Yearly Archives: 2014

Historic Designs and Patterns in Color from Arabic and Italian Sources

Friedrich Maximilian Hessemer (1800-1860), Arabische und Alt-Italienische Bau-Verzierungen (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1842). 120 chromolithographic plates. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2014- in process

The German architect Friedrich Maximilian Hessemer spent two years traveling and studying the architecture of Switzerland, Italy, Malta, and Egypt. Thanks to the collection of letters he wrote (available in Johns Hopkins University), we know that he made at least 450 pencil sketches and color drawings of what he saw.

120 chromolithographic plates were created from these designs and issued with descriptions in parts between 1836 and 1841. The combined set has been translated and the plates reproduced as Historic Designs and Patterns in Color from Arabic and Italian Sources. Princeton is fortunate to have acquired a rare copy of Arabische und Alt-Italienische Bau-Verzierungen, with the original chromolithographic plates.

The New York Public Library has digitized the entire book, which can be viewed here: http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47d9-690e-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

Brass Dies from Harcourt Bindery

Once a book is bound, the spine and covers are often decorated with stamped patterns using hand tools and brass dies. This is called tooling or finishing. To save the cost of making new dies for every book, generic dies with lines, curves, and patterns are combined to form an endless variety of designs. Firestone Library was fortunate to have acquired a collection of these brass dies in the 1980s from the Harcourt Bindery of Boston, Massachusetts. Below is an example of blind stamping, using the brass dies without color to leave an embossed pattern.

Samuel B. Ellenport, An Essay on the Development & Usage of Brass Plate dies: including a catalogue raisonné from the collection of the Harcourt Bindery (Boston, Mass.: Harcourt Bindery, 1980). “Five hundred copies … printed on Mohawk Superfine by The Heron Press … Numbers 1-10 are signed by the author and bound in full morocco; 11-35 are signed by the author and bound in half-morocco; remaining numbered copies are bound in linen over boards … “—Colophon. Graphic Arts copy is no. 161. Graphic Arts: Reference Collection (GARF) Oversize Z272 .E45 1980q

Henry James

Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1866), Henry James, ca.1905. Gelatin silver print. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2014- in process

When Henry James (1843-1916) returned to New York City in 1905 after living in Europe for twenty years, Century Magazine sent a photographer to document the occasion. The artist they sent was twenty-three year old Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1866).

Although Century never ran a story or published the portrait, James was so pleased with the result that “their chance acquaintance would eventually produce twenty-four frontispieces that were not only a desirable but a salient feature of the New York Edition.” –Charles Higgins, “Coburn’s Frontispieces to James’s New York Edition” in American Literature (1982)

According to Higgins, “James was photographed in the same month by Alice Boughton who captured the author in a classic Daumier pose. Early in May, James also sat for Katherine Elizabeth McClellan, the Smith College photographer.” Although he had many options, he was charmed by Coburn and the following year, invited him to England where the author was photographed once again.

If the signature on this mount is read as 1905, the print would be from the first New York City photo-shoot and not the more often attributed sitting in 1906. The inscription may be directed to Florence Ethel Mills Young, who was on a book tour with The War of the Sexes, released in 1905.

Fritz Eichenberg

The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have an extensive collection of prints by the artist and illustrator Fritz Eichenberg (1901-1990). Thanks to a gift of Charles A. Perera, class of 1926, we also have a number of the published books illustrated by Eichenberg. In a 1964 interview, conducted by Harlan Phillips for the Archives of American Art, the artist remembered how he began illustrating books.

