Monthly Archives: October 2013

Jubilee Celebration in Westminster Abbey on June 21, 1887

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After a painting by William Ewart Lockhart (1836-1900), The Jubilee Ceremony at Westminster Palace, June 21, 1887, 1890. Photogravure. Graphic Arts Collection.

Queen Victoria (1819-1901) commissioned a painting from the Scottish artist William Lockhart (1836-1900) to capture the thanksgiving service held on June 21, 1887 in Westminster Abbey celebrating her fiftieth year in office or Golden Jubilee. Lockhart painted for three years, inviting many of the attendees to pose in his studio so he could make an accurate document. The finished oil painting was then photographed and a photogravure made in Berlin, which was sold by William Doig and Company in 1890.

jubilee celebration3Notable figures have been identified, including in the box at top right, Sir Frederick Leighton (1830-1896) at the far left. The actor Henry Irving (1838-1905) gazes out towards the viewer in the center of the box. To the left of Irving is the poet Robert Browning (1812-1889), and to the right of Irving is the actress Ellen Terry (1847-1928).

Lockhart also added portraits of himself and his wife. He is the dark bearded figure in the same box at the back on the far right who looks out towards the viewer.

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Heinz Edelmann

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Cell from The Yellow Submarine, including Ringo, 1968. GC184 Animation Cells Collection

The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have a small collection of animation cells, including two from the 1968 film based on the music of The Beatles called Yellow Submarine and one from Walt Disney Studios of Donald Duck, among others. They offer an interesting contrast in styles.

While George Dunning (1920-1979) was the director of Yellow Submarine, Heinz Edelmann (1934-2009) was the creative director and the one most often credited with the overall style of the film. Born in Czechoslovakia and trained in Germany, Edelmann only worked on Yellow Submarine from 1967 to 1968 but it over-shadowed all his other projects, such as the illustrations of Andromedar SR1 (1970, Cotsen Eng 20Q 87723) and German edition of Kenneth Grahame children’s book The Wind in the Willows [Der Wind in den Weiden] (1973).

In his 2009 New York Times obituary, Steven Heller wrote, “Heinz Edelmann, the multifaceted graphic designer and illustrator who created the comically hallucinogenic landscape of Pepperland as art director for the 1968 animated Beatles film Yellow Submarine, died on Tuesday in Stuttgart, Germany.  …The movie’s mod-psychedelic look, which typifies the era’s spirited graphic art, emerged around the same time as the related psychedelic work of Terry Gilliam, Alan Aldridge and Victor Moscoso, but it has its own whimsical aesthetic. The bulbous Blue Meanies, which personify an evil mood as actual villains, pursue the innocent, well-coifed cartoon Beatles across an ever-shifting milieu of mysterious seas and holes that can be magically picked up and moved. The yellow submarine itself stops in an ocean of pulsating watches, representing time, to light a cigar for a friendly sea monster.”

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Donald Duck first appeared in 1934 and has been drawn by many talented artists over the years, most notably Al Taliaferro (1905-1969), Carl Barks (1901-2000), and Don Rosa (born 1951). Of course, all images of Donald are © Walt Disney Studios

Pierre-Luc-Charles Cicéri (1782–1868)

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Pierre-Luc-Charles Cicéri (1782–1868), Untitled drawing in sepia and brown ink with traces of graphite, ca. 1830. Albert Mathias Friend Collection of Set Designs. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) TC020

Pierre Cicéri held one of the most prestigious design positions in France: chief designer at the Paris Opera. Beginning in 1805, Cicéri was hired as a staff painter, specialized in landscapes, and in 1816, replaced his father-in-law, Jean-Baptiste Isabey (1767–1855) as head painter.

This set design has excellent provenance: Marcel Jambon (1848-1908); Alexandre Bailly (1866-1947); Madame Guigue, Paris; and Albert Mathias Friend, Jr. (1894-1956).

