February 2009 Archives

Robert Benchley?, no date. Graphic Arts American Photography, GC131

Berenice Abbott (1898-1991) moved to New York City in 1918 at study sculpture. Her work caught the attention of Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), who commissioned a chess set and introduced her to his circle of friends. Abbott moved to Paris in 1921, Berlin in 1923, and back to Paris in 1925, where she convinced Man Ray (1890-1976) to give her a job as his assistant. Man Ray specifically wanted someone who knew nothing of photography and Abbott fit the description. Over the next four years, she learned enough to have an exhibition of her own and return to New York as a professional.

Bar 228, no date. Graphic Arts American Photography, GC131

Back in NYC, Abbott emulated her favorite Paris photographer Eugene Atget by documenting the “Changing New York” under the support of the Federal Art Project. A book of the same title was published in 1939. Although the NYC images shown here were not part of the official published series, they were taken around the same time.

Magnetic Field (current-bearing wire and steel filings), ca. 1959-60. Graphic Arts American Photography, GC131

Magnetic Field (key and iron filings), ca. 1959-60. Graphic Arts American Photography, GC131

Abbott became interested in the connection between art and science and worked from 1944-45 as photography editor for Science Illustrated. “There is an essential unity,” she wrote, “between photography, science’s child, and science, the parent.” In 1958, Abbott joined the MIT-initiated Physical Science Study Committee of Education Service’s Inc. based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She made images to demonstrate the laws and processes of physics. An exhibition of these photographs for PSSC were toured by the Smithsonian Institution in 1960 and published in three books from 1964 to 1969: Magnets, Motion, and The Attractive Universe (Gravity).

See also: Museum of the City of New York “Berenice Abbott’s Changing New York” (1998). http://www.mcny.org/collections/abbott/abbott.htm

New York Public Library, http://digitalgallery.nypl.org, with nearly 600 images by Abbott.

Less than two years later, Adler packed up his books and moved to New York City where he organized a printing company of his own, The Pynson Printers. As a long-time member of The Stowaways, a private club for men involved in graphic arts, he was already acquainted to many of the leading printers and publishers in New York. His friend Arthur Hays Sulzberger (1891-1968), son-in-law and heir to the publisher of The New York Times, invited Adler to move the business into the spacious new Times Annex at 229 West 43rd street. Adler’s rooms consisted of a printing shop with three presses, a library, an exhibition gallery (opened to the public in 1938), and offices elegant enough to hold afternoons teas for his colleagues. He was proud to say “in the eighteen years of its existence Pynson Printers charged more than any other shop in the country and never made a profit.”

These photographs of Adler’s rooms at 43rd Street were taken by Ralph Steiner (1899-1986). The year Adler moved to NYC, Steiner had graduated from Dartmouth and was finishing an extra year studying at the Clarence White School of Photography. Steiner got a job making photogravure plates at the Manhattan Photogravure Company, until he had enough commissions to work as a freelance advertising photographer.

It is no wonder Adler chose Steiner. Considered one of the best modern art photographers of the period, Steiner worked primarily in advertising photography, in a precisionist style. Adler thought so much of Steiner’s work that he gave the artist an exhibition in the Pynson gallery in 1930.

Steiner began moving into film in the late 1920s, first with the avant-garde short H2O edited by Aaron Copeland (available through the media lab or online through Youtube. This was followed by Redes/The Waves with Paul Strand; Pie in the Sky with Elia Kazan; and The Plow that Broke the Plains with Strand and Pare Lorentz. Two years later, Steiner and Willard Van Dyke founded American Documentary Films and collaborated on The City, shown to acclaim at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.

In 1940, Adler and Steiner both left New York; Adler for Princeton University and Steiner for Hollywood.

Graphic Arts holds a number of works by the French artist Clément Pierre Marillier (1740-1808) including this print:

Claude Joseph Dorat (1734-1780), Fables nouvelles (Paris: Chez Delalain, 1773-1775). 99 vignettes and 99 culs-de-lampe after designs by C.P. Marillier, engraved by E. De Ghendt, Masquelier, Nee, Delaunay, Baquoy, Le Roy, Lebeau, and others. Graphic Arts (GAX) 2004-3296N.

