Category Archives: Acquisitions

new acquisitions

Marketing the Black Panther Party

Back cover and front cover

Black Panther Party National Distribution Brochure (San Francisco: [Black Panther Party], 1971). Single folded leaf [ca. 4 pp.] showing posters, pin-back buttons, LPs, and other Panthers’ ephemera, along with an order coupon. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process.

A scarce piece of Black Panther ephemera was recently acquired by the Graphic Arts Collection. The fold-out poster is also a sales catalogue for the various buttons, booklets, and other materials promoting the Black Panther Party. Primarily designed by the Party’s Minister of Information Emory Douglas (born 1943), these symbols helped to spread the organization’s message worldwide. The video below presents Douglas talking about the use of the panther icon and the development of other visual materials that were so important to the promotion of their organization:

This website offers an interesting page on the many women of the Black Panther movement, who are often overshadowed by the men: click here. Also on this site are many free downloads of Black Panther Party memorabilia. The material is useful for such diverse classes as “Global Algeria in the 20th Century: Beyond France and Fanon” or “Poetry in the Political & Sexual Revolution of the 1960s & 70s,” described here:

“What does artistic production look like during a time of cultural unrest? How did America’s poets help shape the political landscape of the American 60s and 70s, decades that saw the rise of the Black Panthers, ‘Flower Power,’ and Vietnam War protests? Through reading poetry, studying films and engaging with the music of the times we will think about art’s ability to move the cultural needle and pose important questions about race, gender, class, and sexuality.”

Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther, Un Film de William Klein

Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther, Un Film de William Klein (Paris: Imprimerie Speciale Capital Films, n.d. [1970]). Photomechanical poster. Unknown designer. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2020- in process

Filmed nonstop for three days by director/cinematographer William Klein (born 1928) on site in Algeria, this low budget film follows Eldridge Cleaver (1935-1998) after leaving the United States. When it was released in London, the Guardian noted, “Cleaver, on film as in life, is a complex mixture of profound political insight, socially crystallized ghetto cultural patterns and a multifaceted human personality.”

“When in Algiers to film the Pan-African Cultural Festival in 1969, Klein met Eldridge Cleaver, the Black Panther Party’s Minister of Information, in exile after being charged with murder in the United States and now invited by the Algerian authorities to take part officially in the Festival with his African-American Information Center. Klein is fascinated by this charismatic and controversial figure, openly advocating the use of violence by the Black Panthers as a legitimate revolutionary practice, and at the same time involved in humanitarian activities and an international solidarity network bringing together activists from Cuba to Africa to Vietnam. The documentary portrays Cleaver’s manifold personality against his daily life in Algiers, as he talks to Klein and to other Festival delegates about American society, the war in Vietnam and the ongoing struggles for independence and civil rights across the continents.”

A short selection from Eldridge Cleaver, Black Panther by William Klein, Algeria / France 1970, 35mm transferred to digiBeta, 75 min, English and French with English subtitles

I Am Somebody!

Herb Bruce, I Am Somebody! ([Chicago]: Gráfica Studios / Charisma Chain Inc., 1970). Poster printed with fluorescent inks on coated paper. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process

Herb Bruce

The African American artist and illustrator Herbert “Herb” Bruce designed this Day-Glo poster, as well as “Free Angela [Davis]” and “Cosmic Lady [Janis Joplin]” for Grafica studio, a division of Charisma Chain inc., Chicago, Illinois. He was also a contributing artist at the Johnson Publishing Company, founded by the African-American businessman John H. Johnson, whose Chicago headquartered published Ebony and Black World magazines, with drawings by Bruce in both.

The text is by Reverend Dr. William Holmes Borders (1905-1993), who served as pastor at Wheat Street Baptist Church on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, Georgia, for over 50-years. Thanks to his radio addresses, he became a nationally known orator, writer, political activist, and preacher.

