April 2008 Archives

One month from now, Jonathan Fisher’s historic painting of Nassau Hall will disappear from the walls of Firestone Library and reappear down the street at the Morven Museum and Garden. Beginning June 1, 2008, it will be a part of Morven’s exhibition Picturing Princeton 1783: The Nation’s Capital celebrating the 225th anniversary of the coming of the Continental Congress to Princeton, New Jersey. The exhibition includes paintings, sculpture, books, manuscripts, and historical documents, with loans from Princeton University Library, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton Historical Society, and dozens of other museums and archives around the country.

As explained on Morven’s website

Princeton made an ideal temporary meeting place. It was centrally located to all of the colonies, but far enough removed from the mutinous troops to be considered safe. Another attraction was that Elias Boudinot had close family ties in Princeton - his recently widowed sister Annis Boudinot Stockton lived at Morven, a large mansion near the center of town. Her husband Richard Stockton, who had died in 1781, had been a member of Congress and signer of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Elias Boudinot initially took up residence with his sister at Morven and entertained members of Congress there, including hosting an Independence Day Jubilee. … Residents of Princeton enthusiastically welcomed Congress with a proclamation of support and opened their doors for lodging and victuals. Overnight, Princeton was transformed from an obscure village into the nation’s capital.

For more information on community-wide events, visit http://revolutionaryprinceton.org/index.html

“Cyclops” by Henri Matisse, 1935. Soft-ground etching.

Ever since George Macy, founder and editor of the Limited Editions Club, published an English language edition of Ulysses in 1935, pairing James Joyce’s text with prints by Henri Matisse, there has been a controversy as to whether Matisse ignored Joyce by submitting images based on Homer’s Odyssey. There is no question that the six original soft-ground etchings— “Calypso,” “Aeolus,” “Cyclops,” “Nausicaa,” “Circe,” and “Ithaca”—have a relationship to Homer. The question is whether this was a conscious choice, sanctioned by Joyce, to relate the story and structure of the one book to the other.

In James A. Knapp’s article “Joyce and Matisse Bound” http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/elh/v067/67.4hnapp.html the question is answered yes, with documentation offered from letters between Macy and the artists, and comments from their colleagues, such as Alfred Barr who wrote “Matisse remarked that he had observed how Joyce’s Ulysses was divided into episodes based on Homer’s Odyssey … Macy accepted the suggestion and Matisse went to work.” (Matisse: His Art and His Public, 1951).

Either way, the work of two masters comes together in a powerful way. Macy designed the sequence, including reproductions of the drawings Matisse also sent, which led up to the final etchings. These are bound on top of the final prints in an overlapping fashion that echoes the overlapping stories of the text. Princeton’s copy is one of the 250 (out of the total edition of 1500) signed by Joyce, which originally sold for $15.

Handbill for The Comic Novel or Downing St. and the Days of Victoria (London, Feb. 1840). Graphic Arts collection GA2008- in process

This handbill announces that part one of The Comic Novel or Downing St. and the Days of Victoria will appear on February 1, 1840, and parts will continue to appear each month for the next twenty months. It goes on to promise two, or sometimes three, full-page steel engravings with each part, along with wood-engraved head and tail pieces, vignettes, and silhouettes “in as great variety as the story will admit, without too much overburdening the text.” The back page asks for advertisers to buy space in each part, priced by size, with a full page costing 2 pounds, 5 shillings. Each part will be sold to the general public for one shilling.

In the end, the public seems to have lost interest in the series after a few months because only four parts of The Comic Novel were published, each about eight pages including the advertising. This was not uncommon. Only the best loved writers, such as Charles Dickens, could sustain an audience over a year or more.

One contemporary dealer speculates that the writer/illustrator introduced here under the pseudonym “Lynx” might have been John Leech (1817-1864), the caricaturist who would make a name for himself in the following years working for Punch and in 1843 with illustrations for Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. However, there is nothing in the publication to substantiate this guess.

To read more about serial novels of the Victorian period, try

N.N. Feltes, Modes of Production of Victorian Novels, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1986. Z326 .F44 1986.