In his twenties, Marillier left Dijon to study painting in Paris but failed to find success. He turned instead to graphic design, working on books, magazines, maps, and other projects where his complex images of imaginative scenes found great appreciation. From 1769 to 1789, Marillier designed prints for at least twenty books:

Louis-Sébastien Mercier, 1740-1814, Jenneval, ou Le Barnevelt françois, drame en cinq actes, en prose, 1769.
Louis Sébastien Mercier, 1740-1814, Olinde et Sophronie, drame héroîque en cinq actes et en prose, 1771.
Jacques Cazotte, 1719-1792, Le diable amoureux: nouvelle espagnole, 1772.
Claude Joseph Dorat, 1734-1780, Fables; ou, Allégories philosophiques, 1772.
Claude Joseph Dorat, 1734-1780, Fables nouvelles, 1773.
Arnaud Berquin, 1747-1791, Idylles, 1774.
Guillaume-Thomas-François Raynal, 1713-1796, Histoire philosophique et politique des établissemens & du commerce des Européens dans les deu, 1775.
Adrien Richer, 1720-1798, Théatre du monde, où, par des exemples tirés des auteurs anciens & modernes, les vertus & les, 1775.
Arnaud Berquin, 1747-1791, Romances, 1777.
Grécourt, 1683-1743, Œuvres choisies de Grécourt, 1777.
Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu, 1689-1755, Oeuvres de Monsieur de Montesquieu, 1777.
Ovid, Les oeuvres galantes et amoureuses d’Ovide … , 1777.
Giovanni Boccaccio, 1313-1375, Nimfale fiesolano: nel quale si contiene l’innamoramento di Affrico e Mensola: poemetto in ott, 1778.
Pliny, the Elder, Caii Plinii Secundi Historiae naturalis libris XXXVII, 1779.
Alexander Pope, 1688-1744, Oeuvres complettes d’Alexandre Pope, 1779.
Claude Joseph Dorat, 1734-1780, Mélanges de poésies fugitives et de prose sans conséquence; suivis de Volsidor et Zulménie, 1780.
Cabinet des fees, ou, Collection choisie des contes des fees et autres contes merveilleux, 1785.
Louis Elisabeth, comte de Tressan, 1705-1783, Oeuvres choisies du comte de Tressan, 1787.
Sainte Bible, contenant l’Ancien et le Nouveau testament, 1789.

This mapmaker’s printing case was designed to be used by a government sponsored cartographer when working in the field around the 1860s. The buckram-covered case holds sixty-three brass sorts with a selection of numbers and military symbols. There is an ink pad and twelve glass bottles of ink, some with the label of the Paris manufacturer Dagron & Compagnie.

Thanks for finding this new acquisition go to our map curator John Delaney, whose recent exhibition To the Mountains of the Moon can now be seen through the webpages: http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/
maps/websites/africa/contents.html

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), The Great Gatsby (San Francisco: Arion Press, 1984). Photo-engravings designed by Michael Graves. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX), Oversize GA2009- in process

Princeton libraries hold 83 copies of Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby, beginning with the first edition in 1925 (not to mention Fitzgerald’s original manuscript). The most recently acquired is a 1984 edition designed and illustrated by Princeton architect Michael Graves, Robert Schirmer Professor of Architecture, Emeritus at Princeton University.

When Arion Press invited Graves to work on a fine-press edition of The Great Gatsby, he chose to focus on the objects of Gatsby’s world; those things that defined his life and social status. None of the illustrations Graves prepared include portraits of Tom or Nick, or the book’s other characters. Instead they depict Gatsby’s estate and grounds, the furniture, fixtures, landscaping, automobiles, telephones, cocktail glasses, the gas station, and pool.

Princeton’s copy is one of fifty housed in a clamshell box with a terra cotta bas-relief on the cover along with two original drawings by Graves.

Artists have often made fun of politicians, royalty, and others by depicting them as monkeys. Here are a few examples.

Frederick Burr Opper (1857-1937), Untitled, no date. Pen and ink on board. GA2007.00153.

George Cruikshank (1792-1878), The Genius of France, Expounding Her Laws to the Sublime People, April 4, 1815. Etching with hand-coloring. GA Cruikshank Cohn 1152. Gift of Richard W. Meirs, class of 1888

Lawson Wood (born 1878), A Good Egg Stays on the Job, no date. Published by “OSS” [United States Office of Strategic Services?]. Photomechanical poster. GA World War Posters.

Bernard Gillan (1856-1896), Untitled [U.S. Senator Thomas Platt as monkey], 1885. Pen and ink on board. GA2007.00106.