“Well, I picked my teachers. I worked as an advertising artist in my early youth. I was eighteen or nineteen when I left Cologne, and I worked in a department store as a guy for everything – you know; I did posters and advertising. I was an apprentice in a lithographic print shop before I took on my first job. … I [studied] with Hugo Steinerpark who was a well known illustrator and perhaps overrated, if you think of him now. At the time he gave me a feeling that this was the right man for me. He was not only interested in the illustration, but in the book as a whole – the design, the binding, the type – the illustrations were just a part of his work. He was the head designer for Ulstein Books, which are still beautiful. He did most of the bindings, and they were just marvelous. I studied under him and became almost immediately one of his master students; that meant that I had the privilege of having a studio by myself under the roof of the academy. … Leipzig was the center of the book publishing world really at the time, which it isn’t any more. I had a marvelous time working more or less by myself for myself. I began to illustrate books right away. I did Gulliver’s Travels and Dostoevski, whom I always adored as an author. The first book was Crime and Punishment, and I did it while I was a student.”

A collection of books illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg, 1901-1990, Gift of Charles A. Perera (Class of 1926).

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943), The Devil & Daniel Webster. Now printed with an appreciation by Henry Seidel Canby and wood-engravings by Fritz Eichenberg. (Kingsport, Tenn.: Kingsport press [c1945]).

Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), Jane Eyre, with wood engravings by Fritz Eichenberg (New York: Randon House, 1943). This edition was planned by Richard Ellis and produced under his direction. The illustrations by Fritz Eichenberg were printed letter press form electrotypes of the original wood engravings. The text was composed in monotype Bodoni with long descenders. The composition, electrotyping, printing and binding were by Kingsport Press at Kingsport, Tenn.

Emily Brontë (1818-1848), Wuthering Heights; illustrated with wood engravings by Fritz Eichenberg (New York: Random House, 1943). “This edition was planned by Richard Ellis and produced under his direction. … Printing and binding were by Kingsport Press at Kingsport, Tennessee”–T.p. verso.

Mark Van Doren (1894-1972), The Witch of Ramoth, and other tales. Illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg (York, Pa.: Maple Press Co., 1950). Keepsake series, v.8 “This edition consists of seventeen hundred numbered copies”–Colophon.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), Crime & Punishment. Translation by Constance Garnett (New York: Heritage Club 1938).

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), The Brothers Karamazov : a novel in 4 parts & epilog, translation by Constance Garnett (New York: Heritage Press, 1949, 1933).

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), The Grand Inquisitor, reflections on the story by William Hubben. Illustrations by Fritz Eichenberg ([New York?]: Woman’s Press, 1948).

Fritz Eichenberg (1901-1990), Ape in a Cape: an Alphabet of Odd Animals (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1952).

Fritz Eichenberg (1901-1990), Art and Faith (Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle Hill, 1962).

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Gulliver’s Travels; an account of the four voyages into several remote nations of the world, illustrated with engravings on wood by Fritz Eichenberg (New York: Heritage press, 1940).

Terence Hanbury White (1906-1964), Mistress Masham’s Repose. Illustrations by Fritz Eichenberg (New York: G. P. Putnam’s sons, [1946]). Endpapers by Raymond Grath.

Unica T

Once a month during the academic year 1986-1987, the book arts collective Unica T published a typographic portfolio for the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung (The German Academy for Language and Literature) in an edition of 70 copies. Each was an interpretation of the author read at the month’s meeting. The Graphic Arts Collection has acquired the set of nine portfolios, which feature the writing of Paul Verlaine, Ludwig Harig, and others.

Utica T (a fictitious person making real books) was a collaborative of five women, led by Ulrike Stoltz and Uta Schneider. When the group disbanded in 2001, the two artists continue to collaborate under the name ‹usus›. Schneider also works as a free lance designer in book design and typography, after twelve years as executive manager for the Stiftung Buchkunst (Book Art Foundation). Stoltz is professor for typography at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig.

Unica T, Erster Jahrgang. Veranstaltet die Deutshe Akademie Fur Sprache und Dichtung (Darmstadt: Unica T, 1986-87). 9 portfolios. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process.

Happenings Here and There Along the Trail

Will Bradley (1868-1962), Happenings Here and There Along the Trail, or, The World Went Very Well Then: a Victorian Tale Gleaned from Memories and Told for the Edification of the Fellow Typophiles (Pasadena: Castle Press, 1949). One of 300 copies printed for the Typophiles by Grant Dahlstrom at the Castle Press. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process.

