Collection Guide
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Coracle Press Records
880024
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Table of contents
Contributing Institution:
Special Collections
Title: Coracle Press records
Creator:
Willets, David
Creator:
Coracle Press
Creator:
Duncalf, Stephen
Creator:
Williams, Jonathan, 1929-2008
Creator:
Lassus, Bernard
Creator:
Fulton, Hamish
Creator:
Mills, Stuart
Creator:
workfortheeyetodo
Creator:
Long, Richard, 1945-
Creator:
Tarasque Press
Creator:
Tuttle, Richard, 1941-
Creator:
Nannucci, Maurizio, 1939-
Creator:
Wilson, Richard, 1953-
Creator:
Drury, Chris, 1948-
Creator:
Clark, Thomas A.
Creator:
Kosuth, Joseph
Creator:
Terauchi, Yoko
Creator:
Van Horn, Erica
Creator:
Victoria Miro Gallery
Creator:
Ackling, Roger
Creator:
Cutts, Simon, 1944-
Creator:
Goldsworthy, Andy, 1956-
Creator:
Cragg, Tony, 1949-
Creator:
Finlay, Ian Hamilton
Identifier/Call Number: 880024
Physical Description:
123.4 Linear Feet
(235 boxes, 10 flatfile folders, 1 roll)
Physical Description:
0.5 GB
(650 files)
Date (inclusive): 1953-2013, bulk 1975-2008
Abstract: Coracle Press records from 1953 to 2013 document the press's production of books, printed matter and exhibitions under the
direction of Simon Cutts.
Physical Location: Request access to the physical materials described in this inventory through the
catalog record for this collection. Click here for the
access policy .
Language of Material: Collection material is in English.
Coracle Press records were initially processed by Kelly Nipper 1994-1996. John Tain made a preliminary inventory in 1995.
In 2009 with grant funding from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), Laura Schroffel further processed
the collection and made a complete inventory under the supervision of Ann Harrison, while Annette Leddy helped devise the
arrangement and wrote the descriptive notes. This preliminary finding aid retains much of the original order of the collection,
including portions out of chronological sequence. When full cataloging occurs those materials will be integrated.
The processing of the collection is also preliminary. Certain materials in the collection should be monitored periodically
by Conservation. Boxes 41, 51, 55, 75, 102 and 131 contain commercial, non-archival albums or scrapbooks. Boxes 61 and 99
contain water-damaged material. During full processing and cataloging of the collection, the rubber stamps in boxes 113, 114
and 152 should be re-evaluated and possibly moved into cold-storage.
In 2012, Emmabeth Nanol, under the supervision of Ann Harrison, processed Series III.B., an addition with most materials relating
to projects from 2002 to 2008. In 2013, Ann Harrison processsed the addition of Series III.C.
Coracle Press books have been separated to the library, except for those under twelve pages long, annotated, or in pre-publication
production stages.
The collection is arranged in three series: Series I. Tarasque press, Nottingham, 1961-1977; Series II. Coracle Press and
Gallery in England, 1953-2008; Series III. Coracle in Ireland, 1975-2013.
A unique English outgrowth of the 1960s European revolution in prints, books, and multiples, Coracle Press was founded in
London by artist-poet Simon Cutts in 1975, incorporating the remains of Tarasque Press (1964-1972), a prior publishing enterprise
of Cutts' (with Stuart Mills). In 1976 Cutts established Coracle Press Gallery in a building adjacent to the press, creating
a physical expression of his interest in the relationship between the book and the exhibition. Influenced by concrete poetry,
conceptual art, and their Futurist and Constructivist antecedents, Coracle dissolved distinctions between the art object and
its presentation. Every aspect of a Coracle exhibition (announcement, installation, catalog, poster) was conceived as part
of the art it presented and often involved the artist's collaboration, while a book of poetry was conceived as both an art
object and an exhibition space for poems. Thematically, the press had a certain focus on landscape and nature, exhibiting
and publishing Ian Hamilton Finlay and the Land Artists Richard Long and Andrew Goldsworthy. Richard Wilson, David Willets,
Stephen Duncalf, Hamish Fulton, and Cutts himself were among the otherwise more frequently exhibited and published artists,
though in the late 1980s the press's authors ranged to the more theoretical Joseph Kosuth.
