Material Histories

Visual Artists’ News Sheet | July – August 2022

Eve Parnell considers a set of Project Arts Centre posters from the NIVAL collection.

NCAD houses an archive called the National Irish Visual Arts Library; we call it NIVAL (pronounced phonetically N-eye-val). NIVAL is a public research resource dedicated to the documentation of twentieth and twenty-first-century Irish visual art and design. We collect, store and make accessible for research an unparalleled collection. You don’t need to be a member or pay to access the archive.

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. We acquire information 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 formats.

It began in the 1980s when Edward Murphy, the popular and colourful NCAD Librarian, received many requests to attend art and craft exhibitions and began to save the printed invitations in a banker’s box. It didn’t take long for the box to overflow, especially as Eddie began to add the critics’ reviews and other newspaper clippings. Another box joined the party, and that’s how NIVAL started.

Today, we have a vast empire of information. In most cases, we have paperwork that can only be found in our archive – from books and letters to press releases and catalogues. There are handwritten notes by Jack B. Yeats; letters from William Orpen; a book by Grace Gifford, created when she was a student in the Metropolitan School of Art, featuring caricatures of her tutors. There are publications, illustrated by, for example, Maud Gonne, Harry Clarke, Elizabeth Rivers, Gladys Maccabe – right up to unique, contemporary artists’ books.

NIVAL can be described as a library, but we have much more than books! Amongst the shelves and archive boxes, we also have posters. One box, labeled ‘60s and 70s Posters: Project and Misc.’, contains a small but fascinating collection. The distinctive bold cockerel logo of the Project Arts Centre leaps out joyously. These posters were printed to go on walls, doors, maybe lampposts. Some have little holes in the top or corners made by tacks or nails. Vibrant two-colour prints tell us about the production process before colour copiers (when printing one colour became the same price as full colour).

Studying the posters, I realise the designer has been clever with the budget; some of them are one ink on a heavy colored paper, giving the impression of two colors. Relatively inexpensively produced, these small posters are not uniform in size, ranging from 43.5 x 21 cm to 35 x 25 cm. The paper is heavy because these posters had to take some rough and tumble, as they were pinned up and displayed in busy locations. They have lasted well.

As stated on our website: ‘A visit to NIVAL is recommended to researchers seeking a comprehensive view of the actual files’. This is due to Eddie’s vision of providing as much access as is reasonably possible to the often-unique material housed in the archive. This is particularly pertinent to students, artists or professional researchers, because visitors can often handle the actual ephemera – whether a telegram from the early 1900s, or a mid-bogglingly expensive, limited-edition tome by Seán Scully.

Diverse collections within NIVAL include textiles, fashion, the linen industry, the Arts Council, murals, graphic design and Kilkenny Design; special collections include the Irish Trade Board, the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, and the sculptor, Oliver Sheppard. We even have packaging from Odlums flour and Mainie Jellett’s spectacles! When handling the Project Arts Centre posters from the 1960s, the researcher can feel the texture, judge the weight of the paper, squint at imperfections in the lettering, absorb the intensity of the brightly colored inks, and of course, turn them over to reveal old sticky tape, with bits of paint from the wall still attached! These are just some of the discoveries awaiting visitors to NIVAL.