Category Archives: Illustrated books

illustrated books

Ahí Va El Golpe (There Goes the Punch)

Ahí Va El Golpe (Mexico, 1955-1956). 20 issues: numbers 5-9,11-21,23-26. Letterpress and lithographs. Graphic Arts Collection GAX in process

Under the direction of Alberto Beltrán Garcia (1923-2002), this Mexican satirical magazine flourished for only two years. Beltrán was an active member of the Taller de Gráfica Popular (The People’s Print Workshop or TGP, see: http://pudl.princeton.edu/collections/pudl0012) then later, worked as deputy director for graphics for the newspaper El Día. On his own time, he drew, printed, and self-published several journals including Ahí Va El Golpe (There Goes the Punch) and El Coyote Emplumado (The Feathered Coyote).

We are fortunate to have acquired 20 rare issues of the first, ephemeral publication from the 1950s. Each issue has only four to six pages, primarily caricatures. Fellow TGP member Leopoldo Méndez contributed several illustrations.

The Ten Birth Tales and the Legend of Phra Malai

The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have acquired a mid-nineteenth century illustrated folding Funeral Book/Book of Merit containing a collection of Buddhist texts in Pali and Thai languages, in Khmer (Cambodian) script. Executed in watercolor, gilt, and ink, the stories include the legend of Phra Mali and the Ten Birth Tales. Although it is not dated, this wonderful volume is likely from Central Thailand between 1850 and 1900.

This large folding leporello of heavy paper (probably made from mulberry bark) is comprised of 48 leaves penned in a single neat hand in Khmer script and completed on both recto and verso. The work includes 17 paintings: 8 pairs of vibrant watercolors, several embellished with gilt, and one full double-page panel depicting scenes in Hell.

The British Library online notes: “The production of illustrated folding books ranks as one of Thailand’s greatest cultural achievements. They were produced for different purposes in Buddhist monasteries and at the royal and local courts, as well. First of all, such books served as teaching material and handbooks for Buddhist monks and novices. Classical Buddhist literature, prayers (Sutras) and moral teachings were also read to the lay people during religious ceremonies. The production of folding books-–and even sponsoring their production–was regarded as a great act of merit making. Therefore, folding books quite often are a kind of “Festschrift” in honour of a deceased person.”

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/remarkmanu/thai/index.html

Thanks to the assistance of Deborah Cotham and Dr Jana Igunma at the British library, we believe that the present example is one such funeral book, most probably completed by one scribe in Khmer script, though the language of the text is a mixture of Pali and Thai. I quote their notes in full:

The first part of the manuscript refers to the ten qualities of the Buddha, which are usually illustrated by the Buddha’s last Ten Birth Tales (Thai thotsachat). This section would be written in Pali, the language of the Buddhist canon. Funeral books were often commissioned by family members in order to make merit on behalf of the deceased person and to ensure that their family would not end up in hell, but be reborn in one of the Buddhist heavens. Thus the manuscript also includes the legend of Phra Malai, the famous Buddhist Saint, who traveled to the Buddhist heavens and hells.

During his visits to hell (naraka), Phra Malai was said to bestow mercy on the creatures suffering there, and who implore him to warn their relatives on earth of the horrors of hell and how they can escape it through making merit on behalf of the deceased, meditation and by following Buddhist precepts. Indeed, one of the most striking of the illustrations found in the present example, is the double-page depiction of the horrors of hell. Most of the text is in black ink on thick paper, most probably made from the bark of the khoi tree (streblus asper).

The first part in particular, has been accurately and quite beautifully penned and with great care taken, suggesting the work of a skilled scribe. It is impossible to say whether he also illustrated the work, although academics believe that they were more often the work of a different artist. A number of the vibrant illustrations have been embellished with in gilt, which further added value and prestige to such manuscripts, and a way of earning further merit on behalf of the deceased. In this instance, some of the images appear to have been influenced by Western painting techniques, suggesting that the painter may have been a student experimenting with new styles and techniques.

