Category Archives: Acquisitions

new acquisitions

Ediciones Papeles Privados



Octavio Paz (1914-1998), Instantáneas. Serigrafías de Juan Soriano. (México, D. F.: Papeles Privados; Varia Gráfica y Comunicación; Amigos del Museo de Arte Moderno, 1993). Raúl Herrera Munguía designed the binding and Juan Soriano’s serigraphs were printed in the studio of Jan Hendrix. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process
“Esta edición, numerada y firmada por los autores, está contenida en un carpeta elaborada en cuero … diseño Raúl Herrera Munguía …” Editores: Fernando Zertuche, Mario del Valle.


Mario del Valle founded Ediciones Papeles Privados (Private Paper Editions) in 1981 and this volume represents the third time they worked with the poet Octavio Paz. Their website notes, in a rough translation:

“In 1981, Ediciones Papeles Privados emerged in Mexico City, an editorial specialized in poetry and art books. One of its fundamental objectives is to continue the tradition of the artisan book producing books to enjoy its content and its invoice. The art of making a book, today, involves using old techniques and combining them with the advantages and qualities of contemporary technology. Hence, Private Papers are interested, on a way, the excellence of the amalgamated content to the visual concept of each edition. …Octavio Paz referred to its creator with the following words: “Mario del Valle is an editor poet who continues the tradition of the publishing poets. This tradition is very old. In Mexico and Latin America in general he gave, among others, Salvador Novo , Xavier Villaurrutia, Miguel N. Lira, Pablo Neruda, Manuel Altolaguirre, Rafael Alberti, Juan José Arreola … The list is big … Their editions are bold, beautiful.” —https://papelesprivados.weebly.com/ediciones-papeles-privados.html

 

Only now have I understood that there was a secret relationship between what I have called my expulsion from the present and the writing of poetry. Poetry is in love with the instant and seeks to relive it in the poem, thus separating it from sequential time and turning it into a fixed present. But at that time I wrote without wondering why I was doing it. I was searching for the gateway to the present: I wanted to belong to my time and to my century. A little later this obsession became a fixed idea: I wanted to be a modern poet. My search for modernity had begun.–Paz Nobel Prize lecture.

Make everything you need for yourself and attempt to not need what you can’t make–Raymond Duncan


The printing press of Raymond Duncan, visited by Orson Welles:

Coming soon to Princeton University Library, the books of Raymond Duncan.

Nelson Sambolín

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired two portfolios by the wonderful Puerto Rican artist Nelson Sambolín (born 1944). The first is De Olimpia a Mayagüez: Portfolio Conmemorativo de los X Juegos Centroamericanos y del Caribe celebrados en Mayagüez, Puerto Rico en el año 2010. (Puerto Rico: Proyecto Om.; printed by Luis Maisonet, José (Pepe) Ibañez, and Nelson Sambolín, 2010).

De Olimpia a Mayagüezincludes 2 unnumbered leaves with an essay by Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá (born 1946) and 12 screen prints, 50 x 70 cm, produced by Proyecto Om, Inc. in commemoration of the XXI Central American and Caribbean Games, officially endorsed by the Mayagüey Committee 2010. Princeton holds copy 145/200, a few  examples shown here:

 



 

Our second acquisition celebrates the 2009 bicentenary of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth, when the Editorial Universidad de Puerto Rico published a new edition of what is considered the best Spanish translation of his writing, entitled Edgar Allan Poe Obras en Prosa I & II. (Firestone Library PS2612 .C6 1956). The translation by the Argentine writer Julio Cortázar (1914-1984) was first published in 1956, commissioned by the University of Puerto Rico at the request of Francisco Ayala, the first editor of La Editorial.

Nelson Sambolín designed the graphic illustrations for this two-volume set and also produced a separate portfolio of 12 monumental linocuts entitled Grabados a Poe. The Graphic Arts Collection holds copy 7/10, a few shown here:

 


The Torture of Suzanne Louverture

After Charles Williams, Boney’s Inquisition.Another Specimen of his Humanity on the Person of Madame Toussaint. London: ‘Pubd. Octr. 25th 1804 by by S.W. Fores, 50 Piccadilly’, 1804. Hand colored etching. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process

 

“One of the greatest Wars of Independence ever fought in history was the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), led by the ‘immortal’ black leader Toussaint Louverture, who became a General in the French military, and whose destiny it was to deliver the slaves and people of Saint Domingue, now Haiti.” Suzanne Simone Baptiste Louverture (1742?-1816), the wife of Toussaint Louverture (1743?-1803), was arrested with her husband during the Haitian revolution in 1802.