Joan Amades and Josep Colomines, Imatgeria Religiosa (Barcelona: Gregori, 1947). Series: Col’leccio de Boixos Populars de Catalunya, I. Religious iconography of Spanish works held in Catalan collections. Graphic Arts (GAX) 2009- in process

Dr. Paul Bolin of the University of Texas at Austin presented a paper entitled “Preparing Children for the World of Work: Influences of Legislation in the Proliferation of Drawing Manuals…1860-1876” at this weekend’s conference “Home, School, Play, Work.” http://www.princeton.edu/cotsen/research-collection/academic-conferences/home-school-play-work/

Bolin pointed out that Massachusetts passed legislation making drawing a compulsory subject of study within the public school curriculum in 1870, followed by Maine in 1871, New York in 1875, and Vermont in 1878. Dr. Bolin went on to remind us that it was Warner Miller (1838-1918), NY Senator and President of the American Wood & Paper Association, who pushed the legislation forward. As a result, Miller made a fortune from the increase demand in paper. Similarly in Vermont, it was members of the Burlington stationery factories who backed the legislation and received enormous profit from the increased sales of their products.

Read an abstract: http://www.princeton.edu/cotsen/research-collection/academic-conferences/home-school-play-work/bolinabstract/index.xml

Here are a few early American drawing manuals from the graphic arts collection:

Fielding Lucas (1781-1854) Lucas’ Progressive Drawing Book … Consisting Chiefly of Original Views of American Scenery… (Baltimore: F. Lucas, jun’r [c1827]) Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize NC710 .L84q

John Hill (1770-1850), A Series of Progressive Lessons, Intended to Elucidate the Art of Flower Painting in Water Colours. New ed. (Philadelphia: Published by Desilver, Thomas & Co., 1836) Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2007-0154Q

John T. Bowen (ca. 1801-1856?), The United States Drawing Book: Comprising Elements of the Art of Drawing with the Lead Pencil, Chalk, or Crayon, or with Water Colours (Philadelphia: Thomas Wardle, 1839). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize NC407 .B68q

John Gadsby Chapman (1808-1889), The American Drawing-Book: a Manual for the Amateur, and Basis of Study for the Professional Artist (New York: J.S. Redfield, 1847). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize Hamilton 493q

The Theory of Effect: Embracing the Contrast of Light and Shade, of Colour and Harmony (Philadelphia: J.W. Moore, 1851). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 841

Bella C. Landauer (1875-1960), Album of calling cards, 1920-1950. Graphic Arts (GAX) 2009- in process

A New York City housewife, who we call the First Lady of American Advertising Ephemera, Bella Landauer bought her first pieces in 1923. Her collection grew, eventually forming one of the largest in the United States, including tradecards, advertising fans, valentines, almanacs, invitations, telegrams, lottery tickets, and more.

When she was out of room at home, Alexander Wall, director of the New-York Historical Society offered her an unused kitchen on the top floor of his building as a workroom. This provided storage, as well as water to help soak the labels off jars and wash other specimens. While the NYHS kept some of the collection, aeronautical material was sent to the Smithsonian Institution, and other groups to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, and the Baker Library in Hanover.

Princeton owns 16 small books about the collection, including Some Alcoholic Americana. Graphic Arts GAX 2004-3749N; Some American Billheads. Firestone NC1810.L23f; and Some Terpsichorean Ephemera. Annex A 4291.558

We now own a piece of the collection itself, with this scrapbook, holding 263 calling cards (and a few miscellaneous items) including cards from or signed by Palmer Cox, William Cullen Bryant, Henry W. DeForest and others.

Columbia University chemistry professor Ogden Nicholas Rood, Princeton class of 1852, had a passion for the science of color. He published a number of influential books, including Modern Chromatics, with Applications to Art and Industry (Annex A P94.852.051.05) and Students’ Text-Book of Color (ND1259.R67).

Hood made a number of trips to Europe to do research and to paint. Graphic Arts recently acquired thirteen drawing after bas reliefs made by Hood while in Florence. Writing in The American Journal of Science (1903), Arthur Wright commented, “It may be added that Professor Rood’s work upon [Modern Chromatics] was greatly facilitated by his own experience as an artist. As early as his residence in Munich [ca. 1854-58] he had practiced painting in oil, and attached a high degree of proficiency. He had a great skill in drawing, and became expert in painting in water-colors, some of his pictures having been shown at the exhibitions of the Academy of Design in New York.”

