Spotlight on: UoBS Library’s stunning new art books
by Matt Barton, Library and Learning Officer
Here at the University of Birmingham School, we pride ourselves on the fantastic resource that is our School library — in our busy, buzzing community, it provides both a haven of peace and acts as a hub of knowledge and learning. We are committed to stocking the best and most wide-ranging books possible for all members of our School community, and in this post we would like to shine the spotlight on one of our most exciting recent acquisitions — our stunning new collection of art books!
Hand-picked by our fabulous Art department, these books run the gamut from artist biographies (the beautifully accessible Taschen series a particular highlight in this vein) to incisive critical theory (the …isms series), Phaidon’s Vitamin series of new perspectives in drawing, and photographic journals.
“ We wanted to ensure that our students were exposed to a range of artists, not just the Default Man (straight, white, middle class),” says Miss Saunders, who was instrumental in assembling the new collection. “We are trying to develop a diverse collection of artist information books that represent the wider world.”
And represent the wider world they most certainly do. From Andy Warhol’s explorations of consumerist America and celebrity culture to Portuguese artist Paula Rego’s extraordinary work that “[draws] on literature, fairy tales, myths, religious stories and the cartoons of Walt Disney,” via the European Impressionists and Salvador Dalí’s vivid interweaving of Freudian psychoanalysis into his work, these books represent a journey through different time periods, different cultures, different continents — and this diversity and variety is exactly what we love to capture and celebrate at UoBS.
“We are super lucky to have this amazing collection — the books will be great for independent study and for our resources.” — Miss Quinn, Subject Leader for Art
We were really happy to see our A Level Art students come and investigate and engage with the books at the library during one of their recent lessons. But to think that this collection of books is of interest or use only for our art students, or for art aficionados, would be vastly underestimating their power and scope; perhaps one of the books in which this inclusive appeal is most starkly illustrated is Steve McCurry’s India. In a single book of photographs, McCurry explores the geopolitics of its titular nation, the country’s rich and diverse culture, its religious histories and traditions, its opulent geography of “mountains and forests, caves and outcrops of rock, [its] mighty rivers”… the maxim “a picture paints a thousand words” feels apt.
And India isn’t the only book in this new collection that delivers on this cross-generational, cross-subject appeal; how about the inherent feminist commentary in the work of Frida Kahlo, the Chinese politics of Ai Weiwei, or even the mathematical tessellations and geometrics in M.C. Escher’s work. Indeed, haven’t entire works of fiction been based on art? Songs too?
“Painting thrives because artists deliberately choose to paint, and in that decisive act, create something out of nothing, bringing images into the world that pinch our curiosity, challenge our preconceptions or simply grip us in inexplicable ways.” — Tom Melick and Rebecca Morrill (Editors, Vitamin P3)
Our School ethos is built on character virtues — on resilience, and grit, and determination, and that was in evidence in our hugely successful recent UoBS Art Exhibition, where the amazing artwork created by our talented students was displayed to great acclaim. The arrival of the new books at UoBS Library has been timely.
As Miss Saunders says, “ We wanted to generate excitement and also help students to become informed practitioners.” And with books like these — all for loan — at their disposal, our students (and the School community as a whole) can only become more informed, more inspired, more engaged — in all kinds of ways — going forward.
Finally, who better than our UoBS Art Department to give the last succinct word on the new collection: “We are so chuffed to have these books!”
And we at UoBS and the UoBS Library wholeheartedly concur!