“Rev. Border utilized his platform to help African-Americans wherever he best could. For example, when four African-Americans were cruelly lynched in Monroe, Ga, he raised over $11,000 in community fundraising to go to cover their funeral expenses. Most notably, on January 10, 1957, near the beginning of Civil Rights era, Borders and five other protesters were arrested for violating bus segregation. Their protest directly led to the desegregation of buses in Atlanta.”

“During his time serving as a pastor, Rev. Dr. William Borders produced over 7 books of prayers and sermons, most famous is his poem, “I am Somebody” that was requested over 8,000 nationwide and was later used by Rev. Jesse Jackson during the Civil Rights era.” — https://www.sweetauburnworks.com/honoring-the-legacy-of-rev-william-holmes-borders-the-borders-family/

In 1970, a documentary film was released titled “I Am Somebody,” by Madeline Anderson, following black female hospital workers in Charleston, South Carolina who went on strike for union recognition and a wage increase. Andrew Young, Charles Abernathy, and Coretta Scott King are included in the film, which was recently inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Film Archive and preserved by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. While the poster is not directly related to the film, Borders’ poem from the 1940s was revived in these several ways in 1970.

Afrikan Liberation Day

May 25, 2020 was the 62nd anniversary of Afrikan Liberation Day (ALD), which started out as Africa Freedom Day (AFD) in 1958 at the Conference of Independent Afrikan States in Accra, Ghana (thanks to Ajamu Nangwaya for these facts). “The anti-colonial and decolonization process progressed to such an extent that there were thirty-two independent states on May 25, 1963 when the Organization of Afrikan Unity (OAU) was created and it renamed Afrika Freedom Day as Afrikan Liberation Day.” The African Union (AU) replaced the OAU in 2002, under the leadership of the Assembly of the African Union, “a semi-annual meeting of the heads of state and government of its member states.”

Variously called African Unity Day, Afrikan Liberation Day, and Africa Day, the event is celebrated globally as a day of remembrance and acknowledgement to the liberation struggle, as well as a day to reaffirm African’s patriotic commitments towards the envisaged total liberation of their continent, politically and economically.

Milk Quarterly 9/10 (Yellow Press, 1976)

The Graphic Arts Collection acquired a series of posters promoting and celebrating ALD over several years in the 20th century. Here are a few examples.

Here is a presentation by AUC Chairperson H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat from this year.

Tupigrafia. The history of typography in Brazil and elsewhere.

Tupigrafia (SP [i.e. São Paulo]: Editora Bookmakers, 2000- ). Graphic Arts Collection 2020- in process https://www.tupigrafia.com.br/

Tupigrafia é uma revista editada desde 2000 que funciona como catalisadora do processo de recuperação da história da tipografia no Brasil, e também como estimulante na perda de pudor tipográfico, por desconhecimento de causa. A riqueza da cultura visual brasileira que gerou e continua gerando projetos tipográficos é enorme, deixando claro que existe muita coisa para ser vista e lida abaixo do Equador. Estamos vivendo a história e, portanto, fazendo História..!

Tupigrafia is a magazine published since 2000 that acts as a catalyst for the process of recovering the history of typography in Brazil, and also as a stimulant in the loss of typographic modesty, due to the lack of cause. The richness of the Brazilian visual culture that has generated and continues to generate typographic projects is enormous, making it clear that there is much to be seen and read below Ecuador. We are living history and, therefore, making History ..!

A produção tipográfica e caligráfica brasileira – e suas manifestações no design gráfico – são temas centrais da publicação, complementados por artigos ligados ao cenário tipográfico internacional.

Brazilian typographic and calligraphic production—and its manifestations in graphic design—are central themes of the publication, complemented by articles related to the international typographic scene.

Tupigrafia é referência em design editorial no Brasil e no exterior, por seu projeto inovador. Seus editores tem participado de eventos internacionais de tipografia desde 2005, como ATypI, Typecon, TypoBerlin e Biblioteca St. Bride. A revista foi exposta na Brazil Contemporary, do Museu de Fotografia de Roterdã, Holanda; na Magazine Library, em Tóquio e na exposição Design Brasileiro Hoje – Fronteiras no MAM, em São Paulo. Apareceu também nas páginas da revista alemã Novum, edição 08/2012.