Albert M. Friend, Jr., Class of 1915, studied art and archaeology with Allan Marquand and Charles Rufus Morey. After serving in WWI, Friend returned to Princeton as a lecturer in the art department, was made professor in 1943, and three years later, succeeded Morey as Marquand Professor at Princeton University. One of his many generous gifts to the university was a collection of set designs, now housed in the graphic arts collection.

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$100

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On October 8, 2013, the new $100 note will begin circulating. Once it is issued, any commercial bank, savings and loan, or credit union that orders $100 notes from the Federal Reserve will have its order filled with the new design. According to the U.S. government website , distance, demand, and the policies of individual financial institutions will be the deciding factors in how quickly redesigned $100 notes reach the public, both in the U.S. and in international markets.

While older designs of Federal Reserve notes remain legal tender, and will not be recalled, demonetized or devalued, beginning on October 8, 2013, Federal Reserve Banks will only be paying new design $100 notes out to financial institutions. As older designs make their way through the banking system, they will eventually get returned to the Federal Reserve, where they will be destroyed.

The United States government primarily redesigns U.S. currency to stay ahead of counterfeiting threats and keep counterfeiting levels low. The Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department, its Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and the United States Secret Service continuously monitor the counterfeiting threats for each denomination of U.S. currency and make redesign decisions based on these threats.
image002Currency Image Use [from the U.S. government]

Federal law permits color illustrations of U.S. currency only under the following conditions:

The illustration is of a size less than three-fourths or more than one and one-half, in linear dimension, of each part of the item illustrated.

The illustration is one-sided and all negatives, plates, positives, digitized storage medium, graphic files, magnetic medium, optical storage devices and any other thing used in the making of the illustration that contain an image of the illustration or any part thereof are destroyed and/or deleted or erased after their final use.
18 U.S.C. § 504(1), 31 CFR § 411.1.

Use and reproduction of U.S. currency for advertising purposes prohibited under federal law. Under section 475 of the U.S. Criminal Code,  “whoever designs, engraves, prints, makes, or executes, or utters, issues, distributes, circulates, or uses any business or professional card, notice, placard, circular, handbill, or advertisement in the likeness or similitude of any obligation or security of the United States issued under or authorized by any Act of Congress or writes, prints, or otherwise impresses upon or attaches to any such instrument, obligation, or security, or any coin of the United States, any business or professional card, notice, or advertisement, or any notice or advertisement whatever, shall be fined under this title.”  18 U.S.C. § 475.

The County Election

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John Sartain (1808-1897) after a painting by George Caleb Bingham (1811-1879), The County Election, 1854. Mezzotint and engraving. Signed in plate, l.l.: “Painted by G.C. Bingham”. Signed in plate, l.c.: “Entered According to act of Congress in the year 1854 by G.C. Bingham, in the Clerks Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York”. Signed in plate, l.r.: “Engraved by John Sartain”. Gift of Leonard L. Milberg, Class of 1953. Graphic Arts Collection GAX in process

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William Hogarth (1697-1764), Four Prints of an Election, 1755-58. Plate III: The Polling, February 1758. Third state. Graphic Arts, GC113 William Hogarth Collection

bingham county election5Not unlike William Hogarth in the 18th century, George Caleb Bingham painted a raucous 19th century scene presenting county politics, both good and bad. Although it is not recorded in the picture, we know that he was depicting an 1850 election in Saline County, Missouri, where he lived.

Neither African Americans nor women could vote in this election. In fact, there was no voter registration at all but any white male, conscious or unconscious, could participate. Each man had to swear on the Bible that he hasn’t already voted and then, speak his choice to the judge. Caucusing and drinking are all taking place nearby.

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The man seated is the painter George Bingham himself, making sketches.

