Nguta (active 2000s). [Hippopotamus, Tropical Birds ] and [Three Gazelles, Tropical Birds ]. [ca. 2006]. Enamel paint on muslin cloth. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2006.02320, Gift of John Delaney
The Graphic Arts Collection holds two examples from the Tingatinga (also spelt Tinga-tinga or Tinga Tinga) School of Painting, originally found in the Oyster Bay area in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) but later spread to most of East Africa. These are signed by the artist Nguta.
Sometimes relegated to the category of “tourist art” sold in markets and airports in Tanzania, Kenya and neighboring countries, the style was derived from Tanzanian painter Edward Said Tingatinga (active 1970s) who often used Masonite and commercial enamel paints for his work.
Today the Tingatinga Arts Cooperative Society (TACS) is a recognized collective but only represents a small number of the artists working in this style, see: www.tingatingaArt.com
Samuel Frost (1765-1793), The Confession and Dying Words of Samuel Frost, Who is to be Executed This Day, October 31, 1793, for the Horrid Crime of Murder (Worcester, Mass.: Printed by Isaiah Thomas, 1793). Signed in plate, lower right: “Printed and sold at Mr. Thomas’s Printing office, in Worcester.” Graphic Arts Collection GA 2012.02795
“Executions were pubic events in Worcester’s early days, attracting huge crowds and creating a carnival-like atmosphere. The hanging of Samuel Frost on November 5, 1793, was said to have drawn two thousand spectators. Frost had been tried for murdering his father in April 1784 but was acquitted on the grounds of insanity. Records don’t show whether he spent any time in confinement, but on July 16, 1793, he murdered his employer, Captain Elisha Allen of Princeton [Massachusetts], during an argument in a field on Allen’s farm. Frost struck him more than fifteen times with the blade of a hoe and left his body lying on the ground. This time there was no acquittal. At the trial, he was found sane and sentenced to death.” —Rachel Faugno, Murder & Mayhem in Central Massachusetts (2016).
sheet 52.5 x 43.7 cm.
“The first cemetery in Princeton [above] was the old burying ground on Meeting-House Hill across the road from the first church building, near 58 Mountain Road. In those early days the burying-ground (God’s Acre) was invariably an adjunct to God’s house. …Here is the grave Capt. Elisha Allen “foully murdered by Samuel Frost” in July, 1793, ten years after Frost had killed his own father. Formerly acquitted on the plea of insanity, the murderer this time paid the penalty for his crime, being hanged in Worcester on October 31, 1793.” —http://www.princetonmahistory.org/did-you-know-2/first-cemetery/
In honor of Ben Primer, and thanks to the Friends of the Princeton University Library, the Graphic Arts Collection has acquired a photography album owned by George Frederick Norton (1876-1917) documenting a hunting expedition in the American West and Alaska, ca. 1910. The album contains 117 mounted gelatin silver prints (slightly photoshopped here) and a few letters. Born in Kentucky, Norton attended the Lawrenceville School and served as a partner at the brokerage Ex Norton & Co. Our dealer continues:
However, his life’s passion was travel, adventure and big game. Norton made numerous trips to the west and Alaska on private hunting expeditions, including the one depicted in the present album, and collected and donated specimens (with a particular emphasis on bear skulls) to the American Museum of Natural History the Smithsonian and other institutions. Indeed in 1910, the Department of Agriculture granted him a permit to capture and ship Alaskan brown bears in excess of the bag limit.
In 1901, he journeyed around the world and in 1908 he helped finance the final Peary expedition to the North Pole, accompanying him aboard the ship Eric as far north as Etah, Greenland. During World War I, Norton would serve in the American Field Service, and would be killed in action in France.
Given the terrain and the fauna (moose, mountain lion, pronghorn antelope, elk), the expedition(s) seen in the album were likely to Montana, Idaho or Wyoming. However, given Norton’s many expeditions farther north, some of the images may also be from Alaska.
Carl Friedrich August Hochheimer (born 1749), Chemische Belustigungen. Oder Sammlung auserlesener Kunststücke, die zur Bewunderung und zum Vergnügen gereichen [Chemical amusements.Or a collection of exquisite tricks that make for admiration and pleasure] (Leipzig: Friedrich August Leo, 1794). 8vo. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process.
C.F.A. Hochheimer, who also wrote under the pseudonym Johann Daniel Hock (CERL Thesaurus https://data.cerl.org/thesaurus/cnp01229497 ), studied in Göttingen with Lichtenberg, then in Leipzig and Erlangen before accepting a lectureship in philosophy and chemistry. He was a prolific author whose books include an instruction manual on color; a handbook on chemistry for farmers, artists, and homemakers; secrets for artists, manufacturers, professionals, and craftsmen: Greek history; mineralogy; fossils; and now in the Graphic Arts Collection: a collection of chemical amusements, magic tricks, and illusions that can be performed by use of chemistry.
This is not a treatise on chemistry but a collection startling effects produced by chemical action, arranged in eight chapters:
1.Tricks with colors
2.Sympathetic inks (a fluid for producing writing that is invisible until brought out by heat, chemicals, etc.: invisible ink)
3.Tree of Diana, et al.
4.Phosphorus
5.Combustion experiments
6.Explosions
7.Gases
8.Miscellaneous experiments including Ingenhousz electrical pistol (originally published in Jan Ingenhousz (1730-1799), Nouvelles expériences et observations sur divers objets de physique (Paris: T. Barrois le jeune, 1785-1789).
“Electricity and chemistry were close partners in those days. Ingenhousz described the making and handling of electrical pistols fired by igniting inflammable gas, ways of obtaining that gas from swamps, ways of making lamps burning in inflammable gas, …”– Geerdt Magiels, From Sunlight to Insight: Jan IngenHousz, the Discovery of Photosynthesis & Science in the Light of Ecology (2010), p. 179.
Chemische Belustigungen should not be confused with the 1817 volume with the same title by Friedrich Christian Accum (1769–1838), which may have based on Hochheimer’s book. The 1802 treatise Dintenbuch; oder: Anweisung, alle schwarze, bunte und sympathetische Dinten zu verfertigen (Instructions on making black, colored, and sympathetic inks; only available at the New York Public Library), is an expanded study based on chapter 2, Invisible inks.
See also:
Giambattista della Porta (approximately 1535-1615), Natural magick in twenty books … wherein are set forth all the riches and delights of the natural sciences (London: Printed for Thomas Young and Samuel Speed …, 1658).
John White (died 1671), A Rich Cabinet, with Variety of Inventions: Unlock’d and Open’d, for the Recreation of Ingenious Spirits at their Vacant Hours. Being Receits and Conceits of Severall Natures, and Fit for Those Who Are Lovers of Natural and Artificial Conclusions . . . [Frontispiece by Thomas Cross, active 1632-1685]. Fourth edition, with many additions (London: printed for William Whitwood at the sign of the Golden Lion in Duck-Lane near Smith-field, 1668). Graphic Arts Collection GAX N-000210
On May 23, 1846, a crowd gathered in the Prater, a large public park in Vienna’s 2nd district. They watched as an enormous hot air balloon, known as The Eagle of Vienna, was launched carrying the director of Lehmann’s Aviation, Christian Lehmann, his daughter Carolina, and the Austrian explorer/naturalist Johann Natterer (1787-1843).
Variant prints are held in the collection of the Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. [see below]
Andreas Geiger (1765-1856), Lehmann’s Luftfahrt mit seinem Riesen Ballon ‘der Adler von Wien’ in Gesellschaft seiner Tochter Carolina und des Herrn Dr. Natterer im Prater am 23. Mai 1846,” [Lehmann’s aviation with its giant balloon ‘the eagle of Vienna’ in the company of his daughter Carolina and Dr. Natterer in the Prater on May 23, 1846]. Etching. A special pictures supplement to the Theaterzeitung (Vienna Theater Newspaper). Harold Fowler McCormick Collection of Aeronautica, Princeton University Library
Nothing about this edition of Edwin A. Abbott’s Flatlands is flat.
The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired “a fantastical satire set in a two dimensional world peopled by plane geometrical figures, & an early classic of science-fiction: Flatland, a romance of many dimensions by Edwin A. Abbott, with a new introduction by Ray Bradbury, produced in an accordion-fold format, with diagrams, unusual typographic arrangements, and handcolored cutout illustrations devised by Andrew Hoyem, & printed in an edition limited to 275 copies…”–prospectus.
“This book has been produced in a novel form to suit its extraordinary theme. The acordion-fold format, borrowed from oriental bookmaking, is here used to show the perspective of the plane-geometrical character who tells the story, A Square.
Thus, the volume will open out flat to display text and illustrations on a long, continuous sheet. The paper panels (rather than pages) are 7 by 14 inches, stretching to 33 feet per side. A pair of panels forms a square which can be held in th lap to read in the conventional manner of the occidental book. For the second half of the novel, the book must be turned over to read the backside. The volume can also be laid out on a table to expose several panels at once.
For display purposes, the accordion can stand upright, spread to zig-zag over small or large areas, or can be expanded to its full length for wall exhibition. …The covers are made of clear anodized aluminum with the title and the author’s symbolic square silkscreened in epoxy=resin ink for permanency.”
Original prospectus and advertising materials included.
“Y porque estamos vivos, Ismael,
aunque carguemos con la muerte
de los otros,
es que sigue sonando,
aquí en el alma,
esa campana de esperanza,
para ti,
para mí,
y todo el bonche…” Dinorah Marzán, Versado y de larga duración (1987)
“And because we are alive, Ismael,
even though we carry with the death
of others,
the bell of hope,
keeps sounding,
here, in our soul,
for you,
for me,
and for all of us…” Dinorah Marzán, Versado y de larga duración (1987)
The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired the facsimile reissue of the artists’ book written by Dinorah Marzán in 1987 mourning the Afro-Puerto Rican singer Ismael “Maelo” Rivera, edited by César Colón-Montijo, who has recently joined the Department of Spanish and Portuguese as a Presidential Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University.
Versado y de larga duración is a book and collection of loose items inside a cardboard album sleeve. On the cover is the reproduction of a portrait of Maelo, with an image of Dinorah and Maelo on the back cover. The Versado pages include a photocopied collage of verses, pictures of Maelo, images of virgins and saints, Calm Street, the Sacred Heart, and more. Rather than a box, the volume is housed in a painted paperbag.
Listen to: Rafael Cortijo, Baile con Cortijo y su combo con Ismael Rivera [sound recording] = Dance with Cortijo and his Combo with Ismael Rivera. Recorded in New York, January 10, 1958 ; and in Puerto Rico, February 14, 1958 (North Bergen, N.J. : Seeco, 1993). Mendel Music Library CD 35374
An earlier blog post incorrectly described University policy for acquiring material. PUL supports and follows the University’s policy on supplier diversity.
Pull my daisy [videorecording] / a G-String Enterprise, Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie present ; written and narrated by Jack Kerouac (Göttingen : Steidl, c2012). 2 videodiscs (28 min. each) : sd., b&w ; 4 3/4 in. + 2 booklets. Directed and produced by Alfred Leslie and Robert Frank ; story and idea by Jack Kerouac ; edited by Robert Frank, Alfred Leslie, and Leon Prochnik ; music by David Amram. Participant(s)/Performer(s): Mooney Peebles (Richard Bellamy), Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky, Larry Rivers, Beltiane (Delphine Seyrig), David Amram, Alice Neel, Sally Gross.
Based on a scene from Jack Kerouac’s play, “Beat Generation,” with his improvised voice-over narration. The story centers around a brakeman and his wife, their friends, and a bishop who is invited over for dinner. Videodisc release of the 1959 short film. Includes two booklets that contain some of the content from the book about the film published originally by Grove Press in 1961, and reissued in 2008 by Steidl. The first booklet ([27] p. : ill. ; 18 cm.) contains lyrics to the song, an essay by Jerry Tallmer, and the text of Kerouac’s narration. The second booklet ([52] p. : ill. ; 18 cm.) contains photographs taken by John Cohen during the production of the film.
One of the many artists to reinterpret Gilbert Stuart’s 1796 portrait of George Washington [above] was Peter Frederick Rothermel (1817-1895) who painted a variant oil on canvas in the 1800s. Engraver Alexander Hay Ritchie (1822-1895) turned Rothermel’s portrait into a rich mezzotint [top right], published in 1852 by R.A. Bachia and Company in New York City and elsewhere. Rather than a gesturing right hand, Washington rests his hand on a generic book.
Book and print seller John Dainty had a shop at 15 S. 6th Street in Philadelphia where he sold decorative oval engravings and portraits of well-known Americans. Dainty published a variation on Ritchie’s mezzotint entitled Washington as a Mason, dressing him in a masonic collar, jewel, and apron. His right hand now holds a book titled Ancient Masonic Constitutions, and his left hand holds a gavel upon a pedestal. The print is not dated but ca. 1860.
A.H. Ritchie after Peter F. Rothermel after Gilbert Stuart, Washington as a Mason, ca.1860. Mezzotint with engraving. George Washington Collection box 3, Graphic Arts
Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Paul Revere were also Masons. Washington entered the Fraternity of Freemasons in 1752 at the age of twenty:
“On Saturday evening, November the fourth, 1752, in the little village of Fredericksburg, in England’s ancient and loyal Colony and Dominion of Virginia, at a regular stated meeting of “the Lodge at Fredericksburg,” held in its Lodge-room, in the second story of the Market-House, Major George Washington was made an Entered Apprentice Mason.” — Proceedings of the right worshipful Grand lodge of the most Ancient and honorable fraternity of free and accepted masons of Pennsylvania: and masonic jurisdiction thereunto belonging, at its celebration of the sesqui-centennial anniversary of the initiation of Brother George Washington into the fraternity of freemasons (Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, 1902).
Nguta (active 2000s). [Hippopotamus, Tropical Birds ] and [Three Gazelles, Tropical Birds ]. [ca. 2006]. Enamel paint on muslin cloth. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2006.02320, Gift of John Delaney
The Graphic Arts Collection holds two examples from the Tingatinga (also spelt Tinga-tinga or Tinga Tinga) School of Painting, originally found in the Oyster Bay area in Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) but later spread to most of East Africa. These are signed by the artist Nguta.
