A journalist who worked for a regional daily for 20 years has donated more than 10,000 articles from her career to a local art school.

Clare Henry, who was The Herald’s art critic for two decades, has handed over 37 years worth of archives to the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) where it will be catologued and put online.

Her collection, which includes drafts, reviews, cuttings, programmes, flyers and photographs, will provide students and researchers with a wealth of information about the Scottish art scene over several decades.

The extensive set of documents feature successful Scottish artists of the 1980s and 1990s, as well as Glasgow’s landmark year as European City of Culture.

Clare has donated around 37 years of archives to the Glasgow School of Art

“It really is around 37 years worth of documents from around 1976 to today, from a very exciting time when the art scene was really flourishing,” she told The Herald.

“There are lots of notebooks, interviews, things like photographs of the young Douglas Gordon [Turner Prize winning Scottish artist] and the young Peter Howson, and papers on which I have scribbled my notes.

“There is a wealth of information there, and it was also such an interesting time in the social history of Glasgow – how it pulled itself out of a really dire state in the 1950s and 1960s to 1990, which was just a superb moment.”

Clare wrote around 200 articles a year for The Herald, which included reviews, interviews, profiles, and stories on arts politics.

The Herald’s arts editor Keith Bruce said: “Clare Henry was The Herald’s critical voice on the visual arts at a time when Glasgow had a wave of talented young artists, including Steven Campbell, Jenny Saville and Stephen Conroy, all of whom she interviewed.

“Her subject was no stranger to smouldering controversy in the city – which she usually did her best to stoke – and the level of interest she helped sustain was undoubtedly partly responsible for Glasgow’s reputation as a place for artists to come to study and work.”

GSA archivist Susannah Waters said: “We are really pleased to add this archive to our collection because it covers a period when Scottish artists were really beginning to attract national and international attention.

“The archive is pretty extensive, with articles covering every year, some of them annotated, we are delighted to have it.”