The legend of Phra Malai, a Buddhist monk of the Theravada tradition said to have attained supernatural powers through his accumulated merit and meditation, is the main text in a nineteenth-century Thai folding books (samut khoi). He figures prominently in Thai art, religious treatises, and rituals associated with the afterlife, and the story is one of the most popular subjects of nineteenth-century illustrated Thai manuscripts.

Thanks to Martin Heijdra, Ph. D. 何義壯, Director, East Asian Library, for his help with this acquisition.

For further information see Henry Ginsburg, Thai Art and Culture. Historic manuscripts from Western Collections (London: British Library, 2000).

Memorials of the Old College of Glasgow

Thomas Annan and others. Memorials of the Old College of Glasgow (Glasgow: Thomas Annan, Photographer, 202 Hope Street. James Maclehose, Publisher and Bookseller to the University, 61 St. Vincent Street. MDCCCLXXI [1871]). 41 albumen silver prints. Graphic Arts Collection 2016- in process

“On July 28, 1870, the Senate of the University of Glasgow met for the last time in the Old College Buildings to confer degrees to outgoing students. The following year the ceremony was moved to the New Buildings.

Annan conceived the present volume as a both a memorial to the 450-year history of the university and as a record of the ‘venerable structure before it underwent any change’. Consequently he here presents fifteen interior and external views of the buildings with various aspects of the Inner and Outer Courts, the Professor’s Court and the Hunterian Museum.

Three professors, Dr. Weir, Professor Veitch and Professor Cowan, agreed to contribute texts in which they record the history and work of the individual faculties. To their notes Annan added twenty-six portrait photographs of members of the Senate at the time of its removal to the New Buildings.”

This is the eleventh album of photographs by Annan acquired by Princeton University Library, in an attempt to document this man’s work in its entirety. Whether in portraiture, landscape, or architectural photography, Annan remains one of the most accomplished artists of his time.

Lovers of Harmony

The Songsters multum in parvo; or, New pocket companion for the lovers of harmony. Embracing all the popular new songs, singing at the theatres royale, minor places of amusement, & c. (London: J. Fairburn, no date [1808-1810]). 6 volumes. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Cruik 1808.2

A reference question led to the discovery that each of the six volumes in this series has a different frontispiece. The British Museum attributes the designs to Isaac Cruikshank (1764-1811) and notes: “The book, in six volumes, was issued in 72 weekly numbers, 19 Nov. 1808-31 Mar. 1810, each with four plates; the frontispieces and ten of the other plates are after Cruikshank.” Albert Mayer Cohn lists them as drawn by his son George Cruikshank (1792-1878). The engraving was done by William Grainger (active 1786-1809).

Here’s the set:

Erigeron Philadelphicum and other Medical Flora

Constantine S. Rafinesque (1783-1840), Medical Flora; or, Manual of the Medical Botany of The United States of North America (Philadelphia: Printed and published by Atkinson & Alexander, 1828/1830). Two volumes. 100 plates printed in green. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2016- in process.

Constantine Samuel Rafinesque was a botanist and professor. Originally born in Turkey, he came to Philadelphia in 1802. He met Thomas Jefferson in July 1804 while traveling through Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia to study the local flora. Although this was their only meeting, they corresponded sporadically for the next twenty years. During their first bout of correspondence, Rafinesque expressed keen interest in the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Jefferson suggested that he might prove useful in a proposed expedition along the Red River. Rafinesque did not join this expedition, having left the country for Italy before receiving the letter. He remained there for the next ten years.

Rafinesque returned to the U.S. in 1815, and accepted a position as a botany professor at Transylvania University in 1819. Rafinesque wrote to Jefferson after a silence of nearly fifteen years to inquire after a professorship at the University of Virginia. Jefferson promised to “lay [his] letter before the board in due time.” Rafinesque was ultimately unsuccessful in securing a position at the new university, despite applying to Jefferson several more times over the next few years.Rafinesque remained at Transylvania University and did extensive archaeological and linguistic work on the early people in the Ohio Valley. In 1826, he moved to Philadelphia where he continued to write until his death by cancer.” –The Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia: https://www.monticello.org/site/house-and-gardens/rafinesque-constantine-samuel

