Series GSAA/PUB/8 - Publications related to Glasgow School of Art or Glasgow School of Art departments, staff and projects

Scottish poet and playwright Liz Lochhead was born in 1947, in Motherwell, Lanarkshire. She studied at the Glasgow School of Art and taught art at schools in Glasgow and Bristol. She was Writer in Residence at Edinburgh University (1986-7) and Writer in Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1988. Her first collection of poems, Memo for Spring, was published in 1972 and won a Scottish Arts Council Book Award. Her poetry has been published in a number of collections including Penguin Modern Poets 4 (1995). In 2005, she was made Poet Laureate of Glasgow, and in 2011, became Scots Makar.

Douglas Percy Bliss was born on 28 January 1900 in Karachi, India. He was educated at Watson's College, Edinburgh, 1912-1918, and at Edinburgh University, 1918-1922. He studied painting at the RCA under Sir William Rothenstein, 1922-1925, receiving an Associateship. From 1932 Bliss was a part-time tutor at the Hornsey School of Art and then at the Blackheath School of Art. During the Second World War he served in the RAF, at one point being posted to Scotland.
He was Director of Glasgow School of Art from 1946 to 1964 and under his guidance the School saw a re-emergence of the importance of design and the creation of the three new or reconstituted departments of Interior, Textile, and Industrial Design, raising them to the status of Diploma subjects, and providing them with fully equipped workshops. He strove to bring figures from London to teach, and those that came to Glasgow included Gilbert Spencer (formerly of the RCA and the brother of Stanley Spencer) and Eric Horstmann. Whilst in Glasgow he worked to save the Mackintosh tea-rooms, enlisting people such as Nikolaus Pevsner and John Betjeman to support the campaign and he was tireless in encouraging critical appreciation of the city's architecture. When Bliss left Glasgow School of Art in 1964 the School was listed in Whitaker's Almanac as among the six highest-ranking Art Schools in Britain.
Bliss was well known as a wood engraver and as a historian of wood engraving, although he was also known as a painter of watercolour landscapes. He selected and engraved Border Ballads for Oxford University Press in 1925 and wrote his History of Wood Engraving in 1928. He also illustrated many books throughout his lifetime before returning to painting watercolours in the 1980s. He was elected a member of the SWE 1934, and RBA 1939. He retired to Windley Cottage near Derby and was soon invited to become a Governor of the local art college, Derby School of Art. Bliss died on 11 March 1984.

Smith was educated at the Glasgow School of Art, (BA First Class and MA) and initially worked as an illustrator for, among others, BBC Scotland, Gaelic Children's TV, Scotland on Sunday and Canongate Press. She lectured part-time at the Glasgow School of Art and designed theatre posters for 7.84 & Tag, also doing theatre sets and costumes for Wildcat and Halaballoo. She took a break in the late 1980's and travelled extensively in Kenya, Asia and Australia, where she transformed her illustration skills into fine art collage paintings. In 1995 she moved to Tain in the Highlands of Scotland, which is a great base for her landscape and bird paintings.

b. Lanarkshire, 1925, d. 1993. GSA student 1941-1943, GSA staff 1947-1986 (Both full-time and as a visiting staff member).
Danny Ferguson was educated at Airdrie Academy from 1936-1942. He was an athletic youngster, playing football for (amongst others) Baillieston Juniors, Bedlay Juniors, Douglas Water Thistle and Blantyre Victoria (taking over the centre-half position from Jock Stein). Later in life he was a keen snooker player, frequently championing the Glasgow Art Club, and enjoyed Curling. He began studying at GSA in 1941 but his studies were interrupted when he was called up. He joined the Royal Air Force in 1943 and served in the Far East. He rejoined GSA in 1947 and was awarded his diploma in Drawing and Painting in 1949. That same year he won a £30 prize at the Royal Scottish Academy annual competitions. From 1949-1950 he attended the Jordanhill Teacher Training College. He later combined a position as visiting lecturer at GSA with teaching in various Glasgow Schools. He returned to GSA as a full time lecturer in 1968. In 1958 Ferguson married Margaret Dunn, also a graduate of the Glasgow School of Art, in Embroidery and Weaving. They had two children, Anne and David. Although probably best known for his caricatures, Ferguson also excelled at landscapes, still lifes and self-portraits. He exhibited regularly, had numerous one-man shows, and his work still hangs in many collections, including the Royal Collection. Danny Ferguson was elected a member of the RSW in 1969, having exhibited there from 1961. He had over 88 works exhibited at the Royal Glasgow Institute, from 1957. He was a member of the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour. Ferguson also served as honorary secretary of the RGI for nine years and was a president of the Glasgow Art Club.

James Cosgrove, or Jimmy Cosgrove as he is more popularly known, is a Scottish artist and designer. He was a member of staff at GSA where his positions held included Lecturer in Design (Textile Design) from 1973-1980, and Senior Lecturer in Charge of Printed Textiles from 1980-1982, before being appointed Deputy Director of The Glasgow School of Art. He retired from academic life in 1999.
His recent work in painting, drawing and collage is derived from travel in general and people and places in the west of Scotland in particular - including Arran and Ayrshire. A regular exhibitor at the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal Glasgow Institute, The Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour and the Paisley Art Institute, Cosgrove also exhibits widely in a number of commercial galleries.
He is a Director with the House for an Art Lover and has contributed to books on art and design, Charles Rennie Mackintosh - and ART PARK Glasgow at Bellahouston Park, where he has a Sculpture fabricated in iron and steel titled; ‘Shipbuilding - Homage to those who made the Clyde great’.