At the age of 81, the American graphic designer William H. Bradley wrote a casual memoir for his fellow members of the Typophiles, a social club for men in the printing industry. Written in the second person, Bradley covers his early years learning to set type and then, design posters.

“The Iron Ore print shop is on the ground floor. The editor’s sanctum is at the front. His desk is at the big window. It is nearly nine o’clock on a Friday night—”makeup” time. Mr. Newett has written his last sheets of copy and is reading proof. At the corner of Main and Division, diagonally across from the office, a fakir is selling soap. In one wrapper he pretends to place a five dollar bill—a version of the “old army game.”

He is standing in a market wagon and has a companion who strums a guitar and sings. Attached to an upright and above his head is a kerosene flare. Mr. Newett walks leisurely to where there are several guns and fishing rods in a corner. He is an inveterate sportsman in a land where game, deer and fish, is plentiful. Selecting a rifle he walks to the door and casually puts a bullet through the kerosene tank, then returns to his proof reading. Thoroughly-likeable, this pioneer editor—a fine boss, a true friend!

You and a compositor now have control of the town bill posting. When there is no theatre paper or patent medicine ads to put up you cover the boards with blank newsprint and letter and picture advertisements for the stores, or what you will.

You are sixteen, almost seventeen. A sheet of newsprint is tacked on the printing-office wall and, using marking ink and a brush, you are picturing and lettering a masquerade poster for the roller rink.”

A brief supplement offers additional details of Bradley’s work chronology, including his time in Hollywood.

Peter Blake’s Under Milk Wood

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a deluxe edition of Dylan Thomas’s 1954 ‘play for voices,’ Under Milk Wood, with images by Sir Peter Blake. Published by Enitharmon Editions to mark the 2013 centenary of Thomas’s birth, this publication was designed by Libanus Press and bound by Shepherds, Sangorski & Sutcliffe, accompanied by a signed stochastic aqueous pigment print editioned by Chaudigital.

The work took Blake over 28 years to complete and includes illustrations using pencil, watercolor, and collage, which detail every aspect of Thomas’s fictional seaside village Llareggub. An exhibition of Blake’s art launched the Dylan Thomas 100 Festival, a celebration to mark 100 years since Wales’ best-known poet’s birth in Swansea.

“It could have gone on forever,” admitted Blake. “But the festival was as good a place as any to stop. I am thrilled that it ties in with Dylan Thomas 100. It’s perfect really.” Blake said the original plan back in 1985 had been to create a series of wood engravings to illustrate Under Milk Wood in a limited edition book, never produced.

In an interview with the BBC, Blake continued, “I never met him no, but I started at the Royal College in October in October 1953 and he would have been in Soho. We may well have been in the same pubs. If we met now, I think we would have something to talk about, a common interest in Under Milk Wood.”

A BBC Wales programme Under Milk Wood in Pictures showing Sir Peter Blake at work on Llareggub was screened on BBC One Wales on Monday, 25 November 2013.

A review in The Guardian of what must be a spectacular exhibition can be read at: http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/nov/22/peter-blake-under-milk-wood. If you only buy one book this year, this is the one to get.

Sean Scully

Joseph Conrad (1857-1924). Heart of Darkness, etchings by Sean Scully. [New York]: Limited Editions Club, 1992. Copy 169 of 300. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2013- in process

In 1982, the Dublin-born artist Sean Scully painted three joined canvases called Heart of Darkness, after the 1902 novel by Joseph Conrad (1857-1924). Today, the painting hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago. It was also the last year he spent teaching at Princeton University, traveling down from New York on the bus each Tuesday and returning after class on Wednesday. A Guggenheim Fellowship in 1983 allowed the artist to stop teaching and work on his painting full-time.

“When I was making the painting Heart of Darkness, I was reading the book by Joseph Conrad,” said Scully. “It was not the structure of the book but there was an atmosphere that was perhaps influencing the painting. There are certain images of dark rooms, dark spaces, primal forms and quite primitive forms that were influencing the painting.”

Ten years later, Scully reread Heart of Darkness and created a portfolio of 8 prints. Four full-page and four half-page etchings were bound into a new letterpress edition of Conrad’s novel, published in an edition of 300 copies for The Limited Editions Club. The volume was bound in Nigerian goatskin and its clamshell box is covered in black Italian cotton.

We are fortunate to have finally acquired a copy for Princeton.

The Washington Elm

This glass plate negative depicts the Washington Elm, a tree that grew on the Cambridge Common until 1923. A granite tablet, seen in these photographs, stood at the foot of the tree, inscribed with a text written by Henry W. Longfellow: Under this tree / Washington / first took command / of the / American Army / July 3d, 1775.

When the tree died and was removed in 1923, the plaque was replaced with a circular panel of cement that read: Here stood / the Washington Elm / under which / George Washington / took command of / the American Army / July 3 1775

The photographer was Henry Ewing Hale, Jr. (1869-1946, Princeton Class of 1892). In the summer between his freshman and sophomore year, Hale took a vacation to Cambridge, Massachusetts. He made the exposure for the glass negative on site at the Cambridge Commons and later, probably back in Princeton, made two positive prints, one in albumen and one in cyanotype. There are several other examples of Hale’s photography of Princeton buildings at Mudd Library.

Preparing to hang art in Firestone Library

Over the next month, works of art will be sited at various locations on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and A floors of the renovated Firestone Library. You will see images of the paintings moving around on the walls and along the corridors of our building. This way, we can work out the positions and sightlines before we bring in the actual oil paintings and sculpture. Take a look the next time you are at Firestone.
Soon, Edgar Allen Poe and his raven will be moving here, on the 2nd floor.
The sculpture needs special attention. New bases are being designed and built. Experts are examining each work to determine the correct placement and hardware needed to keep the work safe and secure.

More to come!

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A collection of books illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg, 1901-1990, Gift of Charles A. Perera (Class of 1926).

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943), The Devil & Daniel Webster. Now printed with an appreciation by Henry Seidel Canby and wood-engravings by Fritz Eichenberg. (Kingsport, Tenn.: Kingsport press [c1945]).

Emily Brontë (1818-1848), Wuthering Heights; illustrated with wood engravings by Fritz Eichenberg (New York: Random House, 1943). “This edition was planned by Richard Ellis and produced under his direction. … Printing and binding were by Kingsport Press at Kingsport, Tennessee”–T.p. verso.

Mark Van Doren (1894-1972), The Witch of Ramoth, and other tales. Illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg (York, Pa.: Maple Press Co., 1950). Keepsake series, v.8 “This edition consists of seventeen hundred numbered copies”–Colophon.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), Crime & Punishment. Translation by Constance Garnett (New York: Heritage Club 1938).

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), The Brothers Karamazov : a novel in 4 parts & epilog, translation by Constance Garnett (New York: Heritage Press, 1949, 1933).

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881), The Grand Inquisitor, reflections on the story by William Hubben. Illustrations by Fritz Eichenberg ([New York?]: Woman’s Press, 1948).

Fritz Eichenberg (1901-1990), Ape in a Cape: an Alphabet of Odd Animals (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1952).

Fritz Eichenberg (1901-1990), Art and Faith (Wallingford, Pa.: Pendle Hill, 1962).

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745), Gulliver’s Travels; an account of the four voyages into several remote nations of the world, illustrated with engravings on wood by Fritz Eichenberg (New York: Heritage press, 1940).

Terence Hanbury White (1906-1964), Mistress Masham’s Repose. Illustrations by Fritz Eichenberg (New York: G. P. Putnam’s sons, [1946]). Endpapers by Raymond Grath.

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