Tupigrafia is a reference in editorial design in Brazil and abroad, for its innovative project. Its editors have participated in international typography events since 2005, such as ATypI, Typecon, TypoBerlin and St. Bride Library. The magazine was exhibited at Brazil Contemporary, of the Photography Museum of Rotterdam, Holland; at the Magazine Library, in Tokyo and at the exhibition Design Brasileiro Hoje – Fronteiras at MAM, in São Paulo. It also appeared on the pages of the German magazine Novum, issue 08/2012.

Tupigrafia is edited by Claudio Rocha and Tony de Marco. Both act as editors, diagrammers, art directors, type designers, graphic producers and distributors. Tupigrafia is published by OTSP – Oficina Tipográfica São Paulo, an NGO created to preserve graphic culture in Brazil, directed by Claudio Rocha and Marcos Mello. www.oficinatipografica.com.br

How many Voltaires does it take…?

Gustave Desnoirest, Iconographie voltairienne. Histoire et description de ce qui a été publié sur Voltaire par l’art contemporain (Paris: Didier, 1879). One volume expanded into two. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process

This unique, extra-illustrated copy of Gustave Desnoiresterres’s, Iconographie voltairienne. Histoire et description de ce qui a été publié sur Voltaire par l’art contemporain (Paris: Didier, 1879) has been expanded from one volume to two with 151 etchings, engravings, and sketches of François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), known as Voltaire.

Presumably from the late nineteenth century, the anonymous collector who gathered the portraits assembled them without additional captions or references.

One of the highlights of this collection is a proof before letters of the color etching by Pierre Michel Alix (1762-1817) after a painting by Jean-François Garneray (1755-1837), prepared for the Collection des Grands Hommes. The Graphic Arts Collection also holds separate portraits of Charles Linne, Jean Racine, Moliere, Montaigne, and Voltaire from this same series.

The iconography of Voltaire includes prints by Augustin de Saint-Aubin (1736–1807) after Jean Antoine Houdon (1741–1828), François Louis Couché (1782-1849), and even a few presumably designed by Voltaire himself. All ages of the writer’s life are depicted. Listed by our dealer as a must for “assiduous Voltairians,” here are a few examples.

The Osgood Sisters and Waldstein Press

Agnes Haswell Osgood in her Waldstein Press

Samuel Osgood, Letters to the Evening Post Written at Home and Abroad (New York: [Waldstein Press], 1890). Copy 13 of 25. Presentation copy inscribed by the author’s daughter: “Miss Graham from her friend Agnes H. Osgood New York March 9th 1891.” Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process

“… these days the new library was a household magnet that made up for many other changes,” wrote Mabel Osgood Wright in her autobiography My New York (Macmillan, 1926). “Even Gatha [Agnes], who resented innovation and change of any sort, took pleasure in arranging the books evenly, neatly, as they were wont to be shifted and pushed back at random.”

Agnes Haswell Osgood (1844-1929), Bertha Stevens Osgood Miller (1847-1917), and Mabel Osgood Wright (1859-1934) were the daughters of Ellen Haswell Osgood (1820-1906) and Reverend Samuel Osgood (1812-1880), pastor of the Second Congregational (Unitarian) Church in New York, better known as the Church of the Messiah. While the sisters were not allowed to attend Harvard College, as their father had, they were well educated at a private finishing school for ladies, where Agnes excelled at music, Bertha chose to paint, and Mabel, who wanted to be a doctor, settled for a career as a writer. Their New York home was frequented by actors, musicians, and politicians throughout the winter, while summers were spent at Waldstein (later called Mosswood), the family’s country estate in Fairfield, Connecticut.

