Author Archives: Julie Mellby

José Angel Toirac’s “Parables”

“Parables, with Cuban artist José Angel Toirac and writer Robert Glück, is an extension of Toirac’s life project of examining how the Cuban State has used press imagery to manufacture consent and sell the Revolution which Fidel lead in 1959,” writes Loring McAlpin, ’83. “It’s a sumptuous book meant to be a scripture for Fidel and the Cuban Revolution.”

You may have missed the evening last spring at The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS), Harvard University, where Toirac, Glück, and McAlpin present their limited edition, fine press book gathering photographs from magazines and newspapers like Granma, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, and re-purposing the Cuban Revolution as a Gospel, a new religion with a new scripture.

But you can still catch them if you happen to be in Washington D.C. in October 2018, when artists Meira Marrero, Loring McAlpin, and José Angel Toirac will join in a conversation about Parables with Michelle Bird at National Gallery of Art. https://www.nga.gov/calendar/lectures/lectures-signings/parables-the-conversation.html
 


They note:

Parables (the project/exhibition) by Meira Marrero and José Angel Toirac is a collection of 33 photographs of Cuban life published by the official Cuban press. Sources range from magazines and newspapers like Granma, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, to books on the history of the revolution. These photographs constitute a narrative of the Cuban Revolution as well as a retelling of the Gospels, with Fidel Castro performing the life of Christ from his childhood in Nazareth to his ascension into Heaven. Just as Christianity appropriated pagan festivals, the Cuban state has incorporated biblical stories into its narrative of the Revolution. Christian expressions have been fashioned into official slogans such as “these are the days to unite.”

In Parables the religious roots of this idolatry are exposed. Poet, fiction writer, editor, and New Narrative theorist Robert Glück was invited to write the “scripture” accompanying these images, as if compelled by the faith they conveyed, without mention of either Fidel or Jesus. Parables (the book) is a limited-edition artist book of 33 parables, each with a corresponding image, designed by Cynthia Madansky and Loring McAlpin.

In Fidel’s Shadow: Cuban History (and Futures), One Year On

 

José Angel Toirac, Meira Marrero, and Robert Glück, Parables, design by Cynthia Madansky and Loring McAlpin ([New York?]: Faithful Castle Press, 2017). Graphic Arts Collection 2018 in process.

 

Des Systématiques and other Caricatures Politiques

In this rare 1798 edition of political caricatures, recently acquired by the Graphic Arts Collection, five classes of Republicans are pictured and described. The humor of the texts, written and possibly also drawn by Antoine Joseph, comte de, Barruel-Beauvert (1756-1817)–cousin of Rivarol, editor in 1791 of the monarchical newspaper Acts of Apostles–is not easily translated but presents: l’Indépendant, l’Acheté, l’Enrichi, l’Exclusif, le Systématique.

 


Note that in 1850, Barruel-Beauvert is described as an author of political pamphlets of no merit:

BARRUEL-BEAUVERT, (Antoine Joseph, comte de,) born at the castle of Beauvert, in Languedoc, in 1756, of a family of Scottish origin, was by profession a soldier, and rendered himself in some little degree remarkable by his loyalty during the French revolution, but much more so by his vanity and selfconceit. Although constantly on the list of persons proscribed, he still contrived to remain in Paris undiscovered by the police till 1800, when he was imprisoned, but obtained his liberty in 1802. After the restoration, his disappointment at not receiving the rewards and honours which he imagined to be his due, led him to publish several pamphlets, for which he was obliged to leave Paris, and went to Italy. He died at Turin 1817. He was the author of many political pamphlets, of no merit. (Biog. Univ. Suppl.)

–Hugh James Rose, New General Biographical Dictionary, Vol. 3 (1850).

Riez-en si vous voulez…, mais surtout ne vous en fâchez point = Laugh at it, if you want… but don’t forget the point.

