Category Archives: Acquisitions

new acquisitions

Tuckenhay Paper Mill

Peter Thomas, The Tuckenhay Mill: People and Paper (Santa Cruz: Peter and Donna Thomas, 2016). Housed in clamshell box. Graphic Arts Collection GAX in process.

All copies have: Introductory pamphlet, letterpress printed, 1.They Made the Paper in Tuckenhay Mill, interviews with retired hand paper makers, a 100-page digitally printed book with the text of the interviews; 2.Flash drive with audio files, transcriptions and videos from original interviews; 3.Vintage handmade paper samples and printed ephemera from Tuckenhay Mill. Princeton’s copy has an additional pamphlet titled Handmade Paper in Tuckenhay Devon, pamphlet titled Three Hundred Years of Paper Making, and 22 paper samples with additional booklets.

In the 1830s, Richard Turner started manufacturing paper by hand in the Tuckenhay Mill, and paper was continuously made by hand there until 1962. From then until 1970, the Mill produced pulp (half-stuff) until the business went bankrupt. The equipment was scrapped and the building was sold and converted into vacation cottages, remaining so today.

A self-taught hand papermaker, Peter Thomas became interested in knowing how apprentice-trained hand papermakers working in production hand papermills made paper. He especially wanted to learn the “vatman’s shake,” the series of motions that papermakers used to form their sheets of paper. This desire circuitously led him and Donna to Tuckenhay, near Totnes, Devon, in England, where beginning in 1988, they recorded several hand papermakers, returning to make others in 1990 and 1994.

—  http://www.thelegacypress.com/tuckenhay-mill.html

 

 

Brochure for “all colored cast” silent film

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a rare promotional brochure for the Norman Film Company’s 1919 silent movie, The Green Eyed Monster, its first production with an all Black cast. Billed as a “Stupendous All-Star Negro Motion Picture,” audiences found it long and so, Norman had the film cut from eight-reels to five-reels. A second release in 1920 led to great success. Although no portion of the film survives, reviews list the actors as Jack Austin, Louise Dunbar, Steve Reynolds, and Robert A. Stuart.

“The first film company devoted to the production of race movies was the Chicago-based Ebony Film Company, which began operation in 1915. The first black-owned film company was The Lincoln Motion Picture Company, founded by the famous Missourian actor Noble Johnson in 1916.

However, the biggest name in race movies was and remains Oscar Micheaux, an Illinois-born director who started The Micheaux Book & Film Company in 1919 and went on to direct at least forty films with predominantly black casts for black audiences.

Also in 1919, seeing how lucrative the growing race movie market was, Jacksonville, Florida’s Norman Film Manufacturing Company switched tracks and began making race films, starting with an all black remake of one of their earlier films.”–The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 18 (2011)

“In large cities as well as in small towns, the picture broke attendance records, especially when one of the stars appeared in person to advertise it. M. Wax, of the Royal and Keystone Theaters in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, happily reported that The Green-Eyed Monster had proven to be a wonderful attraction that did excellent business and pleased all of his patrons.

W. C. Kennedy of Knoxville, Tennessee, affirmed that ‘it broke house records in our 1,200-seat Gem Theater.’ … E. Silberman of the Douglas Theater in New York City found the Green-Eyed Monster to be such a ‘knock-out…that we turned them away daily’ throughout the week-long run.” –Barbara Tepa Lupack, Richard E. Norman and Race Filmmaking (2013)

Extended description: http://normanstudios.org/films-stars/norman-films/the-green-eyed-monster/

Exaggerated comic scenes were cut from The Green-Eyed Monster, to focus on the drama and romance. When the new print was released, it was billed together with Norman’s second film The Love Bug, which was strictly caricature and broad comedy.

 

 

Pedro de Oraá

Pedro de Oraá (born 1931), Acertijos de los indeseables (La Habana: Unión de Escritores y Artistas de Cuba, 1991). Unbound poetry portfolio. Edition: 500. Graphic Arts Collection 2018- in process

Eleven books by the Cuban poet and visual artist Pedro de Oraá (born 1931) have already been collected by the Princeton University Library and so, this will make an even dozen. In 1958, De Oraá and Loló Soldevilla (1901–1971) founded Galería de Arte Color-Luz in Havana and there, organized a group of painters and printmakers known as Diez Pintores Concretos (Ten Concrete Painters).