In 1866, their father oversaw the design of a new church on Park and 34th Street, where a cornerstone was laid containing a copy of the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the Emancipation Proclamation, a piece of the Trans-Atlantic cable, coins, medals and photographs. But as the congregation grew increasingly liberal, Osgood chose to resign, joining the Episcopal Church, where he was ordained as a priest in 1870. Samuel spent the majority of his later years writing essays for newspapers and magazines, including the New York Evening Post, where Mabel also published her first poem at the age of 16.

left: Mabel Osgood Wright at Waldstein

Most nights, the Osgood family gathered in their upstairs library, where bookshelves had been built across the entire length of the wall. Mabel wrote, “The new love of books, which not only for their contents, but for the shape, size, feel and type, enthralled me and still does, was born of the dainty well-bound, well-printed volumes from which Clarence Cook had read to us at his literature class at Number One Fifth Avenue. His Chaucer and Shakespeare, in English editions, by their form seemed to give more meaning and importance to the text. His Tennyson also, in tree-calf covers, printed on heavy paper in clear text, was such a contrast to the odd volumes of our own copies, “pirated” editions and printed cheaply, like so much of the work of overseas authors before the honor of publishers and the law of international copyright prevailed.”

When Rev. Osgood died unexpectedly in 1880, Bertha had already married and was living apart. In 1884, Mabel married James Osborne Wright (1851-1920), a British art and rare book dealer, moving with her new husband to London. Agnes remained with her mother, living primarily at Waldstein, where she set up a small proofing press and taught herself to set type. By 1889, she had finished printing 25 copies of a two volume set of her father’s essays, entitled Letters to the Evening Post Written at Home and Abroad. She called her operation Waldstein Press, after the family estate, and although she may having continued to print, no other books were ever released with that imprint.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired copy 13 of this set, inscribed “Miss Graham from her friend Agnes H. Osgood New York March 9th 1891.” For the frontispiece of volume one, Agnes chose a portrait of her father and for volume two, she used a photograph of herself with her modest press.

Not long after this, Mabel and James returned to Waldstein, where she continued writing for the New York Evening Post, and then, for Macmillan Press, which published Friendship of Nature (1894), Birdcraft (1895), and Flowers and Ferns in Their Haunts (1901) among others.

Poésie pour pouvoir

Henri Michaux (1899-1984), Poésie pour pouvoir. Text and frontispiece by Michaux. Design and linocuts by Michel Tapié (Paris: René Drouin, 1949). Copy XII of 46, signed by Henri Michaux et Michel Tapié. Teak wood portfolio printed with the title and fitted with 34 steel nails. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process. Provenance: Collection of Geneviève and Jean Paul Kahn.

Is there a way to release the magic of poetry stagnating within conventional printed literature? Can you make a book with the power to exorcise a condition or complaint? These are some of the questions that led to Poésie pour pouvoir, with poetry by Henri Michaux (1899-1984) integrated into pictorial linocuts by Michel Tapié (1909-1987) and published in February 1949 by Galerie René Drouin in Paris.

Only a handful of copies of this singular “book-object” as Michaux and Tapié conceived it with the nailed wood cover were completed, in fact only two others can be found in North America besides the one now held in the Graphic Arts Collection at Princeton University.

A seminal work of post-war Paris, the story of Poésie pour pouvoir’s production is also magical. It began in the late 1930s with Michel Tapié’s involvement in “Les Réverbères,” a neo-Dada group, which led to his collaboration with Aline Gagnaire on the hand-printed publications Le Cheval de 4 and Deda L-E. Tapié eventually joined René Drouin’s gallery as artistic advisor, focusing on the promotion of a wide circle of artists that included Henri Michaux.

In 1947, Henri Michaux and his wife traveled to Egypt, where the magical power of hieroglyphics inspired the poems, “Je rame” and “À travers mers et desert.” These texts went unpublished until Tapié proposed to “put them into a space in the form of a book-object.”

Using the crisp, quick black and white technology of linoleum block printing that Tapié perfected while working with the Réverbères, he designed and cut Michaux’s words so they fluctuated between white text on black shapes and black text on white pages incorporated with his own abstract figures. The majority of the 46 copies were produced with only a paper cover.