Rafinesque opens volume one with 74 main points, beginning:
1. THE Science of Botany was at all times intimately connected with medical knowledge.
2. Several ancient nations, such as the Grecians, Romans, Hindoos, Chinese, &c. considered Medical Botany as equivalent to both botanical and medical knowledge.
3. Medicine was then, and is still among rude nations, nothing more than the application of an empirical knowledge of vegetable substances.
4. Thence the usual vulgar division of Plants, into the five great Classes of ALIMENTS, SIMPLES, POISONS, FLOWERS and WEEDS, or alimentary, medical, poisonous, ornamental and useless plants.
5. At the revival of learning in Europe, this notion being general, the first works on Botany, were of course mere sketches of Medical Botany, and comments on Grecian or Roman writers.
6. When Tournefort and Linnaeus, about a century ago, became botanical reformers, and made Botany a separate Science, their efforts and improvements were resisted by those who at all times contend against useful innovations.
7. Linnaeus in his Materia Medica, gave a model of systematical Medical Botany, equally concise, perspicuous and accurate; but destitute of the help of figures. . .

He ends with 12 concluding remarks:
1. Physicians do not agree on the mode of action of the properties, nor the proximate and intricate operation of remedies; but the ultimate effects and results being ascertained, they are sufficient for practical use.
2. Drugs are Vegetable substances prepared for use, and kept for sale by Druggists or Pharmacians.
3. Those which are imported, are often adulterated, or inferior kinds are substituted; for instance Peruvian Bark or CINCHONA, and Saffron or CROCUS, are hardly to be met with in the U. S.—Caribean bark or PORTLANDIA, and Bastard Saffron or CARTHAMUS, are usually sold instead, which are very weak substitutes.
4. This arises from a want of medical inspections and officinal knowledge: the results are, that prescriptions fail, physicians are disappointed, and patients suffer.
5. To avoid in part these evils, it is desirable to employ our own genuine medical substances, whenever they afford sufficient remedies and suitable equivalents.
6. Medical substances being often impaired by age, it is desirable to obtain them fresh, or in yearly rotation.
7. Fresh and genuine substances can only be obtained at all times from medical gardens, or honest dealers.
8. The best medical gardens in the United States are those established by the Communities of SHAKERS, or modern Essenians, who cultivate or collect about one hundred and fifty kinds of medical plants.
9. They sell them cheap, fresh and genuine, in a compact and portable form. Pharmacians would do well to supply themselves with them, or to imitate their useful industry.
10. Several of our medical plants and drugs are already an object of trade to Europe and elsewhere. Many more may become in demand, when their valuable properties will be better known.
11. A new branch of trade may thus be opened, which it is our duty to encourage, by collecting and cultivating our medical plants.
12. Herbalists and Collectors are often ignorant and deceitful. The best way to prevent their frauds and correct their blunders is, by enlightening them, adopting botanical names, and refusing spurious drugs.

Inspiration for orators, poets, painters, architects, and sculptors

This difficult to read title page translates roughly: A Lot of Useful and Artistic Imagery, or, Hieroglyphic Images of the Virtues, Vices, Emotions, the Arts, and the Sciences: where by Orators, Poets, Painters, Architects, Sculptors, Designers, and others pursue their ideas, Or, in the case of a blocked period, provide inspiration so that one will not be troubled for a long time.

Johann Christoph Weigel created 300 emblems to represent, as the title indicates, virtues, vices, emotions, and other curiosities, then described each one in German, Latin, and French.

The engraver and his older, better-known brother Christoph Weigel (1654-1725) worked closely with the most prominent of the Nuremburg map publishers J.B. Homann and the printer, Kohler. Following the death of the older Weigel in 1725, control of the firm passed to his widow, who published a number of Weigel’s maps and atlases posthumously.

It has been speculated that this emblem book was published by one of the Weigel wives after Johann’s death in 1726.

Johann Christoph Weigel (1661?-1726), Viel nutzende und Erfindungen reichende Sinnbild-Kunst, oder, Hieroglijphische Bilder, vorstellung [sic] der Tugenden, Laster, Gemuts-Bewegungen, Künste und Wissenschafften: wodurch Rednern, Poeten, Mahlern, Bauverständigen, Bildhauern, durch Zeichnungen und einer Kurtzen Beschreibung Ansatz ihre Gedancken ferner auszuüben gegeben ferner aus zu üben gegeben oder beij gäh verfallenden gelegenkeiten ihne gnugsame Materi vor Augene gelegt wird, damit sie sich nicht lang besinnen dörffen (Nürnberg: Verlegt und zu finden beij Johann Christoph Weigel …, [1730?]). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2016- in process

The paper of the text and plates are watermarked with a bishop above NMH. This watermark is not recorded in Heawood, but is known to be used for other publications by Weigel all dated ca. 1730. See also: John Landwehr, German Emblem Books 1531-1888. A bibliography (Utrecht: Haentjens Dekker & Gumbert; Leiden, Sijthoff [1972]). Marquand Library (SA) Z1021.3 .L35J: 306, 641.

Congratulations on the 50th Anniversary of “A Humument”

It is fifty years since Tom Phillips began work on A Humument. This fall Phillips, who was a Director’s Visitor to the Institute for Advanced Study from 2005 to 2011, will launch the final edition of the book, bringing the work to its completion.

http://us2.campaign-archive2.com/?u=0c0adc07d2f9eddc1cbbe35e2&id=295dc79bf6&e=07fe99d309

Published today, 27th October, 2016, the final installment of A Humument will appear in three formats: paperback, hardback, and a limited special edition of 100 numbered copies presented in a clamshell box with a signed and editioned print.

Phillips remembers, “A Humument started life around noon on the 5th of November 1966 at a propitious place. Austin’s Furniture Repository stood on Peckham Rye, where William Blake saw his first angels and which Van Gogh must have passed once or twice on his way to Lewisham. As usual on a Saturday morning Ron Kitaj and I were prowling the huge warehouse in search of bargains. When we arrived at the racks of cheap and dusty books left over from house clearances I boasted to Ron that if I took the first one that cost threepence I could make it serve a serious long-term project. My eye quickly chanced on a yellow book with the tempting title A Human Document. Looking inside we found it had the fateful price. ‘If it’s a dime,’ said Ron ‘then that’s your book: and I’m your witness.’”

“Neither a novel, a poem, an artist’s book, or a graphic novel,” wrote Sebastian Smee, “Tom Phillips’s ‘A Humument,’ on show at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, is a little bit of all these things and one thing incontrovertibly: a masterpiece. It’s also, uncomfortably, a parasite. Sucking steadily at the life juices of an earlier attempt at art, a late-19th-century novel called ‘A Human Document’ by W.H. Mallock, it has transformed its forgotten host page by page, edition by edition, into something far more imaginative and lasting. And while — like a charming houseguest grown fond of the husband he cuckolds — Phillips is unfailingly well-mannered toward Mallock’s book, he has nonetheless thoroughly bested it.” – Smee, “Tom Phillips’s brilliance on every page,” (Boston Globe July 04, 2013)

A Lecture on Heads

In honor of “Reading Faces,” the standing-room-only panel held a few days ago at the Princeton University Art Museum, here is an 1808 “Lecture on Heads”. The University’s scholars focused on caricatures and studies of expressions, approaching the works of art from the perspectives of art history, psychology, and neuroscience.

Speakers included Anne McCauley, David Hunter McAlpin Professor of the History of Photography and Modern Art; Alexander Todorov, professor of psychology; Judy Fan, postdoctoral research associate in the Princeton Neuroscience Institute; and Veronica White, Curator for Academic Programs.

George Alexander Stevens, on the other hand, got the idea of a lecture by a country carpenter, who made the character-blocks that formed the subjects of illustrations. It proved an extraordinary success in the hands of the originator. He carried it about England, through the United States, and on finally to Ireland.

After a certain point (there is disagreement on the exact year) Stevens sold his act to the comedian Charles Lee Lewes, who continued to perform the “Lectures” for several years. Lewes is given credit for the performance in this book. The 25 plates in this volume were designed by George Woodward but etched and colored by Thomas Rowlandson.