Among his many honors, De Oraá received the National Designer Award from the Cuban Book Institute in 2011 and the Cuban National Visual Arts Award in 2015.
Pedro de Oraá with Wifredo Lam and Loló Soldevilla at their gallery, Posted: http://www.cubanartnews.org/news/pedro-de-oraa-concrete-thinking-on-cuban-abstract-art

De Oraá was part of the 21st International Poetry Festival of Havana (FIPH), the First “Our America” Traveling Festival and Cuban Poetry Readings dedicated to poetry convened by the Association of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) and the Organizing Committee of the Poetry Festival.

Plans are already in the making for the 22nd International Poetry Festival, to be held in Havana from 27 May to 3 June 2018, dedicated to Spoken Poetry and Popular Poetry. Everyone should attend. For more information: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/media-services/single-view/news/una_semana_para_celebrar_la_poesia_en_la_habana/

See a brief biography: https://www.widewalls.ch/artist/pedro-de-oraa/

New York covers

 

 

 

 

 

Last October 2017, New York magazine launched their 50th anniversary (founded April 1968) slightly early, with a commemorative issue and book: Christopher Bonanos, Highbrow, Lowbrow, Brilliant, Despicable: 50 Years of New York ([New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2017]). Dixon Books Oversize PN4900.N34 B66 2017q.

Thankfully, our dust jacket is still in place, which folds out into a poster documenting highlights from the last 50 years: https://www.instagram.com/p/BbMtr-0gTZX/?tagged=nymag50.

This week a new project appeared around the New York City area to mark their celebration. http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/new-yorks-50th-anniversary-public-art-project-debuts.html The editors write, “In honor of New York Magazine’s 50th anniversary, the publication is launching a year-long exhibit showcasing specially-designed New York covers by 50 renowned artists, called simply ‘A Public Art Project.’ Today [January 22, 2018], the first eight covers—created by Yoko Ono, Barbara Kruger, Rob Pruitt, Alex Katz, Hank Willis Thomas, Mel Bochner, John Giorno and Marilyn Minter—were unveiled and rolled out at 25 locations across the five boroughs.

The covers are displayed in various sizes and formats, including ‘wild postings,’ on street lamp banners, and giant versions; they’ll continue being rolled out through the fall when, come October, an exhibit of all 50 will debut.”

The first of them, by Alex Katz [seen at the top], appeared on their cover last November and “is a drawing he did on the subway, an echo of those he made underground in the 1940s. The others also, in their own ways, celebrate the spirit of life in New York City, a place of solidarity — whether on packed trains or in political marches.”

**Most important, in a few locations that will be announced on Twitter (at @NYMag), there will be ten copies stacked like a pad of paper, so (if you’re one of the lucky people to get there first) you can tear off a poster and take it home. Donations to our collection are always welcome.Dust jacket for Christopher Bonanos, Highbrow, Lowbrow, Brilliant, Despicable: 50 Years of New York ([New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2017]). Graphic Arts Collection GAX in process.

1897: Kodak Portfolio

“Child Portrait” by Mr. J. Craig Annan. There is no more delightful occupation for the Kodaker than to photograph a charming child. The self-consciousness which so often spoils an otherwise capital model of more mature years is entirely absent, and the operator has full scope to exercise his skill in reproducing some of the childish graces of his dainty subject. The present picture was taken with a No. 4 Cartridge Kodak, and cut down to its present dimensions.

Introduction.

This edition de luxe of 14 photographs by eminent photographers is a souvenir of the Eastman Photographic Exhibition, held at the New Gallery, Regent Street, London, from 27th October to 16th November, 1897. It is aimed chiefly to exemplify some of the pictorial applications of the Kodak and film photography.

The pictures, without exception, are Kodak film pictures, and the assortment is specially arranged to illustrated a few of the various classes of subjects which can all be effectively exploited by Kodak photography.