Linda K. Hughes and Michael Lund, The Victorian Serial, University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1991. PR468.P37 H84 1991.

J. Don Vann, Victorian Novels in Serial, MLA, New York, 1985. Z2014.F4 V36 1985.

Graham Law, Serializing Fiction in the Victorian Press, Houndmills [England]; New York: Palgrave, 2000. PR878.P78 L39 2000

The Excellency of the Pen and Pencil, Exemplifying the Uses of Them in the Most Exquisite and Mysterious Arts of Drawing, Etching, Engraving, Limning. Painting in Oyl, Washing of Maps & Pictures … (London, Printed by T. Ratcliff and T. Daniel, for D. Newman and R. Jones, 1668). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2003-1344N

The coming of the seventeenth-century brought a proliferation of drawing manuals, beginning with Henry Peacham (1576?-1643?), The Art of Dravving vvith the Pen and Limning in Water Colours (London: Printed by Richard Braddock, 1606) [available online as an electronic text]. These books were written for an aristocratic audience of men and women who had the time to train their eyes and improve their mind.

The manuals provided instruction with an emphasis on art as an intellectual endeavor. Drawing is always the essential practice, with the arts of printing and painting coming later. Linear or contour models of the body parts are offered for copying, teaching the popular practice of limning.

The Excellency of the Pen and Pencil was published anonymously, printed by Thomas Ratcliff and Thomas Daniel, and sold by them at the Chyrurgeons Arms and at the Golden Lyon. The text is based in part on the writings of Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein. The title page introduces it as “A Work very useful for all Gentlemen, and other Ingenious Spirits, either Artificers or others.” A second edition was published in 1688 with the significant edition of a section on the mezzotint, a process that came into use just after the first edition had been released.

Other seventeenth-century drawing manuals available at Princeton include: Sir William Sanderson (1586?-1676), Graphice. The Use of the Pen and Pensil. Or, The Most Excellent Art of Painting (London: Printed for R. Crofts, 1658). Marquand Library (SA) NE910.G7 F17 1658

John Evelyn (1620-1706), Sculptura, or, The History, and Art of Chalcography and Engraving in Copper (London: Printed by J.C., 1662) Graphic Arts Collection (GAX), NE1760 .E94

William Salmon (1644-1713), Polygraphice: or the Arts of Drawing, Engraving, Etching, Limning, Painting, Washing, Varnishing, Gilding, Colouring, Dying, Beautifying and Perfuming (London: Printed by A. Clark, for John Crumpe, 1675). 3rd ed. Marquand Library (SAX): Rare Books, NE910.G7 S45 1675x

George Bellows (1882-1925), The Murder of Edith Cavell, 1918. Black chalk and black crayon over charcoal on cream wove paper. Courtesy of Princeton University Art Museum. Museum purchase, Laura P. Hall Memorial Fund

On August 5, 1915 Edith Cavell, head of the Training School for Nurses in occupied Brussels, was arrested for assisting Belgian, British, and French soldiers to escape from the country. Two months later, she was shot by the German authorities. As news of her execution spread, with no fewer than 41 stories in The New York Times alone from October 16-30, her case became somewhat of a cause célèbre.

The American artist George Bellows included this incident in a series of 12 lithographs he produced depicting atrocities committed by the German armies in Belgium. The Graphic Arts collection is fortunate to own 7 of the 12 prints from this series, including The Murder of Edith Cavell. In 1959 the Princeton University Art Museum found and acquired Bellow’s finished, full-size drawing (53.5 x 68.5 cm.) for this print. Interestingly, only after completing the drawing and print did Bellows paint the same scene in oil. The painting now belongs to the Springfield Art Museum in Springfield, Massachusetts.

For a comparison of the work in three mediums, see the entry by Robert A. Koch “George Bellows’ Murder of Edith Cavell” in Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 18, no.2 (1959): 46-62.