 

Antoine Joseph, comte de Barruel-Beauvert (1756-1817), Caricatures politiques ([Paris?], an VI [i.e. 1798]). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process

See another rare copy without color: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1257218.image

Welcome Visiting Scholars and Artists from Puerto Rico


The Graphic Arts Collection welcomed the second of two groups from the 2018 visiting scholars and artists from Puerto Rico (VISAPUR) together with their hosts Alma Concepción and Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones.

The Program in Latin American Studies (PLAS) is hosting members of the academic and artistic communities of Puerto Rico as visitors at Princeton University this summer. This effort aims to provide relief to scholars, students, and artists affected by the catastrophic aftermath of hurricanes Irma and Maria by allowing them to continue their work at Princeton on a temporary basis. The VISAPUR program provides a range of support including a stipend to cover living expenses, office space, access to libraries and other scholarly material, and an opportunity to engage with colleagues at Princeton.

The program is sponsored and managed by PLAS and the Office of the Provost, with the endorsement of the Princeton Task Force on Puerto Rico. Additional support has been provided by the Firestone Library, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Department of Music, American Studies Program, Program in Dance, Princeton Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism & the Humanities, Lewis Center for the Arts, Office of the Dean of the Faculty, Office of the Dean of the College, Graduate School, Office of the Registrar, and the Housing and Real Estate Services office.

Special thanks to professor emeritus Arcadio Díaz Quiñones, former PLAS director and professor of Spanish and Portuguese, for his leadership and commitment to the project.

As we were looking at programs designed by Lorenzo Homar, we found a photograph of Alma Concepción when she was dancing with the Ballets de San Juan in 1954. A former soloist with the San Juan Ballet and Antonio’s Ballet of Spain, she received her early training in Puerto Rico followed by study in New York at the School of American Ballet and at American Ballet Theatre. Ms. Concepcion is the founder of Taller de Danza, a children’s movement and dance grassroots organization based in Trenton. She is also a member of the Society of Dance History Scholars and has written many articles, mainly on Caribbean music and dance.

Here are a few of the prints, drawings, and printed books we enjoyed:

Plenas: 12 grabados de Lorenzo Homar y Rafael Tufiño; introducción por Tomás Blanco; diseño de Irene Delano. San Juan, P.R., Editorial Caribe, 1955. Copy 540. Graphic Arts Collection Oversize NE585.H66 A4 1955q

Rafael Tufino (1922-2008), Elmer Adler Homenaje [Poster from memorial exhibition at the Gallery Fundador de la Casa del Libro]. Graphic Arts Collection

Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004) [Sketchbook created during Homar’s army days in Korea during World War II]. 1945. Pencil and pen drawings. Graphic Arts Collection

Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004), Pablo Casals, 1955. Inscribed in ink along right margin: ‘Offset lithography BUT: The experiment went like this: I silkscreen black ink over an acetate sheet (clear). Then, over a light table I scratched this head of Don Pablo thus making a negative. When exposed over a sens.” Graphic Arts Collection

Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004), El Maestro // [The Master], 1972. Includes two quotations from speeches given by Pedro Albizu Campos (1891-1965) in 1930. Graphic Arts Collection

Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004), Alma, 1983. Graphic Arts Collection

Tomás Blanco, Tres estrofas de amor para soprano; musica de Pablo Casals; illustrada en serigrafia por Lorenzo Homar (San Juan, P.R.: Galeria Calibri, 1970). Copy no. 26. “La edicion consta de 150 ejemplares firmados y numerados en papel “Arches” asi distribuidos : del uno al cien en numeros arabicos; veinte ejemplares, del uno al veinte en numeros romanos … ” Graphic Arts Collection

Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004), Sala fray Bartolome de Las Casas, 1992. Carved woodblock. GA 2007.04029. Gift of Princeton University’s Program in Latin American Studies.