Napoleon Bonaparte sent General Charles Leclerc to apprehend Louverture and deport him to the French Alps. Suzanne and her children were transported to Bayonne, where they were placed under the supervision of General Ducos. She was tortured but never provided any information about her husband. One source notes, “When she arrived in prison she weighed 250 pounds; she only weighed 90 when leaving France. During all the years of torture she gave a single answer. ‘I will not talk about my husband’s business with his torturers.’ It was a mutilated Suzanne, a purely vegetative Suzanne, devoid of all her nails, with several broken bones, who returned to Jamaica where she died on May 19, 1846. She was 67 years old.”

According to records, the print is correct in the pulling of her fingernails and other tortures.

–PBS Egalite for All: Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution (2009)

Suzanne Louverture was still living when the British artist Charles Williams (active 1796-1830) published this print. It is not unusual that the artist did not sign the print, Williams often worked anonymously and it is only in recent years that earlier attributions have been reconsidered.

Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution inspired millions of free and enslaved people to seek freedom and equality throughout the Atlantic world. His legacy continues to inspire artists and politicians today. One of many examples is the series Jacob Lawrence produced entitled “The Life of Toussaint Louverture”:

For more, read Temi Odumosu, Africans in English caricature 1769-1819: Black Jokes, White Humour (London: Harvey Miller Publishers, [2017]). Marquand Library NC1473 .O38 2017 and see:

 

Note: this horrific print is one of the caricatures Samuel Fores lent out for an evening’s entertainment in your own home.

Savage Impressions

Thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign, P22 Publications released Savage Impressions: An Aesthetic Expedition Through the Archives of Independent Project Records & Press, founded by Bruce Licher. The Graphic Arts Collection just received one of the 350 deluxe editions that include: 12” gold vinyl record titled Tape Excavation consisting of previously unreleased recordings spanning Bruce Licher’s recording career (1980-2019); special letterpress-printed stamp sheet tipped into the book; perforated chipboard letterpress bookplate tipped in, signed and numbered by Bruce Licher; and a letterpress wrap sleeve to hold the book and record together as a set.

Bruce Licher founded Independent Project Press in 1982 after learning the art of letterpress printing at the Women’s Graphic Center in downtown Los Angeles. His initial projects centered around creating album covers, postcards and promotional stamps for his band Savage Republic and for releases on his Independent Project Records label. It didn’t take long before he was producing work for other L.A. underground music groups, along with a growing number of clients in the Los Angeles design community and an array of better-known musicians such as R.E.M, Harold Budd, and Stereolab.

Licher continues to translate his signature artistic design aesthetic to other products: book, magazine, catalog design, elegant and creative business stationery, wedding invitations, wine labels, promotional stamp sheets and booklets, and other letterpress-printed ephemera for clients large and small.

Licher currently works out of his studio on WIllow Street in the Eastern Sierra town of Bishop, California.–https://info701245.wixsite.com/mysite-5/bruce-licher

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/p22/savage-impressions-the-book

 

Savage impressions: an aesthetic expedition through the archives of Independent Project Records & Press, compiled by Bruce Licher and Karen Nielsen Licher. Deluxe edition (Rochester, NY : P22 Publications, 2020). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process

Edwin Landseer, age 8

 

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired the original copper plates for six of Edwin Landseer’s juvenile etchings made between the ages of 8 and 10, including his first etching and a previously unpublished and unrecorded plate. These came along with the 1974 re-strikes of five of the plates and a new impression of the unrecorded sixth plate [above]. The plates are clear and the images visible, even though the photography here might not appear to be.

Here is the full description of the plates, transcribed exactly from Roger Gaskell’s excellent research:

1. Heads of Sheep and Cattle, 1810. Lettering: Edwin Landseer, del & sculp. in his 8th year. London: Published Nov.r 8.th 1852 by P.& D. Colnaghi &Co. 13 & 14 Pall Mall, East.

180 x 116 x 1.19mm rounded corners, makers name ‘I. Shafe Shoe-Lane London’ stamped on the back. Scratched number 18 and circular scoring on the back. Graves 3; BM 1853,0409.27 (an unlettered proof inscribed ‘EL delt & sculp in his 8th year’); RCIN 815000.

2. Heads of a Boar, Sheep, and Donkey, 1810. Lettering: Edwin Landseer, del. & Sculp. his 1st Etching executed in his 8th year.