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Barnum’s and Brady’s Corner

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new york from the steeple3 Henry Papprill (1817-1896) after a design by John William Hill (1812-1879), New York with the city of Brooklyn in the distance. From the steeple of St. Paul’s Church, looking east, south and west, 1849. Engraving and aquatint with hand color. Gift of Leonard L. Milberg, Class of 1953. Graphic Arts Collection

From atop the steeple of St. Paul’s Chapel, New York City’s only pre-revolutionary building still standing, located at the intersection of Broadway and Fulton Street, John W. Hill made a magnificent watercolor view of Lower Manhattan, which would serve as the basis for Papprill’s splendid print. The spire of Trinity Church commands the right (southern) part of this vista; at the center is the tower of the former Middle Dutch Church, which housed the city’s main post office. In the left foreground is P.T. Barnum’s Museum of Sensational Curiosities [and] in the center foreground is portrait photographer Mathew Brady’s Daguerrean Miniature Gallery. –From Marilyn Symmes, Impressions of New York (2005)

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The corner of Fulton and Broadway today

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Mathew Brady occupied two large buildings, the old gallery at the corner of Fulton street and Broadway and the new gallery, No 359 Broadway, over Thompson’s Saloon. The latter gallery is apparently one of the most completely arranged daguerrean galleries in this country or in Europe.

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Note all the skylights at Brady’s studio

“Photography: Brady’s Daguerrean Saloon,” 11 June 1853 (Posted at http://www.daguerreotypearchive.org. Published in: Illustrated News (New York) 1:24 (1 June 1853): 384)

“IT is well known to many of our readers that this art has been elevated to a higher point in this country than in the land of its discovery. …Among the most widely celebrated daguerrean artists of our own city, M. B. Brady has been long favorably distinguished, and we have frequently presented our readers with copies of his production. The establishments of Mr. Brady occupy two large buildings, the old gallery, corner of Fulton street and Broadway, and the new gallery, No[.] 359 Broadway, over Thompson’s Saloon. The latter gallery is apparently one of the most completely arranged daguerrean galleries in this country or in Europe. The facilities for first-class pictures appear unrivaled; an additional building has been erected by which the reception room, ladies dressing-room, and operating rooms are on the same floor, being a desirable arrangement.”

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One dollar portraits on the second floor in the shadow

 

Adding a gold stamp

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Simplex Gold Stamping Press Company, New York, 1929. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired this salesman’s sample catalog with six mounted examples of leather stamping, 19 linen backed photographs of stamping machinery, 34 photographs of endorsements and 27 leaves of tipped in brochures for the company’s products. A number of images show hatboxes, suitcases, hats, books and other objects being stamped in gold leaf.
simplex gold stamping6“A major development of the mid-nineteenth century was the widespread adoption by publishers of cloth-case bindings and gold stamping for the vast majority of trade books,” writes Scott Casper in The Industrial Book, (2007). “The implications of this development are difficult to overstate: for the first time, the publisher was responsible not only for the typography and appearance of the printed sheets but also for the design and production of the binding in which they were sold to the public, bindings that in most cases were treated as permanent.”

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Some of the photographs are stamped on the verso Edwin Levick (1868-1929), the Stadler Photographic Co., or Diem studios. This was one of the last projects completed by Levick before he died at the age of 61 and the peek of his career. The Mariners’ Museum (Newport News, Virginia) offers the following biography:

Edwin Levick came to America in 1899 from London to work as a translator of Arabic for the Guaranty Trust Company in New York City. He soon turned his attention to photography and was supplying his photographic services to the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, and the New York Herald Tribune as well as Rudder and Motorboat Magazine. He began to write for newspapers and photograph for magazines of the day; he eventually decided to specialize in maritime photography.