Along with its own exhibition and publication program, Coracle served as a production and printing press for other arts organizations.
Cutts also partnered, co-directed, or otherwise collaborated with several presses and galleries, including, beginning in 1985,
Victoria Miro Gallery, the Florence location of which Cutts directed in the early nineties while living in Italy. In 1986,
Cutts established the Coracle Atlantic Foundation in Liverpool, and in 1987 Coracle Distribution. The Coracle Gallery in London
closed in 1987. From 1993-1997, while living in Norfolk, Cutts co-directed a London bookshop/gallery workfortheeyetodo that
emphasized an international conceptualism. Since 1997, Cutts and his partner Erica Van Horn have continued Coracle from Tipperary,
Ireland, returning to the press's earlier pastoral inclinations.
Scope and Contents of Collection
Coracle Press records, 1953-2013, document the artists' press and its exhibition space primarily during the years in England,
1975-1997. It also contains a small amount of material from Cutts's prior publishing enterprise, Tarasque Press, Nottingham,
as well as material from the present incarnation of Coracle in Ireland.
Each series in the archive is arranged into Artist/Author files and Project files. Within Series II and III are subseries
reflecting the consecutive shipments of material from Simon Cutts to the repository. Most of these subseries also have an
additional element, Other material. Note that different subseries may contain material related to the same artists and projects.
Artist/Author files comprise correspondence both personal and professional, along with the occasional multiple, artwork, poem,
photograph or printed matter. Many, but not all, of the artists represented in this series worked with Coracle. Among the
artists/poets most substantially represented are Roger Ackling, Thomas A. Clark, Tony Cragg, Chris Drury, Stephen Duncalf,
Ian Hamilton Finlay, Hamish Fulton, Bernard Lassus, Richard Long, Maurizio Nannucci, Yoko Terauchi, Richard Tuttle, Jonathan
Williams, and Richard Wilson.
Project files concern Coracle exhibitions and publications, and may include correspondence, paste-ups and printed ephemera,
installation maps, objects lists, computer files and financial records. Among the more fully documented projects are
South Bank,
Auto-didactic,
Unpainted Landscape,
Allotment,
Vinyl, and
Forty Shades of Green.
Other material includes correspondence with collectors, clippings about exhibitions, grant applications, and materials related
to Coracle's work as a production and printing press for museums, galleries, or other arts enterprises. There are also recordings
of poetry readings at Coracle. A portfolio of Coracle ephemera apparently assembled for prospective clients, such as the Serpentine
Gallery and Camden Arts Centre, offers an overview of the press's work. Projects produced in partnership with the Victoria
Miro Gallery and workfortheeyetodo are also amply documented.
Throughout the collection are more than forty multiples, including a child's plastic sand shovel, the handle of which is filled
with water and a toy fish that floats in it; twigs, twisted wire, and various other simple, found, altered, or otherwise construed
art objects, generally expressing a playful reverence for nature's tiniest details.
Coracle Press records, 1953-2013, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Accession no. 880024.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa880024
Acquired from Simon Cutts in several installments beginning in 1988. Series III.B. was a gift of Simon Cutts in 2012.
Open for use by qualified researchers, with the exception of unreformatted videotape, audio tapes and computer files.
Contact
Library Reproductions and Permissions .
Existence and Location of Copies
In 2017 the born digital materials were made available online on-site only: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/880024bd.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Audiocassettes
Floppy disks
Visual poetry
Concrete poetry -- England -- Exhibitions
Poetry, Modern -- 20th century
Printed ephemera
Conceptual Art
Artists' books
Small presses -- England -- 20th century
Photographic prints
Color photographs
Drawings (visual works)
Color transparencies
CD-ROMs
Book design -- England -- 20th century
Photographs, Original
Posters
Color negatives
Black-and-white prints (photographs)
Mechanicals (camera-ready copy)
Dummies (printed matter)
Mail art
Financial records
Mail art -- 20th century
Correspondence
Art objects