Welcome to The National Irish Visual Arts Library
The National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL) is a public research resource dedicated to the documentation of 20th and 21st century Irish visual art and design.
NIVAL collects, stores and makes accessible for research an unparalleled collection of documentation about Irish art in all media. NIVAL's collection policy includes Irish visual art from the whole island as well as Irish art abroad and non-Irish artists working in Ireland. Information is acquired on artists, designers, galleries, arts organisations and institutions, critics and other related subjects. The collection contains documentary material in all formats including books, catalogues, videos, slides, artists' papers and ephemera in print and digital format.
NIVAL Update, March 2023: Reader Access Days
NIVAL is open for reader's appointments on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays opening hours 10am - 5pm. Access to NIVAL is strictly by appointment only. Please see our Opening Hours and Access page for details on how NIVAL is facilitating safe access to collection materials and how to request an appointment.
Call Out for Participants, Archiving Plurality: A Collaborative Process
At NIVAL we are initiating a review process aiming to further embrace the island of Ireland’s plurality of voices and cultural richness in our collection, in order to more accurately reflect our society today.
We are looking for artists and designers based in the island of Ireland that identify as non-Irish, dual-national, non-Irish and/or non-UK national (NI-based), and/or coming from cultural/gender/ethnic minority backgrounds to take part in a series of focus groups in March-April 2023.
Artists and designers will collaborate with the current researcher-in-residency in the first phase of the pilot project "Archiving Plurality: a collaborative process", initiating conversations and co-developing propositions around inclusive methodologies to be implemented in the research project.
We recognise that ‘cultural diversity’ can be perceived as a contested, often tokenistic term, as visual artist Michelle Williams Gamaker puts it, ‘diverse’ bodies are ‘Tired-of-Being-Diverse’. Through this project, we are committed to address inequality and disproportionate representation in our collection while giving agency to arts practitioners to directly shape the research since its beginnings.
This is a paid opportunity. Further information on the focus groups and how to apply can be found here.
Deadline for expressions of interest: 14th March 2023 (midnight).
National Irish Visual Arts Library
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Friends of the National Collections
The Friends of the National Collections is a voluntary body founded in 1924 by the Irish artist Sarah Purser. The organisation was established to help preserve Ireland's artistic heritage...
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Egan Gallery
The Egan Gallery was located on Dublin's Ormond Quay, and later, on St. Stephen's Green. The archive provides a rare and unique primary document of the Irish art scene of the time...
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Earley & Company
The Dublin-based firm of Earley & Company (1864-1975) was one of the largest and most prestigious ecclesiastical decorators in both Ireland and the United Kingdom...
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Michael Healy Collection
The collection comprises a portion of the 1916 diary of the stained glass artist, painter and illustrator, Michael Healy (1873-1941); specifically the period from 20th April to 17th May 1916...
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Embroidery Artists Archive
Embroidery Artists (formerly Embroidery Designers Group) was founded in the mid 1970's with the aim of promoting embroidered textiles as an important contemporary art form...
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Irish Exhibition of Living Art
The Irish Exhibition of Living Art (IELA) was established to address the need for a wider exploration of contemporary Irish art and the public demand for such a forum. In 1943, the first organising committee...
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Kilkenny Design Workshops Archive
The Kilkenny Design Workshops (KDW) were founded in 1963 by the Irish Export Board as part of its strategy to improve standards in design in Ireland. KDW was the first example of...
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Artists Books Collection
The NIVAL collection of Artists Books is comprised of some 500 titles by artists born in Ireland and by non-Irish artists living and/or working in Ireland. The works are made by individual artists, groups...
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College Student Registers
The College Student Registers comprise 150 ledgers dating from 1877 to 1986, spanning the complete history of the Dublin Metropolitan School and the first fifty years of the National College of Art...
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FNCI Image Gallery
Throughout their eighty-five year history, the Friends of the National Collections have documented their acquisitions on slide film to facilitate scholarly research...
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Poster Collection
The collection of posters at NIVAL has been compiled during the past thirty years through donation, deposit and purchase from a variety of sources including artists, designers, printers, galleries...
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Dorothy Walker Archive
Dorothy Walker was a dynamic and highly influential art critic, author and broadcaster. She played a central role in many of the most significant events in Irish visual art in the second half of the 20th century...
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Irish Patchwork Society
The Irish Patchwork Society was founded in 1981 to promote the practice and art of patchwork, applique and quilting in Ireland. There are currently 8 branches located throughout Ireland.
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Patrick Scott Archive
Patrick Scott is one of Ireland's most significant artists. A remarkable 75 year career as artist, designer and architect displayed his unique fusion of art and design over an extraordinary breadth of work. His archive, bequeathed to NIVAL in 2015, is a valuable resource for researchers, providing insight to Scott's important contribution to all areas of Ireland's 20th and 21st century culture. The vast collection offers a comprehensive look at Scott's working process with models, tapestry maquettes and print designs. Administrative documents detail his time with renowned Irish cultural organisations - Aosdána, Kilkenny Design Workshops, Irish Exhibition of Living Art, and Rosc. Passports with visa stamps detail travel that influenced his work. Photos, diaries and correspondence provide humanising glimpses into Scott's personality.
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Jan de Fouw
Jan de Fouw arrived in Dublin from his native Netherlands in 1951 to work as a freelance graphic designer. He had trained at the Royal College of Art in the Hague under a teacher who had once been a student in the German Bauhaus. De Fouw was one of many Dutch designers who came to Ireland in the 1950s, partly on the initiative of Sun Advertising, to work for Aer Lingus who began using modern advertising to promote their service abroad. Over his early career in Ireland, de Fouw worked for a diverse range of companies including the Irish Tourist Board, Aer Lingus, Bord na Mona and the Office of Public Works. De Fouw joined the magazine publication Ireland of the Welcomes on its second issue in 1951, where he worked as a designer for the following 44 years, becoming its Art Director in the 1980s. De Fouw was a Director of Black Church Print Studios and guest lectured at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. He was also a member of the curatorial committee of the National Print Museum from 1995 until 2012. This collection of graphic design materials was donated to NIVAL by the artist in 1999.
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Cor Klaasen
Cor Klaasen moved to Dublin in 1956 where he began working for O’Kennedy Brindley Advertising. Klaasen was born in Amsterdam in 1926 and studied under Mart Stam, Wim Jaarsveld, John Niegeman and Piet Zimmeran at the Instituut voor Kunstnijverheids Onderwijs (IVKNO), now called Rietveld Academie. He taught typesetting and layout at IVKNO between 1945 and 1952. Klassen also worked in Switzerland as an illustrator between 1952 and 1956. During this time he attended a design course at the Kunstgewerbeschule Basel. The main body of Klassen’s work comprised of advertising for many leading Irish agencies of the time such as Donnellys, Lobitos, Helicon and C.J. Fallons. Klaasen had a thriving freelance practice including 170 book covers and 35 LP sleeves between 1958 and 1988. Klassen taught at the National College of Art and Design as well as Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology. The National Print Museum exhibited a selection of his linocut prints in 2004. This collection of covers for vinyl L.P. records for was donated to NIVAL by Klaasen’s wife, Tineke, in 2009. A scrapbook of documentation related to Klassen accompanied the donation which includes an inventory of Klassen’s work, a recollection of his years as a student and his thoughts on life and work (written in approx.1977), photocopies, prototypes and original copies of book covers, sketches, pamphlets, posters and greeting cards and photographs of Klassen.