114 x 178 x 1.38mm, bevelled edges, rounded corners, makers name ‘G. Harris No 31 Shoe Lane London’ stamped on the back. Three etched figures, described below, scratched number 16 and oblique scoring on the back. Graves 4; BM 1853,0409.30 (unlettered proof inscribed ‘Edwin Landseer delt & sculp – his first etching in his 8th year’); RCIN 815001. [On the back of the plate in upright orientation:]

2b A Cow and two Lambs’ Heads. This must always have been intended as a trial because the image is close to the stamped name of the plate maker and would be difficult to print without taking an impression of the stamp. There are a few scratches as can be seen in 1974 re-strike. Unknown to Graves.

3. A Horse, Goat and Bull, 1811 Lettering: Edwin Landseer, del & sculp. London: Published Nov.r 8.th

198 x 121 x 1.5mm, bevelled edges, rounded corners, makers name ‘G. Harris No 31 Shoe Lane London’ stamped on the back. Scratched number 17 on the back. Graves 5; BM 1853,0409.25 (unlettered proof inscribed ‘E. Landseer delt & sculp’); RCIN 815002.

4. Donkeys and a Foal, 1811 Lettering: Edwin Landseer, del. in his 9th year. T. Landseer, sculp. London: Published Nov.r 8.th 1852 by P.& D. Colnaghi &Co. 13 & 14 Pall Mall, East.

129 x 115 x 1.43mm, rounded corners, makers name ‘G. Harris No 31 Shoe Lane London’ stamped on the back. Scratched number 11[?] and oblique scoring on the back. Graves 6; BM 1853,049.26 (unlettered proof inscribed at left beside top donkey ‘EL, Delt & Sculp’ and blow image ‘EL’ at left and ‘TL’ at right); RCIN 815002. The legend on the plate ascribes the etching to Thomas Landseer (1795–1880), Edwin’s the elder brother but Graves ascribes it to Edwin Landseer. In fact they both had a hand, the pencilled inscription on the BM impression indicating that the etching of the donkey at the top was done by Edwin and the donkey and foal below by Thomas Landseer.

5. A Cow and Calf, 1812 Lettering: Edwin Landseer, del & sculp. in his 10th year. London: Published Nov.r 8.th 1852 by P.& D. Colnaghi &Co. 13 & 14 Pall Mall, East.

127 x 179 x 1.5mm, bevelled edges, rounded corners, makers name ‘G. Harris No 31 Shoe Lane London’ stamped on the back. Scratched number 6 on the back. Graves 9; not in BM. RCIN 815003 (an early state); RCIN 815004 (published by Colnaghi 1852).

6. Two Rams’ Heads, no imprint, c. 1810-12 No lettering.

204 x 167 x 1.31mm, edges bevelled on the back, rounded corners. ‘Landseer’ and ‘15’ scratched on the back. Maker’s name ‘G. Harris No 31 Shoe Lane London’. Punched on the back half way down on the right hand side, perhaps for an erasure as there is no etching on the face at this point. Although unsigned, the style of the plate, its survival with Landseer’s other juvenile etchings and the scratched name on the back leave little doubt that this is his work and thus a new addition to his oeuvre. Unknown to Graves; no impressions located.

 

The plates were probably not have been published in Landseer’s youth. By 1852 they were in the possession of Peter and Dominic Colnaghi who published restrikes of five of them with new lettering identifying the artist and adding their imprint. These prints are very rare so the edition was probably small. Predictably there are impressions in the Royal Collection. The British Museum holds rather messy unlettered proofs of four of the plates, probably the artist’s proofs with pencil lettering which is evidently the source of the lettering added by Colnaghi, who sold the proofs to the Museum in 1853. The sixth plate is not lettered, though it has Landseer’s name scratched on the back, and there no proof in the BM.

In the 1970s (or before) the plates came into the hands of the publisher, printing historian and Bewick scholar Iain Bain (1934-2018). Bain printed an edition of 80 copies (75 for sale) of the five etchings issued by Colnaghi and these were offered to subscribers in a portfolio with a brief introduction at £80 plus VAT. Pre-publication subscribers received a bonus of ‘an additional print taken from the back of one of the plates which carries three experimental studies never before published’. A copy of the publication, including the bonus print and the prospectus, is offered here with the plates. The sixth plate, which as noted above is unknown from contemporary or later impressions, is accompanied by a recent impression.


 
 


 

Edwin Henry Landseer (1802–1873). Six etched copper plates, 1810–1812 (legends and imprint lines were added to five plates in 1852) [with]  Iain Bain, The childhood etchings of Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A. Five prints taken from his still surviving copper plates: etched between his 8th and 10th years c. 1810–1812. Produced for The Heritage Collection by Iain Bain at the John Boydell Press MCMLXXIV. (Bristol: The Heritage collection, 1974.) 6 prints in the original buckram portfolio. Together with the prospectus, also dated 1974, five 1974 re-strikes of the plates and a new impression of the unrecorded sixth plate. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process.

