera and publications to The Glasgow School of Art.” says Duncan Chappell, The Glasgow School of Art’s Librarian & Collections Manager.

 

 “These works, lovingly curated by Jeremy over a number of years, will significantly enhance our resources on the Young British Artists movement of the 1990s and will prove an unmatched seam of exploration for our students and researchers for years to come. Jeremy’s gift recognises the significant investment GSA has made in developing its research infrastructure in recent years, not least the dedicated Reading Room for the library’s special and historical collections where Jeremy’s collection will reside. We can’t wait to explore and catalogue this wonderful resource and to discover its many gems.”

 

The Glasgow School of Art and the city of Glasgow hold particular significance for Jeremy:

 

 “I first visited Glasgow in the late 1960s on a Mackintosh pilgrimage while studying for my History of Art degree at Cambridge University, returning in 1983 to see the newly opened Burrell Collection. In the late 1990s, on forming friendships with Gavin Turk, Gary Hume and other young London artists I also became aware of their contemporaries from the Glasgow School of Art and the vibrant, inventive work they too were creating, especially Jonathan Monk and Douglas Gordon. It is pleasing to see that as these particular artists have become internationally known they continue to maintain their close personal associations, still from time to time doing performances together as they used to with Factual Nonsense and around the Glasgow School of Art. In arranging for permanent gift of the large number of works I’ve gathered over the years I have in all cases chosen institutions with welcoming access to the public. The public access offered by the Glasgow School of Art makes this a particularly pleasurable donation for me.”

 

For further information on the collection please contact press@gsa.ac.uk

 

NOTES FOR EDITORS

 

Image Credits:   All pictures by Alan McAteer.

‘On Loan’ (1980) Coracle Press. Limited edition of 350.

Anya Gallaccio (2003) While Reaching for Alma Ata. Slip-cast porcelain apples. Limited edition artist’s multiple of 6.

Artist’s label for Beck’s Beers. A limited edition set of 6 with work by Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin , Sam Taylor-Wood (now Taylor-Johnson), Tim Noble & Sue Webster, & Rachel Whiteread (2000).

Gary Hume (1991) Frankfürter Allgemeine, Le Monde, The Independent, International Herald Tribune. Artist’s multiple of newspapers and pens. Limited edition of 25.

Limited edition artists’ badges by artists including Gilbert & George.

Ian Hamilton Finlay (1990) Twine is Jacobin. Paper labels with string. Limited edition of 100.

Pretty Taxing (2007) limited edition ‘tax discs’ by Sarah Lucas, Gary Hume and Matthew Barney for Artists’ Car Boot Fair, London.

Takako Saito (1994) Bean Music. Beans in paper envelope. Limited edition artist’s multiple.

 

About The Glasgow School of Art

 

The Glasgow School of Art (GSA) is internationally recognised as one of Europe’s leading independent university-level institutions for education and research in the visual creative disciplines. Our studio-based, specialist, practice-led teaching, learning and research draw talented individuals with a shared passion for visual culture and creative production from all over the world.

Originally founded in 1845 as one of the first Government Schools of Design, the School’s history can be traced back to 1753 and the establishment of the Foulis Academy delivering a European-style art education. Today, the GSA is an international community of over 3500 students and staff across architecture, design, digital, fine art and innovation in our campuses in Glasgow and Altyre (in the Scottish Highlands) and a thriving Open Studio programme delivering non-degree provision to over 1500 students annually.

 

About Jeremy Cooper:

 

In his earlier career, Jeremy Cooper worked as an auctioneer for Sotheby’s in Florence, Tehran and London and then ran his own business as a specialist antiques dealer for a number of years. He gained public recognition as an expert on the BBC’s “Antiques Roadshow” in 1979 for the first 24 episodes and co-presented BBC Radio 4’s “The Week’s Antiques”. His comprehensive book Victorian and Edwardian Furniture and Interiors, published by Thames & Hudson in 1987, 1995 & 2007, remains an essential reference work on the subject, as does Cooper’s catalogue of a major exhibition of his collection of artists’ cards at the British Museum in 2019.

 

In 1986, Cooper purchased a four-floor Victorian furniture factory in Shoreditch, where tenants included Best Curve (the makers of the Queen Mother’s lingerie) and Joshua Compston’s influential gallery Factual Nonsense which organised the annual Fête Worse Than Death. Shoreditch would become a hub for young artists in the early 1990s seeking affordable spaces. Cooper first encountered Gilbert & George through his antiques gallery, and later became involved with several key figures amongst the group of younger artists known as “the YBAs”, including Gavin Turk, Tracey Emin, Gary Hume, and Tim Noble and Sue Webster.

 

Cooper documented the rise to prominence of these artists in his book Growing Up: The Young British Artists at 50, published in 2012.  In 2018 he won the Fitzcarraldo Editions Novel Prize for his book Ash Before Oak, and his most recent novel, Brian was selected by Irvine Welsh on BBC Good Reads, and is now in development as a film.

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