LETTERS from some of the great literary and cultural figures of the last 150 years, including HG Wells, William Morris and Auguste Rodin, have been discovered in the archives of a leading Scottish art school.
Messages from the famed author of The World of the Worlds and The Time Machine and the famous French sculptor are among a cache of letters described as “gems”, found in the collections of the Glasgow School of Art (GSA).
The letter were penned to the artist and GSA director Francis Henry Newbery, known as Fra Newbery, when he led the school from 1885 to 1918.
They were found by Rachael Jones, an archivist who is working on papers relating to directors of the institution.
The cache also contains letters from the designer and social reformer William Morris, discussing proposed lectures in Scotland in 1889, a correspondence which might provide new information on the art school’s most famous student, Charles Rennie Mackintosh.
Morris writes that he does not like to reject the proposition of a series of lectures, but that he has “memories of early spring in Glasgow from last year (1888) which rather terrify one”.
He goes on to agree to give a lecture under the auspices of the Socialist League of Glasgow, and another to the students at the GSA.
These lectures, experts now say, would probably have been heard by a young Mackintosh, who was a student at the time. The talks could have proved key in the Mackintosh’s knowledge of the Arts and Craft movement, in which Morris was a seminal figure.
Also in the correspondence is a letter from one of the Glasgow Boys, the artist Sir John Lavery, which he sent to Newbery after Lavery had an early view of works to be shown in the 1897 Biennale, which included paintings by Newbery.
Lavery says that he expects that the Italian papers are praising Newbery’s work.
The letter from HG Wells shares reminiscences of the time he and Newbery were in South Kensington together in the late 19th century.
There are also two letters from Auguste Rodin.
In the earlier of the two, from 1901, Rodin writes to Newbery asking about the public reaction to plasters of two of his famous sculptures, St Jean and Les Bourgeois de Calais.
They had been sent to The Glasgow International Exhibition, the event that marked the opening of Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery.
Ms Jones said: “I knew that some of the most exciting of the directors papers were those of Francis Newbery, head of the Art School during an incredibly dynamic period in its history.
“So I was thrilled to find that a box of material relating to him that had not yet been catalogued, and to discover some real gems in it.”
Dr Helen McCormack, a lecturer at the school and a specialist in British art and design history, said: “These letters are incredibly important. They provide a better understanding of Morris’s relationship with the city, revealing that he was a much more frequent visitor to Glasgow than has been believed to date.”
She added: “Equally significant is the date of Morris’s lecture on Arts & Crafts to Glasgow School of Art students, as it is very likely that Mackintosh would have had the opportunity to attend this lecture while he was still a student here in 1889.
“It is generally agreed among scholars that Mackintosh’s work, not least the building at GSA which bears his name, conveys some stylistic and architectural details determined by Arts and Crafts ideals, and here we learn about an event at which the young designer would almost certainly have learned about these principles from one of the leaders of the movement.”
Ms Jones added: “We are sure that more gems will be discovered as we continue work on the thousands of documents, photographs and artefacts held here.”
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