Salmos, versos de Ernesto Cardenal; grabados de Antonio Martorell (San Juan de Puerto Rico: Martorell, 1971). “Esta selección de versos … impresosá mano … en papel japonés “Okawara” caligrafiados individualmente firmados y numerados por el grabador en edición limitada a 200 ejemplares se comenzó a imprimir el 18 de octubre de 1971 en el Taller Alacrán.” Princeton copy is no. 24. Graphic Arts Collection Oversize 2006-0078F

Luis Palés Matos, Puerta al tiempo en tres voces; grabados de Consuelo Gotay (Puerto Rico: Taller de las Plumas, 1998). “Edición limitada a 35 ejemplares y 10 pruebas de artista.”–Colophon. “Textos: Arcadio Díaz Quin̂ones.” Graphic Arts Collection Oversize 2006-0221Q

Luis Palés Matos, Esta noche he pasado; xilografías Raquel Noemi Quijano Feliciano (San Juan, Puerto Rico : Taller El Polvorín, 2003). Copy: No. 6. Graphic Arts Collection Oversize 2006-0076E

Brian O’Doherty/The Structural Plays

The Graphic Arts Collection received its new copy of Brian O’Doherty/Structural Plays, published by Stoney Road Press, with both pleasure and sadness yesterday. James O’Nolan, co-director of Stoney Road, passed away in July 2018 and so, this will be the last of his beautifully printed books.

Based in Dublin, Stoney Road Press is the only independent commercially run fine art print studio in Ireland. An obituary for O’Nolan, published in The Irish Times, July 21, 2018, was titled “Printmaker who made his mark as an artist. His enduring legacy is as a teacher and mentor, and as an interpreter across different media for some of the country’s most distinguished contemporary artists.”

In his work with his business partner David O’Donoghue at the Stoney Road Press (SRP) in Dublin since 2001, James O’Nolan created an internationally renowned fine print press, counting among its clients some of the most prominent names in contemporary Irish art, and setting a globally appreciated standard of excellence which has seen its products displayed in leading galleries throughout Ireland, the UK and the US.

O’Nolan, who has died aged 65 from injuries sustained while cycling in inner-city Dublin, was a self-taught printmaker, and made his mark as an artist in woodblock and carborundum, examples of which are held in public collections such as the National College of Art and Design and the Arts Council. They are described by James Hanley, Keeper of the Royal Hibernian Academy, as having “an intellectual purity of geometric and colour-filled abstraction.” …In his eulogy at O’Nolan’s Humanist funeral service in Dublin this month, Hanley gave a pointed example of this in practice: “Thirty odd years ago, one student [of O’Nolan’s] vacillated and said she had picked textiles, but really wanted to do fine art. James told her firmly, ‘Go . . . and change to fine art.’ The art student concerned was Rachel Joynt, today one of Ireland’s greatest sculptors.”

…O’Nolan came from a particularly renowned Irish family. His father, Kevin, was a Professor of Ancient Classics at University College, Dublin and one of his uncles was Brian O’Nolan, the writer Flann O’Brien, aka the satirist Myles na gCopaleen, columnist with this newspaper. His mother, Maureen Dwyer, who died when he was aged six, was the matron at Glenstal Abbey School where her husband was teaching when James was born. Kevin O’Nolan later remarried, his second spouse being Marie O’Connell, a noted novelist of the period.

“In re-publishing the Structural Plays,” wrote O’Nolan, “the primary aim was to gather them together in one place, a sort of textbook from which they could be enjoyed, read together, or used as a blueprint to re-create the performances. The original notations are included at the bottom of each. These, together with Brian’s notes on the plays, provide a clear account of how the plays might be performed today.” To page through a digital version, see: https://issuu.com/stoneyroadpress/docs/brian_odoherty_structural_plays-iss


Brian O’Doherty is quoted as saying, “The Ogham Drawings, which preoccupied me for over twenty years, look like drawings, behave like drawings, can be seen as drawings, are drawings, but they also have a voice, that is, they can be spoken and performed. Vowel Grid is a performed drawing.” Many of the structural plays are inspired by Ogham script–an ancient Celtic translation of the Roman alphabet into a writing system of 20 linear characters.