Landscape, seascape, architectural pictures, portraiture pure and simple done at home, portrait head and shoulders, portraiture of three-quarter figure, portraiture of the whole figure with drawing-room surroundings, will be found pictorially exemplified in this little volume.

We wish to express our hearty thanks to the eminent photographers who have kindly lent us their film negatives, from which the fine reproductions have been made by Mr. J. Craig Annan, of Messrs. Annan & Sons.

The design stamped upon leather on the cover is by Sir David Young Cameron RA (1865-1945).

Kodak Portfolio: Souvenir of the Eastman Photographic Exhibition 1897: A Collection of Kodak Film Pictures By Eminent Photographers (London: Eastman Photographic Materials Co., Ltd.; Rochester, N.Y.: Eastman Kodak Co., [1897]). SAX in process.

This catalogue and the London exhibit featured the photographs of Henry Peach Robinson (1830-1901), W. Stoiber (active 1890s), George Davison (1854-1930), James Craig Annan (1864-1946), Eustace Calland (active 1890s), Andrew Pringle, Frances Benjamin Johnston (1864-1952), and Alfred Horsley Hinton (1863-1908). Each negative was engraved and printed in photogravure by James Craig Annan’s company Annan & Sons in Glasgow, Scotland.

Here are a few more examples from the catalogue.

“A Portrait” by Miss Frances B. Johnston. This profile portrait has been specially taken by Miss Johnston for the Kodak portfolio. It furnishes another example of the successful use of the lighting of ordinary rooms for portraiture. The textures of the different surfaces represented are effectively rendered in the picture. The photograph was taken with a No. 2 Bull’s-Eye Kodak.

 

“Portrait of a Lady” by Mr. J. Craig Annan. The effect obtained in this picture is, as we feel it, made up of a selection of an interesting face, a simple pose, and a pleasing decorative arrangement of figure, costume, and background. The picture was taken with a No. 4 Cartridge Kodak.

 

 

 

One example of the 1897 No. 4 Cartridge Kodak, the type used to make the negatives for several of these images.

 

 

 

“Night on a Norwegian Fjord” by Mr. Andrew Pringle. Mr. Pringle informs us that this picture was taken about 9 P.M. on a July evening on a Norwegian fjord. The boat is an old Norway lugger, and the curious lines in the water are waves formed in the wake of the steamer form which the photograph was taken. The negative was taken in a No. 4 Cartridge Kodak.

 

“Portrait with Interior” by Mr. J. Craig Annan. This little picture shows what can be done with the Kodak in the way of home portraiture. The complete figure is shown gracefully posed in an interesting light, and suggests a more natural portrait than one generally finds in a studio photograph. Photographers  would do well to make more experiments with the lighting secured by a judicious use of their ordinary domestic rooms. The negative was taken with a No. 4 Cartridge Kodak.

 

“Rusthall Quarry” by Mr. H.P. Robinson. In response to a request for a note upon his picture, Mr. H. P. Robinson kindly writes as follows: This little known but very picturesque dell is part of the beautiful Rusthall Common, near Tunbridge Wells, of which it is part. Although it is most accessible it is so hidden in the hollow between the rocks of the disused quarry and some rising ground and tall trees, that few lovers of the picturesque find their way into it.

For thirty years it has been a happy hunting-ground that almost seemed my own, both for photography and natural history. I feel ashamed of appropriating so much beauty to myself, and should be glad to see other photographers at work in it. There are plenty of subjects for all. We think no one can fail to recognize in this picture a delightful effect of a kind which is associated in our minds with many beautiful old engravings. The negative was taken with a No. 4 Cartridge Kodak.

Kodak exhibition interior, 1897. Printing out paper print of a Kodak exhibition interior designed by George Walton (1867-1933), at the New Gallery, Regent Street, London. © Kodak Collection. National Science & Media Museum. Science & Society Picture Library

 

 

Pathological Color

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired the January 9, 1968 issue of Look magazine for Princeton University’s upcoming class: Pathological Color, VIS 326 • Spring 2018, being taught by James Welling, Lecturer with the rank of Professor in Visual Arts.

This course will examine photography’s ongoing negotiation of evolving color technologies. Students will use film and digital cameras to explore color as a physiological phenomenon and a technology of image reproduction as well as a virtual construct to be created at will. The analog darkroom and the digital lab will be used to make prints for periodic critiques. A range of new tools will be introduced, including sheet film development, less used Photoshop tools, and analogue color pigment printing. This course will require independent and collaborative assignments, augmented by field trips, readings and discussion.

—http://arts.princeton.edu/courses/pathological-color-spr-18/

For this issue, an article on the success of the Beatles entitled “The Art Beat of the ’60s” was written by Patricia Coffin and Richard Avedon was commissioned to photograph the four young men. The shoot took place in New York City on August 17, 1967, but there were changes in the layout throughout the fall, with the size and sequence of the portraits changing several times at the insistence of the record company.

Avedon’s photographs are at the center of the issue so they can easily be removed for framing. One side has the psychedelic color version and the other has the black and white.

Currently, there is room for one more student in this class. The sample reading list includes Ludwig Wittgenstein, Notes on Color; Johan Wolfgang von Goethe, Theory of Colors; Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spriritual in Art; Rudolph Steiner, Colour; Julia Kristeva, Black Sun; and Michael Taussig, What Color is The Sacred?

 

Portrait of Ekaterina Nikolayevna Yurovskaya


The Graphic Arts Collection of Early Soviet sheet music, purchased in conjunction with Slavic East European Studies, has been conserved, digitized, and now, individually catalogued by special collections assistant Anna Meerson, along with dozens of new name authority records created by Eva Eslami, Western Languages Cataloging Team.

Thanks to Thomas Kenan, Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Librarian, two copies of the sheet music for the same 1926 song were identified, which is already rare but in addition, one has a portrait on the cover of the Russian singer E. N. I︠U︡rovskai︠a︡ (also written Ekaterina Nikolayevna Yurovskaya, 1886-1949) while the other has no such image.

The music, “L’etsi︠a︡ pesni︠a︡. t︠s︡ygane” was written by Valentin Kruchinin and the lyrics by M.N Lakhtin. Our score is designed by the artist Evgeniĭ Mikhaĭlovich Gol’shtein (ca. 1880-ca. 1942).

Each piece of music can be searched by composer, lyricist, title, and other elements here: http://library.princeton.edu/. This one is: Valentin Kruchinin (composer) and M.N. Lakhtin (lyricist), Lʹetsi︠a︡ pesni︠a︡ t︠s︡ygane (Moskva: Izdanie avtora, 1926). Notes: “Abramu Markovichu Olinskomu”—Cover; Artist’s monogram “EG”—Cover; Illustrated by Golʹshteĭn, Evgeniĭ Mikhaĭlovich. Artist’s full name is taken from the book “Opredelitelʹ monogramm khudozhnikov-oformiteleiĭ proizvedeniiĭ pechati”; sostavil Alekseĭ Morozov. Graphic Arts Collection Q-000377

Listen to a recording by Ekaterina Yurovskaya here: http://www.russian-records.com/details.php?image_id=18812&l=Russian
Thanks to Mike Siravo for processing the collection.

Festschrift for Adolf Müller, publisher of “Mein Kampf”

Adolf Müller (1884-1945), Von der Pike Auf, Zum 60. Geburtstag unseres Chefs herrn Adolf Müller zusammengestellt [Munich: H. Schwaiger, 1944]. Frontispiece portrait and approximately 300 black & white photographs on 104 glossy photo paper. 160 unnumbered leaves of text, all printed on coated glossy paper. Graphic Arts Collection 2018- in process.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired this richly illustrated festschrift for Adolf Müller (1884-1945), the publisher of Mein Kampf and close confidante of Hitler from the earliest days of the Nazi party. Issued to celebrate the publisher’s 60th birthday on May 4, 1944, only two copies were privately printed. Approximately one year later, on May 23, 1945, Müller hanged himself in prison following his capture by American troops.

Müller’s personal copy was bound and presented to him from the firm. This is the copy now at Princeton University Library. The volume contains a first-hand history of the Nazi party’s control of media in the pre-World War II period, as well as documentation of Müller’s publishing empire and his relationship with Hitler. The photographs show printing equipment, offices and factories, intimate shots of Müller’s offices, and reproductions of significant publications.

Quotes below are from the dealer’s well-researched description:

Müller was an intimate friend of Hitler — it was Müller who picked him up from Landsberg prison (documented within) in 1924 and Hitler lived in the publisher’s house in Tegernsee. Müller published Mein Kampf in 1925 and all its subsequent editions. The chief publisher of the Nazi party, he directed the printing of the newspaper “Völkischer Beobachter,” a vital arm of the Nazi propaganda effort.

Müller parlayed his firm’s importance to the Nazi cause from its earliest days into powerful administrative positions and a close friendship with Hitler. Intimate scenes of Müller show him hunting and fishing, participating in Nazi rallies, working at his desk, conferring with prominent Nazi officials, etc. Among the many images of Müller’s personal life, Hitler appears in twelve images, including one where he has just been released from Landsberg prison following the Beer Hall Putsch and stands next to Müller’s car.

After his discharge from the German army in 1915, Müller founded the printing company Münchner Buchgewerbhaus M. Müller & Sohn, to publish newspapers and magazines. By the early 1920s he had formed friendships with members of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and, starting in 1925, Müller’s firm was the party’s central publishing house.

Subsequently, the Nazi party entrusted to Müller the publication of Mein Kampf because of his friendship with Hitler. Once the Nazi party had taken over the German government, Müller’s business, benefitting from a near monopoly, grew exponentially. He officially joined the party at Hitler’s request in 1934. His firm printed more than two million copies weekly of various Nazi magazines and newspapers at the beginning of World War II. Müller’s leadership was an irreplaceable component of the Nazi party’s propaganda apparatus in the 1920s and through to the end of the war.


The text of this book provides a thorough account of Müller’s career, which, at times, is surprisingly candid. Certain portions touch upon the company’s claims that it was an impartial entity, even though it underwent a rapid change from a neutral publishing house into a company wholly involved in National Socialist propaganda.

Additionally, it becomes clear that this document was not intended for widespread publication since it openly discusses the company’s internal operations and political decisions in a very forthright and revealing manner.

Another section describes the firm’s entanglement in a controversy regarding the reporting of Germany’s annexation of Austria. Finally, there are extensive histories of the publication of Mein Kampf and the “Völkischer Beobachter.”

According to the preface composed by Heinrich Schwaiger, chief manager of the Munich headquarters, two copies of the work were printed, however the present copy was the only one bound and the second, which remained in sheets, can no longer be located. Despite Nazi Germany’s growing number of defeats by 1944 and the destruction of the company’s headquarters in a bombing raid, no expense was spared in this book’s production. An original Gothic font was cast especially for this book, and the company’s plant prioritized the high-quality illustrations on fine coated photo paper.

 

All of the photographs are fully described and the individuals identified. Here is one example of the many indexes through the volume.

 

 

Re-creating Delaunay’s “La Prose du Transsibérien”

In 2008, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library published a facsimile of La Prose du Transsibérien (Prose on the Trans-Siberian Railway) by Blaise Cendrars and Sonia Delaunay. The full-size color reproduction was even folded like the original. The only problem was it couldn’t represent the pochoir (stencil) printing of the original.

Now, Kitty Maryatt, Director Emerita of the Scripps College Press, has re-created La Prose in the same size, same color, same folding, but this time with the original letterpress text and hand-painted pochoir color.

Maryatt and her assistant Chris Yuengling-Niles finished the first copies in France, where they spent almost two months working daily with Christine Menguy at Atelier Coloris to fine-tuned their skills in the pochoir process. The edition of 150 copies is published by Two Hands Press and the Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a copy.

All the specifications can be found at http://laprosepochoir.blogspot.com but here are some details.

The type for the book was printed in June of 2017 by printer Richard Siebert in San Francisco. Two Hands Press licensed a high-resolution scan of La Prose from The Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Richard removed the surrounding pochoir colors from the Blaise Cendrars poem and then went through the whole text for weeks, cleaning up nearly every letter. Sixteen photo-polymer plates were needed to print the four 16 x 23 inch pages, with each one printed in four colors: orange, ruby red, green and blue. Each of the 1000 sheets was printed four times on his Heidelberg letterpress.

The gouache color for Delaunay’s imagery is hand-applied using thin metal stencils. There are about 25 aluminum stencils for each of the four sheets, totaling 100 in all. The 50 or so colors have been selected with great care to match the originals.

La Prose was first produced in Paris in 1913 and published by Cendrars’s own self-financed publishing house, Éditions des Hommes Nouveaux (New Man Publishing). The text and artwork were printed onto the same sheet, which was folded accordion-style to form the twenty-two panels. Unfolded the book is approximately 199 x 36 cm.

Listen to an audio recording of the text approved by Blaise Cendrars, read by Jacques-Henry Levesque with score by Frederic Ramsey Jr. (Folkways Records, 1967) thanks to the Museum of Modern Art’s Inventing Abstraction website: https://www.moma.org/explore/multimedia/audios/341/4333

Cendrars’s story describes a railway trip taken by a poet and a young girl named after Joan of Arc, from Moscow to Paris, via China and the North Pole.

A very peculiar and unique specimen of binding

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a 1691 edition of poems by Lodovico Adimari (1644-1708) dedicated to Louis XIV, king of France (1638-1715). While the poems may be interesting, it is the binding that first drew our attention.

In the 1903 Book-Prices Current: A Record of Prices at which Books Have Been Sold at Auction, entry 6057 describes a book sold for £16:

Adimari (Lodovico). Poesie, alla Maiesta del Re Lodovico XIV. il Grande. Old morocco, full gilt back with stars and crescents . . . and a full-length figure of a crowned queen in gilt outlines, all apparently hand-tooled except a fieur-de-lis on one of the plinths, which appears to be stamped, a very peculiar and unique specimen of binding, Bologna, 1691.

When this volume was in the hands of Mortimer L. Schiff (1877-1931) he appears to have also considered the binding contemporary with the text.

But in the 1997 article, “A binding decorated c. 1880-1890, probably in Bologna – English and foreign bookbindings 77” in The Book Collector (1997), Anthony Hobson attributed the binding to “a gang of Bolognese forgers . . . torn between conflicting ambitions.” Should the book look Italian to fit the poet and publisher or should it appear French, to fit the larger market for French antiquarian books at the time? This is the concern that led to the book’s unique and hard to classify binding, according to Hobson.

Detail


Lodovico Adimari (1644-1708), Poesie di Lodovico Adimari, patrizio fiorentino e gentiluomo della camera del serenissimo di Mantoua alla maesta del gloriosissimo e cristianissimo re Lodovico XIV, il Grande ([Mantua?]: [publisher not identified], [1691?]) with Alla sacra reale maesta christianissima di Luigi il Grande (Bologna: Per gle Eredi di Antonio Pifarri, 1691). Graphic Arts Collection. Acquired with funds provided by the Rare Book Division, French Studies, and Graphic Arts Collection.

Printed presentation leaf from “Dottore Giouam-battista, e Caualiere Almerigo Visconti Bartholini”, to “Caualiere Francesco, Giouan-Maria, e Camillo Maria Visconti”, bound in at front. Manuscript presentation leaf to Dottore Giovambattista Bartholini from J.A.. Buzzichelli, with two leaves of manuscript verses by Buzzichelli, bound in at end.

 


On both front and rear covers, a double-rule frames a crowned woman in a long robe standing between two plinths that support potted laurels; crescents in three corners, an upper border of lilies and lower border of daisies and lilies; the crescent repeated in the spine compartments, edges sprinkled red and blue.

One source identified the female figure standing in silhouette as Queen Marie-Thérèse of Austria (1638-1683). Here is the queen’s official portrait by Charles Beaubrun (1604–1692) and Henri Beaubrun the younger (1603–1677), which matches the binding surprisingly well.