*CDV portrait from the Laurence Hutton Photograph album Box 3.

Neues bilderreiches Poetarium

Andreas Weitbrecht, editor. Neues bilderreiches Poetarium. Zeitschrift für Dichtung und Graphik. (Frankfurt am Main: Andreas Weitbrecht, 1963-65). (42 x 59 cm; 63 x 59 cm; 59 x 83 cm). 5 issues in 4 posters. Graphic Arts Collection 2020- in process

 

 

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a complete set of Poetarium, a rare German “magazine for poetry and graphics” edited by Andreas Weitbrecht. Some of the major writers included over the three years it was published are A.C. Artmann, Johannes Bobrowski, Bazon Brock, Ernst Jandl, Karl Krolow, Friederike Mayröcker, Christoph Meckel, Franz Mon, and Ror Wolf. The graphic artists include Thomas Bayrle, Uwe Bremer, Günter Bruno Fuchs, Bernhard Jäger, Ali Schindehütte, Arno Waldschmidt and many others. The final double number folds out to a wonderful poster by Bayrle and Jäger [above].

Read more about the publication in Bernhard Fischer, Deutsche literarische Zeitschriften, 1945-1970 : ein Repertorium. herausgegeben vom Deutschen Literaturarchiv, Marbach am Neckar (München ; New York : K.G. Saur, 1992). Germanic Languages Graduate Study Room (SD) Oversize Z2225 .F572 1992q. pp. 575-6, no. 818. Every artist and writer presented over the three years is listed here:

Mienenspiel = Facial Recognition

In 1839, Georg Büchner published Lenz, a ground-breaking novella about schizophrenia. In 2020, Ines von Ketelhodt designed and published Mienenspiel, incorporating sections of Büchner’s text onto its reflective pages, placing the reader/viewer in the uncomfortable position of being outside and inside the book at the same time.

The artist writes: “The book investigates the wide range of human facial expressions and the topic of facial recognition. Thanks to the mirror effect of the paper, which is coated in silver foil, viewers see themselves in the book as they turn the pages. They can imitate the illustrations of facial expressions that are printed on the foil, and modify their reflected images accordingly. The text passages from Georg Büchner’s Lenz (1839) describe “all the subtle, barely noticed play of facial features,” “the human nature,” respect and tolerance for individuals, the “unique existence of each being,” as well as Medusa’s head.”

The original German text is printed on each right-hand page, with an English translation on the left. The texts are set around an oval shape that is reminiscent of a mirror or even a face. Viewers can read the text by turning the book counter-clockwise. This also changes the reflected surroundings of the double-page spread.

The face illustrations and texts are letterpress printed with polymer plates on Chromolux paper, which is coated on one side with aluminum. The reverse and uncoated side of the papers are glued together along the front edge.

 

Ines von Ketelhodt, designer, printer, and bookbinder, Mienenspiel (Flörsheim, Germany: Ines von Ketelhodt, 2020). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020-in process. 40 p., embossed cloth-covered boards housed in a paper-covered slipcase, 35 numbered and signed copies. von.ketelhodt@k-und-m-design.de;  www.tloen-enzyklopaedie.de

The German dramatist and novelist Georg Büchner (1813-1837) died at the sadly young age of twenty-four, leaving the question of what he might have accomplished had he lived longer. In 1828 he became interested in politics and joined a group which later on probably became the Gießen and Darmstadt section of the “Gesellschaft für Menschenrechte” (Society for Human Rights). In 1835, his first play, Dantons Tod (Danton’s Death) about the French revolution was published, followed by Lenz, a novella based on the life of poet Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz.

His unfinished and most famous play, Woyzeck, was the first literary work in German whose main characters were members of the working class. Published after Büchner’s death, it became the basis for Alban Berg’s opera Wozzeck, which was first performed in 1925.–[Wikipedia]

Lenz, Georg Büchner’s visionary exploration of an 18th-century playwright’s descent into madness, has been called the inception of European modernist prose. Elias Canetti considered this short novella one of the decisive reading experiences of his life, and writers as various as Paul Celan, Christa Wolff, Peter Schneider, and Gert Hofmann have paid homage to it in their works.