For more about the Cavell case, see Correspondence with the United States Ambassador Respecting the Execution of Miss Cavell at Brussels (London, Darling, 1915). Rare Books (Ex) 2004-1558N

Early in the Civil War, the Northern or Federal Army was desperate for more men. In his preliminary emancipation proclamation in the fall of 1862, President Lincoln announced that the federal government would enroll African American soldiers as of 1863. By the end of the Civil War there were 166 black units of infantry, cavalry and artillery totaling 185,000 men.

This lithographed poster is one of the best-known of the recruiting posters used to persuade African Americans to join the Northern Army. There are two versions; each has the same image but with different captions. The one held by the Princeton Library has the caption: Come and Join Us Brothers, while the other reads United States Soldiers at Camp “William Penn” Philadelphia. Camp William Penn was just north of Philadelphia and the largest facility for the organization and training of African American soldiers. Special thanks to Phil Lapsansky, Curator of Afro-Americana, at the Library Company of Philadelphia for the note that the original photo from which these posters were made appeared in the Civil War Times in July of 1973 but has since vanished.

For more information about the original photograph and a recent controversy surrounding it, see http://people.virginia.edu/~jh3v/retouchinghistory/essay.html

One of the highlights of Cincinnati’s thirteenth annual Industrial Exposition in 1886 was the trompe l’oeil painting by the American artist William Harnett called The Old Violin. Publisher Frank Tuchfarber, who specialized in art reproductions, bought the painting both for his love of music and his interest in selling a commercial reproduction of the painting.

The resulting chromolithograph was printed in seventeen colors, each from a separate stone. The thickness of the inks, along with the varnish, gives the impression (if not the exact look) of an oil painting. Two versions exist; one published in Cincinnati and one in Covington, Kentucky under the Donaldson Art Sign Company (also known as Donaldson Lithographing Company). Although neither was issued with a printed date, Princeton’s copy is a printer’s proof and so probably from around 1887. The sheet is not trimmed to the image but retains its margins, with their registration crosses, color keys and ink bleeds.

The popularity of this print and the question of the artistic achievement in making the chromolithographic reproduction led to a court battle over the copyright for the print. To read more about this, see http://www.law.uconn.edu/homes/swilf/ip/cases/bleistein.htm

Antonio Frasconi, Albert Einstein, 1952. Woodcut and woodblock. GA2007.01286

This portrait of Albert Einstein was completed by Antonio Frasconi in 1952, three years before Einstein’s death, as a commission for the Princeton Print Club. The Print Club was organized in 1940 as an undergraduate activity with the stated aim of furthering student interest in the field of the Graphic Arts. Dues were $5 and in the first year the Club numbered 180 members. The Club’s founder Kneeland McNulty, class of 1943, went on to become a print curator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The members decided on three main activities:

To build up a lending collection of examples of contemporary American Graphic Art and to offer them each term, framed and free of charge, to undergraduates for the decoration of their rooms.

To hold exhibitions, invite authoritative lecturers, and provide demonstrations by artists of the various techniques of print making. An extra-curricular seminar, conducted by Elmer Adler was held on the history and identification of the Graphic Art techniques. These seminars were open to all students regardless of Club membership.

To invite to Princeton each year an outstanding American artist in the Graphic Arts to make sketches of the Princeton campus for the annual Club Dividend Print. A signed proof of this print was presented to each member. Prints were completed by T.W. Nason (1941), Louis Rosenberg (1942), Charles Locke (1943), Louis Novak (1944), Harry Shokler (1945), Samuel Chamberlain (1946), George Jo Mess (1947), John Meniham (1948), Leonard Pytlak (1950), Hans Mueller (1950), Herbert Waters (1951), Antonio Frasconi (1952), and Francis A. Comstock (1952).

When Argentina’s economy collapsed in 2001, thousands of people were forced out of work. Some made a meager living by scavenging for scraps of cardboard and paper, which could be sold to recyclers. The scavengers became known as “cartoneros” or the cardboard people. Early in 2003, a group of artists and writers came together to figure out a way to help the cartoneros earn a better wage or find them a more regular employment. From these dreams, the alternative publishing house of Eloísa Cartonera was born.

