Archives

SIGNALS GALLERY ARCHIVE

Signals London was a short-lived yet highly influential British venue dedicated to 1960s avant-garde artists from Europe and Latin America.

Through their exhibitions, events and publications, Signals established fruitful cross-border networks between these regions and introduced early manifestations of Fluxus, kinetic and op art to Britain. Signals was situated in London’s West End between 1964 and 1966.

The items in this archive were acquired over several years (from 1995-2010) by a private collector.

The collection includes the Signals Newsbulletin, exhibition brochures and related ephemera, featuring artists from Europe and Latin America, including, Takis, Marcello Salvadori, Naum Gabo, Jesús Rafael Soto, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Lygia Clark, Sergio de Camargo, Alejandro Otero, Antonio Calderara, Pia Pizzo, Hélio Oiticica, Mira Schendel, Hsiao Chin and Li Yuan-chia.

STUART MILLS ARCHIVE

Stuart Mills (1940-2006) was a poet and small-press publisher who energised the development of concrete poetry and avant-garde publishing in the UK.

Shifting attention away from London, Mills was a pivotal figure in the shaping of an experimental arts scene in Nottingham and the East Midlands region. Mills founded Tarasque Press in 1964, and then, with Martin Parnell, opened the Trent Bookshop a year later, which became one of the most significant poetry holdings outside of London. It was also the space from which Mills developed important events and happenings across Nottingham – most notably the Poetry ’66 conference, which evolved in direct response to the disorganised, frenetic, Beat-driven atmosphere of the Poetry Incarnation at the Royal Albert Hall – and also published Tarasque publications, including 12 issues of the eponymous magazine, which featured prominent experimental and concrete poets of the day.

This archive provides a new angle on the relationship between Mills’ own writing, publishing, and curatorial projects, shining a new light on his early experiments with poetry, prose, and the overlaps found therein. It offers a vital record of the many creatively nourishing relationships with poets who were close to him, primarily Simon Cutts and Ian Hamilton Finlay, but also Thomas A. Clark, Andrew Crozier, Roy Fisher, Edwin Morgan and Gael Turnbull, and the broader impact of these networks on the British small press and concrete poetry scene. It reveals Mills to be a prominent but under-recognised artistic figure in the history of avant-garde poetry and publishing in the UK during the twentieth century.

TARASQUE PRESS ARCHIVE

Tarasque Press was founded by Stuart Mills in 1964.

This archive – collected over the course of 15 years – includes complete sets of the Tarasque and Private Tutor periodicals, as well as books and cards published by Tarasque Press, related manuscripts and ephemera.

Tarasque, edited by Mills and Simon Cutts, was a magazine that championed the ‘small poem’ that became synonymous with ‘post-concrete’ syntactical brevity.

IAN HAMILTON FINLAY Card Archive

Likely the most complete set of Ian Hamilton Finlay cards available for purchase – more than 600 items collected over the course of 25 years – including an impressive sequence of his early cards.

Finlay’s cards are particularly important to his practice: his ideas frequently appear first in card form (often screen printed), then later in large-scale works.

View more works by Ian Hamilton Finlay.

IAN HAMILTON FINLAY – Poor Old Tired Horse

Exceptionally rare complete run of Ian Hamilton Finlay’s poetry periodical Poor Old Tired Horse, April 1962 – circa November 1967.

This collection is in fine condition.

THOMAS A. CLARK & LAURIE CLARK

Collection of Moschatel Press publications

KEN COX — Elemental Balloons

These elemental balloons—red for fire, orange for the earth, green for the ocean, blue for heaven, and white for air—were first exhibited in 1968 as part of the artist’s solo exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London. They were more recently shown at Norwich University of the Arts.

This archive includes some of these balloons alongside the artist’s sketches and preparatory drawings for their creation, and offers illuminating insight into his process of trial and error.

View more works by Ken Cox

DOM SYLVESTER HOUÉDARD ARCHIVE

A selection of rare typestracts, sculptural works, thermographs, original reversal poems, prints and books by Dom Sylvester Houedard (dsh). Dsh was a benedictine monk, concrete poet and avant-garde figure associated with Lisson Gallery and Writer’s Forum in the late 1960s and is seen as Britain’s master of Typewriter Art.

View more works by Dom Sylvester Houédard

FANDANGOS

Complete set of the highly sought-after artists’ periodical Fandangos, edited by Ulises Carrión, Ger van Dijck, Raul Marroquin, Marjo Schumans, and others.

Some issues are subtitled ‘Fandangos – The Most Important European Art Scandalpaper – Fandangos isn’t an art paper but an art piece’.

Fandangos was one of the most important conceptual art magazines from the Netherlands, demonstrating the significance of South American avant-garde art to the conceptual art scene of the Netherlands in the 1970s.

View more works by Ulises Carrión, Raul Marroquin and Marjo Schumans.

BEN VAUTIER ARCHIVE

Letters and manuscripts sent by to the Fluxus artist Ben Vautier to the Amsterdam-based dentist and collector C.A. Groenendijk between 1966 and 1968.

YOSHIO NAKAJIMA ARCHIVE

Prints, posters and ephemera (amounting to over forty items) from the Japanese experimental and Fluxus East artist Yoshio Nakajima, who practised in the avant-garde art scene in the Netherlands and Sweden in the 1970s.

View more works by Yoshio Nakajima.

JEAN-CLAUDE MOINEAU

Collection of documents

WACŁAW ROPIECKI

Collection of photographs and hand-painted photographic works, publications, letters and ephemera from the Polish artist and photographer Wacław Ropiecki.

FURTHER INFORMATION

For further information about any of our archives, please phone:
+44 (0) 208 693 3871
+44 (0) 7946 856835

Or send us an email.