An artist and a teacher, O’Doherty exhibited at Documenta and the Venice Biennale; served as director of both the visual arts and film and media programs at the National Endowment for the Arts; taught film and art criticism at Barnard College and Long Island University; and has written two works of fiction, The Strange Case of Mademoiselle P. and The Deposition of Father McGreevy, which was nominated for the Booker Prize in 2000. He received the College Art Association’s Mather Award for art criticism in 1965 and was a visiting scholar at the Getty Research Institute in 2009–2010.

 

 

Maria Philippina Küsel’s Angels

Johann Ulrich Krauss (1645-1719), Biblisches Engel-Werck: alles das jenige Was in Heiliger Göttlicher Schrifft Altes und Neuen Testaments Von den Heiligen Engeln Gottes Dero Erscheinungen, Verrichtungen, Bottschafften, Gesandschafften, auf mancherley Art und Weise aus Göttlicher Verodnung zu finden ist … ; In zierlichen Kupffern, mit beygefügten Teutschen Erklärungs- und Andachts Reimen vorstellend... [Biblical Angel-Work: all that which is in Holy Divine Scripture Old and New Testaments of the Holy Angels of God, the apparitions, works, bouquets, ministries, in some ways from divine order are to be found …; In dainty cupids, together with German descriptive and devotional rhymes…] (Augspurg: Gedruckt bey Johann Jakob Lotter, [ca. 1705-1710]). 15 cm.

 

Many academic collections including Princeton hold a copy of Johann Ulrich Krauss’s late 17th-century emblem book of angels but our recently acquired miniature edition (seen here) is extremely rare.

At 15 cm or approximately 6 inches, all the plates have been redrawn and newly engraved for the tiny hands of children. In both editions, the frontispiece and 31 plates were made by Maria Philippina Küsel (born 1676), a member of the celebrated German family of engravers. The daughter of Melchior Küsel I and the niece of Matthäus Küsel, she and her sisters, Maria Magdalene Küsel and Johanna Sibylla Küsel, were admired for their designs and for their technique in copper plate engraving. See volume 20, Hollstein’s German Etchings, Engravings & Woodcuts 1400-1700. Maria Magdalena Küsel to Johann Christoph Laidig (Amsterdam, Van Gendt, 1977). This volume includes Maria Magdalena Küsel (1683-1707), Maria Philippina Küsel (born 1676), Matthäus Küsel (1629-1681), and other family members.

Nina Musinsky has researched this rare volume and writes:

The original Biblisches Engel- u[nd] Kunst Werck, the first of his religious publications, used an innovative visual presentation, which Krauss would follow in his vast Historische Bilder-Bibel (1698-1700): in the uppermost portion of each of the 34 engravings was a large Biblical scene in rectangular format, while the lower half contained a smaller, related scene within ornamental borders. The explanatory caption and 12-line German poem were engraved at the top and between the two parts of the engravings.

In this “baby” edition, the explanatory text for each plate, which reprints the original engraved text, is printed in letterpress on the facing page. The preliminaries are the same, except that this edition replaces the dedication to Kaiser Leopold with a rather humbler dedication to children, a 7-page Vorrede und Zuschrift an die Gott- und Tugend- liebende zarte Kinder-]ugend, in which Krauss declares his desire to plant the seeds of pious habits in children and youth.

Other than the frontispiece, Kusel’s fine engravings modify the plates of the larger edition in various ways. First, they contain no engraved text. Secondly, Kusel’s adaptations of the upper scenes usually eliminate some architectural or background detail, and select salient details to focus on. Most, but not all, are in reverse. In the lower portions are one to five roundels (occasionally overlapping) on unadorned backgrounds, without the elaborate rococo borders of the original plates, the roundels containing an adaptation of the religious scenes shown in the original engraving, once or twice including a new scene not in the original (e.g., plate 10).

Plate wear shows that this edition post-dates the only other known edition of the plates, printed by Johann Christoph Wagner, ca. 1700, for Krauss. This edition is not to be confused with the 1702 edition of the entire Historische Bilder-Bibel, including the Engel- Werck, which contained smaller reversed copies of the original plates, including the engraved text, also by Maria Philippina Kusel and by her sister Johanna Sibylla Krauss. That 1702 edition (of which the Bavarian State Library is digitized) is much larger than this one, the engravings are different, and it includes no letterpress text; nor was it explictly intended for children, as is this one.