The seven-person publishing collective includes writer Santiago Vega (who publishes under the name Washington Cucurto) and the visual artist Javier Barilaro. Their small office space in Buenos Aires’ La Boca district is donated by Fernando Laguna, another artist and financial partner. Eloísa Cartonera buys the cardboard at $1.50 a kilo when the market price is $0.30, and uses the material to create unique covers for a series of books, which they sell to finance the purchase of more cardboard. Some cartoneros are also employed to help print the texts and paint the covers.

The books include the work of prominent Argentine authors such as Ricardo Piglia, César Aira, and Rodolfo Enrique. Princeton already owns around 100 titles, ranging from fiction to poetry to comics, and continues to collect thanks to the insight of Latin-American bibliographer Fernando Acosta-Rodriguez. Eloísa Cartonera now has their own website: http://www.eloisacartonera.com.ar/eloisa/home.html and has established similar projects in Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil, where it is called Dulcinéia Catadora.

In 1645, Abraham Bosse, an instructor at the Académie royale in Paris, published an engraving manual specifically focused on the technique called taille-douce or soft cutting, which is the cutting of straight lines on soft copper plates. Sixteen wonderfully detailed illustrations show the individual steps of cutting and printing a plate, including the use of a new, rolling press. As the manual continues, Bosse also introduces etching, the more modern printing technique using of baths of acid to cut the lines in the copper.

The book proved quite popular, revised many times and translated into several languages. With each new edition, there are additions and corrections as the practice of etching itself was changing. To collect each variation is to document the progression of technical printing information both practical and historical.

Princeton is fortunate to have not only the first French edition and the first German translation, but has now acquired the rare first Dutch translation. The Dutch edition has, in particular, a section on recipes for the composition of hard varnishes that can be used as an etching ground. Both summer and winter recipes are included, taking into account the changes in humidity that effects the artist’s materials. To compare earlier editions, see:

“THE FIRST DUTY of the mistress after breakfast is to give her orders for the day, and she naturally begins with the cook.

ON ENTERING THE KITCHEN, invariably say, “Good morning, cook” (a courtesy much appreciated below stairs), go into the larder—do not give a mere glance, careless or nervous, as the case may be, but examine every article there; never let anything that displeases your neat eye pass: it is much easier to correct as you go along, than to overburden a maid with directions or reprimands. Do not allow any shy fear of strangers, as new servants of course are, to interfere with the careful discharge of your duties as a wife and mistress of the household. Look in the bread-pan and see that there is no waste. After all joints a good basin of dripping ought to be in the larder.

IN ORDERING DINNER it is best to write down what you intend having; for instance, one o’clock dinner, “Cold beef, potatoes, greens, apple pudding;” six (seven or eight) o’clock dinner, “Julienne soup, fish, roast fowl, gravy, bread sauce, boiled bacon, browned potatoes, spinach, plum tart, custard pudding. Another good result from writing down the dinner; it keeps both mistress and cook up to the mark in seeing that every proper accompaniment to a dish is served with it.”

The first edition of Mrs. Beeton’s book was published when she was only twenty-five. Unfortunately, she died before for turning thirty. To read more about her eventful life, see Kathryn Hughes, The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton (New York: Knopf, 2006). Firestone Library TX140.B4 H84 2006

John Britton (1771-1857), The Pleasures of Human Life (London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme …, 1807). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Rowlandson 1807.3

In 1806, Reverend James Beresford (1764-1840) published a series of humorous dialogues entitled, The Miseries of Human Life (Graphic Arts, Rowlandson 1806.3). The book proved so popular that three editions sold out in a matter of weeks.

Several imitations appeared the following year, including Robert Heron’s Comforts of Human Life (Graphic Arts, Rowlandson 1807.4) but the most successful by far was The Pleasures of Human Life published under the name of Hilaris Benevolus and Company, Fellows of the “London Literary Society of Lusorists.” In fact, the book was written by John Britton, a young man whose only other books to date were historical and topographical essays on England.