Mr. Crindle and The Man in the Moon

The British artist Henry George Hine (1811-1895) left Punch in 1844 to freelance for a variety of other satirical newspapers and magazines, including Great Gun, Puck, and, beginning in 1847, The Man in the Moon. Although it had a smaller format, Man in the Moon boasted a large, fold-out cartoon narrative at the front of every monthly issue.

The first fold-out told the Life and Death of Don Guzzles of Carrara (artist unknown), followed the next month with The Foreign Gentleman in London; or the English Adventures of M. Vanille, drawn by Cham (1819-1879).

Man in the Moon’s third issue offered the first of nine installments chronicling Mr. Crindle’s Rapid Career upon Town. Hine collaborated on the story and designs with Albert Smith (1816-1869), who had also left Punch for this new journal.

The Crindle series became so popular with the British public that the nine parts were combined and published as a continuous narrative in four pages, titled The Surprising Adventures and Rapid Career Upon Town of Mr. Crindle (recently acquired by the Graphic Arts Collection).

Not to be outdone, the Paris publisher Charles Philipon (1800-1861) had Gustave Doré (1832-1883) create a revised version called L’Homme aux Cent Mille Écus (The Man with a Hundred Thousand Crowns) which ran in Journal pour Rire between January 12 and June 15, 1850.

The Man in the Moon: A Monthly Review and Bulletin of New Measures, New Men, New Books, New Plays, New Jokes, and New Nonsense; Being an Act for the Amalgamation of the Broad Gauge of Fancy with the Narrow Gauge of Fact into the Grand General Amusement Junction (London: Clarke, 1847-1849). Edited by Albert Smith (1816-1869) and Angus B. Reach (1821-1856). Artists include Smith; George Augustus Sala (1828-1895); Phiz (Hablot Knight Browne, 1815-1882); Joseph Kenny Meadows (1790-1874); Lionel Percy Smythe (1839-1918); Cham (1819-1879); Robert B. Brough (1828-1860); Henry George Hine (1811-1895); Isaac Nicholson; and Thomas A. Mayhew. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) 2005-0423N

Le Journal pour rire (Paris: Aubert, 1848-1855). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2011-0030E

Here are some details:

Depero the Futurist

Join the waiting list to become a bibliopegist; that is, a collector of rare and remarkable book bindings. On October 18, Kickstarter will offer the opportunity to support the publication of a facsimile edition of the celebrated Futurist classic Depero Futurista (Depero the Futurist). http://www.boltedbook.com/fact-sheet/

Although Depero’s book has beautiful typography and a modernist emphasis on commercial advertising, it is the unusual binding that attracts most collectors. Dinamo-Azari bound the pages in printed pliant blue boards drilled and fastened with two 1.6-cm. aluminum bolts with nuts secured by cotter pins, with legend “rilegatura dinamo creazione Azari” printed between them on upper board. We call it the libro bullonato or the bolt book.

The 1927 edition was planned to be 1,000 copies published simultaneously in New York, Paris, Berlin, and Milan. Not a particularly limited edition. Princeton University’s Marquand Library holds copy no. 369, signed: Fortunato Depero 1928 (SAX NX600.F8 D47 1927q).

The proposed facsimile edition is thanks to a partnership with The Center for Italian Modern Art in New York, the Mart, Museum of modern and contemporary art of Trento and Rovereto, Italy (which houses the Depero archives), and Designers & Books (New York). They have also posted digital images of the entire volume: http://www.boltedbook.com/page-by-page/

The Kickstarter website will launch on October 18, 2016, but you can join a mailing list at www.boltedbook.com now to receive early information on the project.

This video was mounted in 2014 in conjunction with the exhibition Fortunato Depero at the Center for Italian Modern Art. Raffaele Bedarida introduces Depero Futurista and places it into context of the art and design movement we now call Futurism.

Fortunato Depero (1892-1960), Depero Futurista (Milano; New York; Paris; Berlin: Edizione italiana Dinamo Azari, [1927]). Also called Depero futurista 1913-1927. Illustrated throughout with typographical compositions and reproductions of paintings, drawings and photos; includes sections “Cuscini Depero” and “Pubblicità Depero,” with original relief prints, e.g. advertisements for the liqueur Campari. Marquand SAX NX 600.F8 D47 1927Q

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