Published posthumously in 1839, Lenz provides a taut case study of three weeks in the life of schizophrenic, perhaps the first third-person text ever to be written from the “inside” of insanity. An early experiment in docufiction, Büchner’s textual montage draws on the diary of J.F. Oberlin, the Alsatian pastor who briefly took care of Lenz in 1778, while also refracting Goethe’s memoir of his troubled friendship with the playwright.”– https://archipelagobooks.org/book/lenz/

 

Artist statement: “Ines von Ketelhodt studied Visual Communication at the University of Art and Design in Offenbach, Germany. Since 1986 she works in the fields of photography, typography, artist’s books, and graphic design. She was a co-founder of the book artists’ collective Unica T (1986–2001). From 1997 to 2006 she worked together with Peter Malutzki on the fifty volumes book art project Zweite Enzyklopädie von Tlön. In 2002 she moved to Flörsheim, Germany and opened a joint workshop with Peter Malutzki. Her main interests include: experimental typography; experimental photography (such as long exposure time, taking photographs by chance); combination of photography and typography; combination of old and new techniques (such as letterpress, original photographic prints, offset and digital printing).”

Princeton students, we now also have access to the 1982 film by Alexandre Rockwell, an adaptation of Lenz, transposed from 18th century Germany to New York in the early 1980s. https://www.kanopy.com/product/lenz

Body seating dimensions and other early 20th-century issues in car design

Here are a few of the materials pulled for the upcoming writing seminar “Living with AI” led by instructor William Penman and assisted by Anu Vedantham, assistant university librarian for research services. The students will compare early 19th and 20th-century technology with contemporary ways we are “searching YouTube, unlocking our phones with our faces, seeing advertising on Facebook, asking Siri to turn up the music . . . actively and passively use artificial intelligence (AI) daily. How does AI promise new kinds of interactions? Why are some industries turning to AI while others are not? How are the risks and benefits of AI shaping the future design of these technologies?”

Both fiction and non-fiction texts are being considered, including the definitive 20th-century car book, The Great Gatsby.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The cruise of the rolling junk,” in Motor (New York, N.Y.)  Vol. 41, no. 3-5 (Feb.-Apr., 1924). Oversize 2003-0046F. “Beginning an adventure in motoring by the author of “This side of paradise.” — Pt. 1. “The modern argonauts, the author and his wife, in a battered Expenso, are en route from Westport, Connecticut, to the family homestead in Alabama. … ” — Pt. 2. “The author and his wife are driving from Westport, Connecticut to the family home in Alabama, in quest of peaches and biscuits …” — Pt. 3.

The Locomobile book: a description of the latest models. Designs by T.M. Cleland (Bridgeport, Conn.: Locomobile Company of America, 19150. Graphic Arts Collection Oversize TL215 .L636 1915q

George E. Goddard, Body seating-dimensions ([Detroit, Mich.? : Society of Automotive Engineers?], 1922). Rare Books Oversize 2008-0305Q




Fortitude outside New York Public Library reading The Great Gatsby.

Poitevin and photographic printing without silver salts


Each of Princeton’s two newly acquired copies of Alphonse Poitevin’s Traité de l’impression photographique sans sels d’argent [=Manual on photographic printing without silver salts] were published in 1862 with an introduction by Ernest Lacan (1829-1879), but have a different set of illustrations. This is not uncommon, since many collectors over the years have removed the plates from some copies and pasted in prints in others.

Between the two volumes, Princeton not only has all the recorded prints in other copies but holds this studio portrait [above] not documented in any other copy of the book. The unidentified gentlemen include Poitevin on the left, Lacan in the middle, and his editor Léon Vidal (1833–1906) on the right. This volume also bears a signed presentation “Á Monsieur Léon Vidal, hommage de profonde gratitude, Poitevin.”

Trained as a chemist, Poitevin worked for the Mines Nationales de l’Est and later, at a silver mine at Kefoun-Theboul in Africa. He became interested in photography, experimenting with methods of photochemical engraving using silver or gold on metal plates. His discoveries in the action of light on bichromated gelatin laid the basis for photolithography, the carbon process, and more. Several of his processes were patented, including collotypes and carbon printing (1855-56), which led to this handbook on non-silver and direct positive processes. See also: https://www.princeton.edu/~graphicarts/2011/07/alphonse_louis_poitevin.html

Alphonse-Louis Poitevin (1819-1882), Traité de l’impression photographique sans sels d’argent: contenant l’histoire, la théorie et la pratique des méthodes et procédés de l’impression au charbon, de l’hélioplastie… [=Manual on photographic printing without silver salts: containing the history, theory and practice of methods and processes of carbon printing, helioplasty …]; avec une introduction par M. Ernest Lacan (Paris: Leiber, 1862). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2020- in process



Photochemical engraving