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Marvin Friedman’s Boy Mechanic

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It was a lucky break for painter/illustrator Marvin Friedman (1930-2012) when the Boy Scouts of America moved their national office from New York City to North Brunswick, New Jersey, in 1954. Friedman, who lived outside Princeton in West Trenton,  happened to meet the assistant director of their magazine Boy’s Life and, according to Leif Peng, they “took a liking to each other. ‘He gave me little spots at the back [wrote Friedman] and the work just grew and grew and grew. They would send me all over the goddamn world, pay me $1,500, $2,000 a spread… it was like a ‘wish thing’ – a dream job.’”  (http://todaysinspiration.blogspot.com/2009/02/marvin-friedman-illustration-became-my_04.html)

Our painting (detail above) by Friedman was given to his friend and Princeton neighbor Henry Martin, Class of 1948, who in turn, recently donated it to the Graphic Arts Collection. Martin remembered that the work “was published by the magazine “Boys Life” …and pictured a boy who, with his parents lived on a boat in, I think, Holland, which transported freight.” [We would love to find the exact issue, if anyone recognizes it.]

Marvin Friedman lost his battle with Parkinson’s disease on May 12, 2012, at the age of 81. He also worked for Cosmopolitan magazine in the 1960s but it was for Boy’s Life that Friedman found steady employment as an illustrator. He is also known for the many childrens books he illustrated, including Molly Cone, You Can’t Make Me If I Don’t Want To (1971);  Bianca Bradbury, Those Traver Kids (1972); Molly Cone, Dance around the Fire (1974);  Barbara Brooks Wallace, Can do, Missy Charlie (1974);  Larry Callen, Pinch (1975);  Norma E. Lee, Chewing Gum (1976);  Larry Callen, Sorrow’s Song (1979);  Bert Metter, Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah: How Jewish Boys and Girls Come of Age (1984), to name just a few.

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Martin Friedman (1930-2012), Untitled [Boy mechanic kneeling with dog], 1970s. Illustration for “Boy on a Barge,” written and drawn by Friedman for Boy’s Life magazine, September 1971. Oil pastel on board. 60 x 60 cm. Gift of Henry Martin, Class of 1948. GC029 Henry Martin Cartoon Collection

Lew Ney (aka Luther Widen)

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This is not, as previously thought, a cut created for Ruth’s book but a stock print taken from “American Specimen Book of Type Styles : Complete Catalogue of Printing Machinery and Printing Supplies” by the American Type Founders Company, 1912.

The printer/publisher Lew Ney (pseudonym for Luther Emanuel Widen, 1886-1963) was born in Iowa of Swedish parents and grew up in Austin, Texas. He left school to run the Southwest Book and Publishing Company and in 1908 became the southwestern representative for publications at Charities and the Commons, a National Journal of Philanthropic, Civic, Industrial and Social Advance (Jacob Riis was the New York representative). Eventually, Widen made his way to New York, where he settled on West 4th Street in Greenwich Village.
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Beginning on August 23, 1920, Widen typed and distributed a newspaper called The Vagabond. For six months and 48 issues, he circulated his writing throughout the neighborhood until, one day Widen was arrested, directed to stop publishing his paper, and banned from Greenwich Village. As reported in the New-York Tribune, Widen was arrested because a detective investigating a robbery next door, at the Studio of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, became suspicious when Widen tried to help by announcing the name of the thief, which he said he discovered psychologically.

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Ruth Widen, In Praise of Pain (New York: Parnassus Press, 1928). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013- in process

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Although he agreed to the ban rather than be committed to Bellevue Hospital, Widen merely moved the office a few block north, took the pseudonym Lew Ney, and established a new Type Shop on 12th Street. In 1928, he was married (a second time) to writer Ruth Willis Thompson, who joined the shop and served as editor for many of their Parnassus Press books. As a wedding present for their friends (who took up a collection to pay for the marriage license), Widen hand-set and printed Ruth’s In Praise of Pain. He also reprinted the stock image above as an illustration.
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I am working on a complete biography of Ney and welcome any information on his life.

 

 

 

Dale Roylance Memorial

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Nancy Finlay, Dale Roylance, Richard Ludwig

On Saturday, October 12, 2013, a memorial service will held in tribute to the life and work of Dale R. Roylance. The celebration begins at 2:00 p.m. in the Princeton University Chapel and all family, friends, and co-workers are invited to attend. No RSVP necessary.

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Richard Ludwig and Dale Roylance at the opening of one of Dale’s many exhibitions.