A full recounting of the year leading up to February 1949, when the final work was exhibited at Drouin’s gallery, can be found in Tapié essay “Commentary on an exorcism,” Les Cahiers de la pléiade 1950.

“…. Mon projet de départ était de graver ce texte sur lino, le lino étant la technique la plus brutale et la plus directe des violentes oppositions de noir et de blanc, et de présenter l’ensemble des tirages dans une couverture de bois clouté, l’ensemble du travail étant jour par jour suivi et approuvé par Henri Michaux; L’esprit d’aventure qui préside aux activités de René Drouin poussa celui-ci à accepter le risque d’édition avec enthousiasme, et il mit l’équipe de sa galerie à notre disposition pour une rapide réalisation. Rapide en effet il le fallait; Michaux nous avait bien prévenus: si nous n’allions pas vite, le poème, lui, irait plus vite que nous et se retournerait contre nous… je pus assez vite graver tous les éléments n nécessaires à l’édification de la maquette complète.

The book’s construction took place at the Drouin family farm, under the daily supervision of Michaux. René Drouin (1905-1979) chose the arrangement of the nails on the covers, Aline Gagnaire (Tapié’s former collaborator) pieced together the wooden cover, and Drouin’s son, Jean-Claude, cut the nails to be hammered into the cover (originally plywood and only later teak wood).

Tapié was almost done with his share of the printing when he became ill and could not finish, leaving it to Gagnaire to complete the book. So many things went wrong, they called it was a cursed project, fueling the myth of a magical book.

As for his part, Michaux wrote:

“La force exceptionnellement opératoire de ce poème, jointe au fait de son élection unique, centrant justement sur ce texte toutes les intentions d’intervention-de pouvoir-de l’auteur, me donna une furieuse envie d’en faire une édition où je tenterais de forcer les usages du livre dans le même rapport d’échelle qu’Henri Michaux l’avait fait ici par rapport non pas seulement à la poésie, mais même, comme je ne le sentis d’ailleurs que bien plus tard, à l’usage, par rapport à ses plus efficients exorcismes. Le problème consistait à fabriquer un objet receleur de force supportant ce texte de sorte que sa vue, son contact, tant épidermique que musculaire provoque au maximum l’expansion effective de cette force, puisque magie il y avait.

It is a tragedy that OCLC no longer allows local notes. To find copies that include the rare nailed wood cover, a reader must log into every library in the world individually. Otherwise they would not know, for instance, that Houghton Library has copy no. V with “unbound sheets, as issued, laid into original printed paper covers; in original hinged wooden boards, with title printed on cover, decorated with metal studs. In burlap-covered board slipcase.”

It was Tapié’s idea to pound nails into the wooden binding using the same aggressive energy as Michaux’s incantatory texts. The action references the practices of the Romans, who manufactured defixion or curse tablets, as well as African practices of incorporating nails into power figures called nkisi nkondi. The physical hammering of the nails into Poesie pour pouvoir was meant to embed magical powers into the book, just as Tapié’s pictographs unleashed the power in Michaux’s words.

Galerie René Drouin closed in 1950 (later revived in a different format), Michel Tapié went on to promote Art informel, from which Michaux distanced himself, continuing to draw and write in his own personal style. No other magic book-objects were attempted.

For more on this and other works by Michaux, see Raymond Bellour’s Henri Michaux Ouvres Complete (Gallimard, “Bibliothèque de la Pléiade”, 1998), https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x004550124&view=1up&seq=1276&q1=%22poesie%20pour%20pouvoir%22

Henri Michaux (1899-1984), Commentaire d’un exorcisme ([Paris: Librairie Gallimard, 1950?]). Beach 3269.96.325. Presentation copy to Sylvia Beach with inscription by Henri Michaux.