Britton followed Beresford’s use of dialogues and his use of hand-colored etchings by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), commissioning five prints only loosely connected to the text. The frontispiece literally turns Beresford’s book topsy-turvy, complimented by an illustrated title page, drawn by another popular artist of the time, R. William Satchwell (1732-1811) and engraved by William Bond.

Britton wrote that members of the Society of Lusorists, including Benevolus, Simon Specific, David Demurrer, and others, held meetings to “examine, canvass, and discuss the most noted and popular acts, deeds, and things done, performed, and committed in the British metropolis.” The pleasures are separated between male, female, and neuter, “interspersed with various anecdotes, and expounded by numerous annotations.”

Britton went on to become an celebrated advocate of historic preservation and in 1845, a Britton Club was formed in his honor.

S.M.S. ([New York]: Letter Edged in Black Press, 1968). Gift of Barbara Kamen Movius in 1992. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2006-0017E

Volume No. 1
A: Black dress by James Byars; B: Chicago project by Walter de Maria; C: Two propositions in black by La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela; D: Photograph - hottentot apron by Sol Mednick; E: Luggage labels by Nancy Reitkopf; F: LERP SMS Title Page; G: My country ‘tis of thee, West Germany 1968 (4 views) by Kasper König; H: A postal card - for mother by Richard Hamilton; I: Project for a bridge by Su Braden; J: Store front by Christo; K: Pharmaceuticals by Julien Levy

Volume No. 2
A: A proposed comic section for the New York Times by Bernard Pfriem; B: A 2-year old girl choked to death today on an Easter egg by Ray Johnson; C: Three color separation by Alain Jacquet; D: Cynocephalus & co. by Nicolas Calas; E: The mirror of genoveva by Meret Oppenheim; F: Thesis (1960) by Lee Lozano; G: Legal tender by Bruce Conner; H: Album by Clovis Trouille; I: Title page; J: Ten collages by Marcia Herscovitz; extra item located between H & I. Farewell to Faust by George Reavey.

Volume No. 3
A: O de tes London by Dick Higgins; B: Mona Lisa’s father by Man Ray; C: Bush in hand by Roland Penrose; D: Four Titled Abstracts by Joseph Kosuth; E: Poems by Aftograf; F: Two Drawings by Ronnie Landfield; G: Clouds by William Bryant; H: Signal Flag Poems by Hannah Wiener; I: Correspondence by H.C. Westerman; J: Poppy nogoods all night flight (the first ascent) by Terry Riley.

Volume No. 4
A: 100 year old calendar by On Kawara; B: Concept: Bergtold by Paul Bergtold; C: Asylum manuscripts by Princess Winifred; D: Phenakistiscope by Hollis Frampton; E: Burned bow-tie by Lil Picard; F: Folded hat by Roy Lichtenstein; G: 6 prison poems by Rotella; H: Parking meter sticker by Robert Watts; I: Diary: how to improve the world (you will only make matters worse) continued 1968 by John Cage; J: Tortured color by Arman Fernandez; K: Title page

Volume No. 5
A: Cut corners by Robert Rohm; B: Candy by Mel Ramos; C: Footsteps by Bruce Nauman; D: Against the grain by William Schwedler; E: Splendid person by Wall Batterton; F: Turf, stake and string by Larry Wiener; G: The inner pages by Angus MacLise; H: Twenty-four still lifes by Edward Fitzgerald; I: Bux Americana by Neil Jenny; J: The magellanic clouds by Diane Wakoski; K: Mend piece for John by Yoko Ono; L: Reflections on Picasso’s gift to the people of Chicago by The Barber’s Shop.

Volume No. 6 and Suppl.
A: Ten xerox sheets by Toby Mussman; B: Friends by Betty Dodson; C: Twenty down by Adrian Nutbeam; D: Adora by Jean Reavey; E: Unattended lunches by Claes Oldenburg; F: Junior historical theatre playroom kit by Mischa Petrow; G: Astrophysics by Bernar Venet; H: Neon construction by Ronaldo Ferri; I: Self portrait by Ed Bereal; J: Chocolate bar by Diter Rot; K: Johns in art galleries by Paul Steiner; L: Chinese fortune game by John Giorno; extra item. Massage sticker by Pierre Fournier — Cover by Richard Artschwager.