See also Johann Ulrich Krauss (1645-1719), Biblisches Engel- u. Kunst Werck: alles das jenige, was in Heiliger Göttlicher Schrifft Altes und Neuen Testaments von den heiligen Engeln Gottes … zu finden ist … in zierlichen Kupffern, mit beygefügten Teutschen Erklarungs und Andachts- Reimen vorstellend: mit Fleiss zusammen getragen, in Kupfer gestochen und verlegt / von Johann Ulrich Krause … [Biblical Angels and Art Work: all that is to be found in the Holy Divine Scripture of the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Angels of God … in dainty cupids, with attached German explanatory and devotional rhymes presented: together with diligence, engraved in copper by Johann Ulrich Krause] (Augsburg: [Johann Ulrich Krauss], 1694). 35 cm. Rare Books Oversize NE654.K81 A2q

Diploma Scherzoso


The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired this satirical diploma or certificate from the University of Big Noses. Note the empty spaces where we can fill in your name, should it apply.

The document states, it has come to our attention that certain people are carrying inappropriate noses on their faces. All such men and women are to go to the town square (Piazza Bottom), where disproportionate schnozzolas will be ground down to size.

The etcher is Pietro Ridolfi, who was active between 1710 and 1716, although this print has several earlier dates.

 

See left: no. 1247 in Zotti Minici, Le stampe popolari dei Remondini (Vicenza: Neri Pozza, c1994). Marquand Library NE659.2 .Z677 1994

Noi Macrobio Culaccione visitatore generale dell’ Università de Nasi Grossi indecenti nappioni smisurati dinutili difformati e sproportionati auditore di male lingue e maldicenti consultore della Congregatione de Gossi, protettore de buffoni magri, &c. in Bassano per Gioseppe Remondini [18th-cent.] Quarto bifolium, each leaf 220 x 162, each inside page with one engraved plate (158 x 128 within platemarks).

 
See a copy that has been hand colored: http://www.lombardiabeniculturali.it/stampe/schede/H0110-16026/

The Photogravures of the American Realists

[left] John Sloan, “The Toymaker Sounded a Bacchic Refrain,” photogravure from drawing, v.3, p.66 in Paul de Kock (1793-1871), The Works of Charles Paul de Kock (Boston, MA: Frederick J. Quinby Co., 1902-1904). ReCAP 3261.28.2902

 

 

In 1904, William Glackens (1870-1938) was one of several artists commissioned to illustrate a set of the 19th-century French novels of Charles Paul de Kock, translated into English for the Frederick J. Quinby Company of Boston. The plan was to produce fifty volumes in a variety of editions from deluxe to less expensive. When Glackens realized the extent of the project, he contacted his friends John Sloan (1871-1951) and George Benjamin Luks (1867-1933), who were also hired by the Quinby firm.

William Glackens, “Here are Your Trousers,” photogravure from drawing, v.16, p.7 in Paul de Kock (1793-1871), The Works of Charles Paul de Kock (Boston, MA: Frederick J. Quinby Co., 1902-1904). ReCAP 3261.28.2902

 

Some volumes include the work of several artists, while other novels were reserved for only one. Both etchings and drawings were created and editioned under the direction of the artist before being shipped to Boston. The drawings were primarily reproduced as high-end photogravures, quite an extravagance for such a large series. Eventually the publisher fell behind on payments to the artists and finally declared bankruptcy in 1907, long before all fifty volumes were completed.

John Sloan, “In Vain Did Dupont Shout, ‘Stop! Stop!” etching, v.4, p.224 in Paul de Kock (1793-1871), The Works of Charles Paul de Kock (Boston, MA: Frederick J. Quinby Co., 1902-1904). ReCAP 3261.28.2902

John Sloan, “The Violin Mounted the Counter, The Hunting-Horn Seated Himself Upon the Loaves of Sugar, the Clarinet Upon a Keg of Glue, and the Fife Upon a Barrel of Molasses,” etching, v.4 frontispiece in Paul de Kock (1793-1871), The Works of Charles Paul de Kock (Boston, MA: Frederick J. Quinby Co., 1902-1904). ReCAP 3261.28.2902

 

Both Sloan and Glackens had their etchings editioned by the Peters Brothers in Philadelphia, following the bon à tirer each artist had approved. The photogravures were probably printed by the F. A. Ringler company in New York City.