Le Cheval de 4 (Paris: M. Tapié, A. Gagnaire, J. Jausion, H. Bernard, 1940). Graphic Arts Collection Q-000727. Issued in 4 fascicles. Each has a separate title: [no. 1] “Le Cheval de 4” (“tirage limité à 26 ex. hors commerce et 6 ex. de luxe”) ; [no. 2] “Dédal-e” (“Tirage limité à 28 ex. hors commerce et 3 ex. de luxe”) ; [no. 3] “Huit poèmes pour Cécile / Noël Arnaud” (tiré à 150 ex. environ dont 35 de luxe) ; [no. 4] “Expédition Tapié” (tiré à 27 ex.).

Also designed by Michel Tapié while at Galerie René Drouin: Francis Picabia (1879-1953), 491 (Paris, René Drouin, 4 mars 1949). Marquand Oversize ND553.P58 T36 1949e. “50 ans de plaisirs” par Michel Tapié. Catalog in newspaper format issued Mar. 4, 1949 for Picabia exhibition of 136 works dated 1897-1949.

A section of Poetry for Power in translation:
I row
I have cursed your brow your belly your life
I have cursed the streets your steps pursue
The objects your hand grasps
I have cursed the inside of your dreams

I have put a puddle in your eye and it no longer sees
An insect in your ear and it no longer hears
A sponge in your brain and it no longer understands

I have chilled you in the soul of your body
I have frozen you in the depth of your life
The air that you breathe suffocates you
The air that you breathe has an air of cellars
Is an air that has already been exhaled that hyenas have expelled

The dung of this air no one can breathe any longer

Your skin is moist all over
Your skin sweats the sweat of the great fear
Your armpits exhale from afar an odor of crypts
The animals halt when you pass
The dogs howl in the night their heads raised toward your house

Musical Families

The Hurtt Family, taken in Detroit, Michigan

This is the third in a series of three posts introducing our new collection of vernacular portrait photographs of American musicians. Originally owned by Pasadena visual and sound artist Steve Roden, some images were published in his book I Listen to the Wind that Obliterates My Traces …, and others are seen by the general public for the first time here. These are all part of a collection of approximately 330 photographs now in the Graphic Arts Collection.

Additional images from the collection can be seen at: https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2020/10/26/american-musicians/

Highlights include close to a hundred images of women musicians, from soloists to women’s bands and cabaret acts; images of musical ‘special personalities’, e.g. a one-armed musician, albino musicians, and an African-American dwarf troubadour, Lynn Lewis White; child musicians, including vaudeville performer L. Wade Ray, “The Boy Wonder Youngest Violin Player in U.S.A.;” a number of examples depicting one-man bands; and unidentified African-American musicians.

Seen here are a few of the family bands popular in the United States at the end of the 19th century.

Mitchell’s Concert Band, taken in Lavalle, Wisconsin

A member of the Shippen Family Band, taken in Lebanon, Kansas

The Noss Family Band, of New Brighton, Pennsylvania

The Celebrated Female Band, now with the Burr Robbins

Brother and sister?

Steve Roden, I Listen to the Wind that Obliterates My Traces: Music in Vernacular Photographs, 1880-1955 (Atlanta, Ga.: Dust to Digital, 2011). Mendel ML87 .R654 2011

One Person Bands

This is the second of three posts introducing our new collection of vernacular portrait photographs of American musicians. Originally owned by Pasadena visual and sound artist Steve Roden, some images were published in his book I Listen to the Wind that Obliterates My Traces …, and others are seen by the general public for the first time here.

Sitters include the popular showman Professor McCrea [below], an Ontario-born one man band, along with several other polymuses seen here. These are all part of a collection of approximately 330 photographs now in the Graphic Arts Collection.

Additional images from the collection can be seen at: https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2020/10/26/american-musicians/

Steve Roden, I Listen to the Wind that Obliterates My Traces: Music in Vernacular Photographs, 1880-1955 (Atlanta, Ga.: Dust to Digital, 2011). Mendel ML87 .R654 2011

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