Pictured here is a lithograph by the French artist Honoré Daumier created for the journal Paris comique or Comic Paris. The caption reads, “Malheur au Pêcheur à la ligne qui se trouve sur celle d’un bateau à vapeur!” Or in English, “Woe to the angler who finds himself in the wave of a steamer!”

For this work, Daumier received 40 francs, approximately equal to a month’s salary for an unskilled worker at the time. This was Daumier’s standard payment from the publishing house of Aubert and Aubert’s son-in-law Charles Philipon. Daumier had been working for these men since 1830, most notably supplying lithographs for their weekly La Caricature. His politically charged images so enraged the government of King Louis-Philippe that censorship laws were enacted in 1835 and as of 1836, Daumier stopped making political cartoons and moved exclusively to social satire. La Caricature ceased publication, but other journals soon took its place. Note that Paris comique states on its title page that it does not contain political texts.

Various copies of one issue of Paris comique might contain different prints, as Maison Aubert had a stockpile and simply used whatever was convenient to finish the run. This used to make researching and viewing all of Daumier’s work difficult, as researchers often had to go to several libraries. Today, the broad scope of Daumier’s work can be researched on a free database written by Dieter and Lilian Noack, which records and images all of his 4,000 lithographs and 1,000 wood engravings. A search for lithographs about fishing results in 51 prints, with complete information and images, including the one shown here. Take a look: http://www.daumier-register.org/werklist.php?lingua=en&search=intro

Wilson’s Photographic Magazine (New York: E.L. Wilson, 1889-1914). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2007-0005M

In 1957, Princeton received a wonderful donation of photography books from David H. McAlpin, class of 1920. These included many reference books and serials from the Camera Club of New York’s library (sold in 1955); in particular a set of Wilson’s Photographic Magazine.

When Dr. Edward L. Wilson (1838-1903) began the publication The Philadelphia Photographer in 1864, it was the only photographic magazine in the United States. In 1885, the magazine’s name was changed to Wilson’s Photographic Magazine and its central offices removed to New York City. As Wilson’s Photographic, the magazine was published semimonthly from 1889 to 1892. Issues published on the first Saturday of the month included an original albumen print and those published on the third Saturday held a photogravure, photo-engraving, or photolithograph. Beginning January 1893, the magazine became a monthly and each issue included at least one original print.

The following is a brief section of Wilson’s obituary printed in The American Amateur Photographer:

“[Wilson’s] first service was to secure a modification of the copyright law of 1831 so as to include photographs. In 1865 he organized and led the opposition of the fraternity to the so- called Bromide Patent. This fight continued over several years and eventually resulted in the upsetting of the patent, by which decision photographers were freed from a grievous tax. The stamp law was modified in 1866 and completely removed in 1868. In this year Mr. Wilson was foremost among those who organized the National Photographic Association, of which the present Photographer’s Association of America is the successor. In 1873 the National Association held at Buffalo, N. Y. what was probably the most successful photographic gathering ever held in America. A special number of The Philadelphia Photographer, comprising some 224 pages, reported this convention in detail, being published within two weeks after the close of the Convention—a remarkable journalistic feat at that time.”

The British actor, director and artist Edward Gordon Craig (1872-1966) was the son of actress Ellen Terry and designer Edwin Godwin. He began his professional career as an actor with Henry Irving’s company at his Lyceum Theatre in London. Craig played Hamlet in 1894 and again in 1896, but gave up acting soon after. His interest in art and design became more important to him and ultimately, occupied all his time and energies.

It was in Uxbridge around 1893 that Craig met the artists James Ferrier Pryde and William Nicholson, from whom he learned to make prints and in particular, fell in love with the woodcut. In 1898, Craig started a magazine, The Page, which he edited, illustrated, and published as an outlet for his own work. In less than two years, he had completed nearly 200 woodblocks and published Gordon Craig’s Book of Penny Toys.