“F. A. Ringler Company, at 21 and 23 Barclay Street and 26 and 28 Park Place, is called the largest printing-plate establishment in the world. …. The company’s building has over 25,000 square feet of floor space, where 175 skilled employees are engaged. Adjoining the office is the art department, where designs for all kinds of illustrations are made. Above is the electrotyping foundry, for which a whole floor, 50 x 175 feet, is used, and every conceivable invention for the perfect production of duplicate plates. . . . Above is the photoengraving department, in which the half-tone, zinc and copper etchings, and the general processes of engraving are conducted. Eight of the largest cameras, each operated by a separate artist, are required to keep up with the orders. –Kings Handbook of New York City (New York: M. King, 1893). Volume 1.

In 1910 John Quinn purchased a complete set of the etchings Sloan made for the de Kock series, paying (according to Sloan’s diary) $250. Helen Sloan noted that after Quinn’s death the artist bought back the whole collection from Quinn’s estate for $300.

George B. Luks, “Marie-Jeanne … Listened and Waited,” etching, v.22, p.82 in Paul de Kock (1793-1871), The Works of Charles Paul de Kock (Boston, MA: Frederick J. Quinby Co., 1902-1904). ReCAP 3261.28.2902

George B. Luks, “The Dear Husband … Fell Down … and Found Himself on Top of Gustave,” photogravure from drawing, v.22, p.45 in Paul de Kock (1793-1871), The Works of Charles Paul de Kock (Boston, MA: Frederick J. Quinby Co., 1902-1904). ReCAP 3261.28.2902

 

William Glackens, “Edmond Rose and Walked about the Room,” photogravure from drawing, v.20, p.23 in Paul de Kock (1793-1871), The Works of Charles Paul de Kock (Boston, MA: Frederick J. Quinby Co., 1902-1904). ReCAP 3261.28.2902

William Glackens, “By Jove! Everybody Was Fighting, and I Did Like the Others,” etching, v.20 frontispiece in Paul de Kock (1793-1871), The Works of Charles Paul de Kock (Boston, MA: Frederick J. Quinby Co., 1902-1904). ReCAP 3261.28.2902

 

The Longest Painting in America

Longer than the Empire State Building is tall. Longer than three Statues of Liberty. Longer than fourteen blue whales. The Grand Panorama of a Whaling Voyage ‘Round the World is on view at Kilburn Mill, New Bedford, until October. https://nbwm.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=19513a5d13964a48aa9d00973c8a9674

All 1,275 feet of the panorama are currently on exhibit for the first time in generations, authentically depicting a whaling voyage originating from the port of New Bedford in the mid-19th century. Two years in the making, the narrative work was completed around 1848 in five rolls by New Bedford artists Caleb Purrington and Benjamin Russell, who traveled it around the country as a commercial enterprise.

The first four of Purrington and Russell’s rolls have been conserved and installed to the public thanks to the New Bedford Whaling Museum. https://www.whalingmuseum.org/programs/spectacle-motion-grand-panorama-whaling-voyage-round-world/

The location of the fifth and final section is unknown but hopefully the publicity this display receives will lead to the discovered of the last section.

 

Benjamin Russell lost his money in a banking scandal and signed on to a whaling ship that took him around the world. This is the trip he depicts, with a few historical events added throughout. Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life are just a few of the literary sources referenced in the painting.