Princeton also owns a small collection of letters written by Rood from New York and Germany, 1843-1902. Manuscripts Division CO602

The nineteenth-century French artist Godefroy Engelmann I (1788-1839) studied painting at the Académie des Beaux-Arts but turned his talent to printmaking when he was introduced to the new medium of lithography in 1813. On a trip to Munich, Engelmann purchased a press, stones, and all the equipment needed to set up a studio, which he did in Mulhouse, France, followed by presses in Paris and in London.

Engelmann excelled at color lithography which reproduced the look of chalk drawings and oil paintings for fine art prints. In his twenty years of production, he was responsible for most of the major technical developments of the medium, publishing two important treatises, Manuel du dessinateur lithographe (1822) and Traité théorique et pratique de lithographie (1835-40).

Engelmann’s son Godefroy II (1814-1897) joined the firm in 1837, and merged the business with the publisher Graf to form ‘Engelmann et Graf’. The firm quickly established itself as the leading company in France for the printing of facsimiles of illuminated manuscripts, such as this chromolithographic book of hours.

This tiny folded-paper book or parabaik (also spelled parabeik) came to the department with no attribution or provenance. It is untitled and constructed in the traditional Burmese/Myanmar manner, with the heavy paper cut and pasted into one long strip, then folded accordion style and attached to wood boards. The binding has an identical relief decoration on either side, ornamented with glass facets.

The hand-painted text, written in a round Burmese hand, forms circles around animal figures, astrological symbols, and runes. Although we do not have an expert on campus who has been able to translate this lovely volume, the characters do not appear to form complete sentences, but are perhaps the sounds or syllables that form magical chants or charms.

Untitled book of charms [parabaik], 20th century. Gift of Alfred L. Bush. Graphic Arts (GAX) 2009- in process

Samuel Augustus Binion (1853-1914), Ancient Egypt or Mizraïm (New York: H.G. Allen, c1887). Copy no. 2 of 800. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize Rm 2-15-G, cabinet 32(F16)

“Henry G. Allen and Co., 156 Fifth Avenue, New York, have just published Ancient Egypt or Mizraïm, a work begun seven years ago by Samuel Augustus Binion. It is profusely illustrated with colored plates and rich engravings and the edition de luxe is limited to 800 copies. The purpose of the book is to present the history of Egypt and Egyptian art, which will illustrate and describe the wonders of Egyptian architecture in the most thorough manner, and in size sufficiently large to enable the artist to give faithful restorations of the architecture, ornamentations, hieroglyphics, and decorations in their original colors and in form convenient for the private as well as the public library.” Publisher’s Weekly July 25, 1896.

What is Mizraim?
miz’-ra-im (mitsrayim): (1) A son of Ham, and ancestor of various peoples, Ludim, Anamim, etc. (Gen 10:6,13; 1 Ch 1:8,11). (2) The name of Egypt. The land of Ham.—cham, was another name for the land of Egypt. It occurs only in Ps 105:23,17; 106:22; Ps 78:51 probably refers to the land of Ham, though it may refer to the children of Ham. -James Orr, “Definition for MIZRAIM,” International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

This German engraving is being moved in our database from "created by" Martin Engelbrecht (1684-1756) to "printed by" Engelbrecht. It is a good example of printer's abbreviations and useful they are in identifying the print.

In the lower left hand corner of the print is: "C. Priv. S.C. Maj." which is the privilege statement: "Cum Privilegio Sacrae Caesareae Majestatis" or with the privilege of the Holy Imperial Majesty or Holy Roman Empire. This privilege is not only the authorization to publish, but the imperial printing privilege gave copyright protection to the publisher for a time.

On the right, Englebrecht's name is printed with "excud. A.V." or excudit Augusta Vindelicorum; that is, published in Augsburg, Germany. Engelbrecht was both an artist and the owner of a large print publishing house in Augsburg, and many prints are wrongly attributed to him for this reason. Although no artist is identified on the print, it could have been engraved by Johann Georg Ringlin, who worked closely with the Engelbrecht firm.

Some other useful abbreviations seen on prints include:

Princeton’s Rare Books and Special Collections recently acquired a complete set of La Caricature in the original publisher’s binding, with all lithographs and advertisements as originally published.

Following the July revolution of 1830, the citizen-king Louis-Philippe took over the French throne. Artist Charles Philipon (1800-1862) took advantage of a relaxation in censorship laws to establish La Caricature, a journal of politics and art. Through 251 issues—four pages with two or three lithographs in each—over five years from 1830 to 1835, La Caricature become the most famous of all the nineteenth-century satirical magazines.

The major contributors were Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) and J.J. Grandville (Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, 1803-1847) but there were also lithographs by Henry-Bonaventure Monnier (1799-1877), Denis-August-Marie Raffet (1804-1860), Paul Gavarni (1804-1866), Charles Joseph Traviés de Villers (1804-1859), and others.

Included in this set are the first 15 plates (out of 24 published) of the Mensuelle supplements. As the text and images of La Caricature became more and more aggressive in their attacks on Louis-Philippe, the magazine was seized over a dozen times, the publishers repeatedly prosecuted, and Philipon served a year in jail. To cover legal costs, Philipon and his brother-in-law Gabriel Aubert created a special edition of La Caricature: L’Association pour la liberté de la presse (or Association mensuelle lithographique).

Association members paid an extra franc above the regular subscription price of 52 francs and received one extra lithograph. Although subscribers were galvanized behind demands for freedom of the press, the French government succeeded in passing legislation in 1835 that forced La Caricature to close.

Attached is a complete index to the artists and their work in each issue: http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visualmaterials/gapdf/caricature.pdf

24 Nights: The Limited Edition. Music by Eric Clapton, commentary by Derek Taylor, drawings by Peter Blake (Guildford: Genesis Publications, 1991). Graphic Arts division (GAX) 2009- in process

Guitarist Eric Clapton has been playing annual concerts in London’s Albert Hall since 1987. What began as a three-night engagement for his small band has grown in format and duration each year.

In February of 1990, Clapton played 18 concerts with four different bands. These performances were recorded but he was unhappy with the results. Clapton returned in 1991 for a one-month stint, playing 24 concerts using different back-up bands every week. Recordings from 1990 and 1991 were mixed and released at the end of the year as 24 Nights.

This project came at a difficult moment in Clapton’s life because that March his young son died. Many of his friends came forward to offer their support, one of whom was Sir Peter Thomas Blake. A leading artist of the British Pop movement of the 1960s, Blake is perhaps best known for the album cover he designed for Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Blake not only designed the 1991 album art for Clapton but went on to create a scrapbook/collage of performance and tour remembrances. British journalist Derek Taylor (1932-1997) joined the project, offering a commentary to match Blake’s images. A limited edition two volume set was published to accompany a double CD with 18 live recordings of Clapton playing with Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, Phil Collins, and the National Philharmonic Orchestra.

James Gillray (1757-1815), The National Parachute or John Bull Conducted to Plenty & Emancipation, 1802. Etching with hand coloring. GC014 box 7

An aeronautical collection of more than 400 items that span the decades from the fire balloons of the seventeen-hundreds to the prop-driven planes of the nineteen thirties has been given to Princeton University.

The collection of prints, correspondence, photographs, and models was assembled by Harold Fowler McCormick during the early decades of this century. It was given to Princeton by Alexander Stillman of Chicago, a relative of the McCormick family.

Mr. McCormick, the son of Cyrus McCormick, the founder of the International Harvester Company, and a member of the Princeton Class of 1895, died in 1941.

The McCormick collection begins with a series of letters written by the 18th-century balloonist, Etienne Montgolfier, and ends with memorabilia of the collector’s own career in aviation.

Mr. McCormick’s interest in aviation stemmed from a meeting with the Wright brothers in France in the summer of 1908. He took his first flight two years later, and in 1911, helped organize the First International Aviation Meet, held at Grant Park, Ill.

In 1913, he became one of the earliest communters by air when he used a Curtiss hydroplane to travel between his home in Lake Forest, Ill, and Chicago. He named the craft Edith after his wife, the former Edith Rockefeller.

An article about the gift in the Princeton University Library Chronicle, 27, no. 3 (spring 1966): 143+ is available full text: http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visualmaterials/pulc/pulcv27n_3.pdf

More description of the entire collection can be found at http://www.princeton.edu/~ferguson/h-a-ann.html

For information on the McCormick-Romme ‘Umbrella’ airplane, see http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/vought.html