The four cotton rolls are hanging thanks to hundreds of magnets so that no damage will be done to the actual painting, and so that the entire display can travel if another venue is found somewhere around the country. Until then, the panorama has been digitized and can be viewed here: https://nbwm.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=19513a5d13964a48aa9d00973c8a9674

See also: Allan Forbes, Whale ships and whaling scenes as portrayed by Benjamin Russell. Presenting reproductions in color of the paintings of the foremost artist in that field edited by Ralph M. Eastman, assisted by K.G. Rogers (Boston: Second Bank-State Street Trust Co., 1955). Forrestal Annex ND237.R86 F7

Shahn’s Jersey Homesteads Mural


Twenty minutes east of Princeton is the Jersey Homesteads (now called Roosevelt) created to resettle Jewish garment workers living in tenements in New York and Philadelphia. Each family accepted into the community was charged $500 and approximately 200 took advantage of the opportunity to live in government designed houses outside the city.

Many artists have been attracted to the area, beginning with Ben Shahn (1898-1969) and his partner (later wife) Bernarda Bryson (1903-2004). Shahn was invited to create a mural for the school and between 1937 and 38, Ben and Bernarda completed a 45-foot fresco depicting the history of the Jersey Homesteads. By 1947, the government begun selling the houses, first to their residents, then to outsiders. Shahn and Bryson rented a home for several years, finding it hard to give up their NYC apartment, but eventually moved to Roosevelt full-time.

The Shahn mural begins at the left with Jewish immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, featuring portraits of Shahn’s mother, Raphael Soyer, Albert Einstein, and Charles Steinmetz. The center section is filled with the crowded sweatshops and tenements where residents used to live, and the far right shows the planning and development of the Roosevelt cooperative factory and farms. Among the recognizable figures are the architect Alfred Kastner, Heywood Broun, Rexford Guy Tugwell, Senator Robert Wagner, Sidney Hillman, and John Brophy.

Bust of Roosevelt by Jonathan Shahn, located a short distance from the school.

 

Generations of Artists: Roosevelt, NJ from Princeton Community Television on Vimeo.

Art Across the Gutter

The Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University holds the drawing “Ringside Seats” by George Bellows (1882-1925), which caused tremendous headaches for the artist when Collier’s magazine [ReCAP Oversize 0901.C711q] used it to illustrate the story “Chins of the Fathers” by Jonathan Brooks in the May 3, 1924 issue.

Bellows was promised $400 for this single drawing in graphite, black chalk, pastel and lithographic crayon along with scratchwork and stumping on smooth surfaced multi-ply cream wove paper. However, Collier‘s reproduced it as a double-page spread, the gutter slicing the single picture into two, along with cropping it on the right and in the middle. Bellows was furious.

Bellows sent the magazine a new invoice charging $800 for two drawings. As transcribed in Charles Morgan’s George Bellows Painter of America (1979), he continued:

“If there were any way of suing you for libel on the reproductions I would do so. To trim, cut, and otherwise mutilate an artist’s work is quite analogous to misrepresentation before the public, in this case going as far as criminal libel… It is time for publishers to be taught a lesson on this score for their guidance on the rare occasions when they deal with the work of serious artists.”

“…Not only have you shown the worst of taste, and a total lack of consideration for me, you are also guilty of [a snide trick.] Sanding the sugar, watering the milk, stretching one into two. Instead of appearing then before the public as having created one beautiful drawing, in which the proportion of light and shade was basic, I am shown by you as having made two rotten drawings in which [with] your trimming and cutting light and shade is completely destroyed. I therefore intend at least to be paid for the “two” rotten drawings, as per contract…”

Bellows hired Judge Van Slyke and sued the magazine, while continuing to work on an oil painting after the drawing. On July 14, Van Slyke sent a telegram “Defendant’s motion of Judgment denied, Judge holding that your picture was mutilated, its artistic merit destroyed and that our action for libel is maintainable. Congratulations!”

Sadly, Bellows died of peritonitis on January 8, 1925, resulting from a ruptured appendix, never seeing the lawsuit to its close.

George Wesley Bellows, Ringside Seats, 1924. Graphite and chalk drawing. Fogg Art Museum, Harvard Art Museums

George Wesley Bellows, Ringside Seats, 1924. Oil on Canvas. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution.