Category Archives: Illustrated books

illustrated books

Soviet Pavilion at 1939 New York World’s Fair

“Russia to Spend $2,000,000 on Exhibit at Fair” proclaimed the New York Herald Tribune in 1938. “Plans for the pavilion of the Soviet Union at the New York World’s Fair 1939 have been approved by the Fair’s board of design, Vasily V. Bourgman, Soviet commissioner to the exposition announced yesterday at the Soviet Consultant. ‘Russian,’ Bourgman said, ‘will spend more than $2,000,000 on its building and exhibit.’” A year later on May 1, 1939 the paper reported that over 600,000 people had visited the fair on the first day.
Constructivist artists Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956) and his wife Varvara Stepanova (1894-1958) were commissioned to photograph and design a number of books for the Soviet pavilion. They worked on issues on the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition (Vsesoiuznaia sel’skokhoziaistvennaia vystavka) and the photograph albums Soviet Aviation, Procession of the Youth, and The Red Army and Navy, among others.

Thanks to Marquand librarian Sandra Brooke, we found that Princeton had these rare volumes in their original covers on the open stacks and moved them into the Graphic Arts Collection.

Soviet Aviation. Designed by Alexander Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova (Moscow, Leningrad: State Art Publishers, 1939). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process

USSR, The Red Army and Navy. Designed by Alexander Rodchenko and Stepanova Varvara Stepanova (Moscow and Leningrad: State Art Publishers, 1939). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process. Original red leatherette boards, lettered in red and cream and with large stamped red star on cover.

The Chimera and The Princeton Print Club

Guy Crittington MacCoy (1904-1981), Abstraction #2 [later called Yellow Heads], 1937. Included in The Chimera 1, no. 3 (winter 1943). Serigraph. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2007.01781.
Leo John Meissner (1895-1977), Oyster Shells, 1933. Included in The Chimera 1, no. 2 (autumn 1942). Wood engraving. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2007.01851.

In the February 4, 1943 Daily Princetonian Bulletin it was noted that beyond the exhibitions and lectures sponsored by the Princeton Print Club (PPC), “the Club is endeavoring to produce a silk screen lithograph for each issue of the newly formed publication, Chimera.” When the little magazine began in the spring of 1942, Elmer Adler was asked to join the publication’s advisory board and Kneeland McNulty, Class of 1943 and the second president of the PPC, was made art editor. For the second issue, Adler arranged for a wood engraving by Leo Meissner (1895-1977) entitled Oyster Shells, to be printed for the Princeton journal.

In October of 1942, the PPC mounted an exhibition of 40 prints by contemporary American artists, to be sold for $5 each to benefit the club and to enrich the lives of the students. Adler arranged for the prints, including Meissner’s Oyster Shells. Highlighted were a number of serigraphs, which was a new variation in screen printing Adler wished to promote. A Princeton reviewer wrote, “A group of serigraphs make Guy MacCoy the find of the show.” The Chimera published MacCoy’s Abstraction in their winter 1943 issue with a note, “It is the belief of the editors that this is the first serigraph to appear in a widely distributed magazine.”

Although Adler hoped the students would print a new serigraph for each issue of Chimera, only one other print was ever included. The book illustrator E. McKnight Kauffer (1893-1954) often created designs to be reproduced in pochoir or stenciled prints. For Chimera’s spring 1943 issue, he designed a portrait of Homer, which was presumably printed at Princeton for the magazine. Seven years later, Kauffer was given an exhibition of his work by the PPC in their new headquarters in 36 University Place.

E. McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954), Homer, 1944. Included in The Chimera 1, no. 4 (spring 1943). Serigraph. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2007.01503

Next year we celebrate the 75th anniversary of The Princeton Print Club. If you or your father were members, please let us know. We are gathering stories and memories.

Les portraits de quelques personnes signalées en piété

Les Portraits de quelques personnes signalées en piété … de l’ordre des minimes, avec leurs éloges tirez des historiens et des chroniques du mesme ordre (Portraits of some people reported in the pious order of the Minimes. Praised by historians & chronicles of this order), ([Paris?]: 1668). 18 engraved plates engraved by Etienne Picart (1632-1721); Jean Boulanger (ca. 1606-ca. 1680); Gérard Scotin (1643-1715); and others. Graphic Arts Collection 2014- in process

Bound with: Antonio Tempesta (1555-1530), Vita et miracula D. Bernardi Clarevallensis abbatis (Rome, 1587) and Les figures et l’abrégé de la vie, de la mort et des miracles de S. François de Paule (Paris, 1664). More about these two in other posts.

Although canonized by Pope Leo X in 1519, St. Francis of Paula (1416- 1507) was never ordained a priest. He founded the order of Minims and this volume is a graphic record of Francis and other friars in that order.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “In 1474 Sixtus IV gave him permission to write a rule for his community, and to assume the title of Hermits of St. Francis: this rule was formally approved by Alexander VI, who, however, changed their title into that of Minims. After the approbation of the order, Francis founded several new monasteries in Calabria and Sicily. He also established convents of nuns, and a third order for people living in the world, after the example of St. Francis of Assisi.”

Other notable Minim friars are Charles Plumier (1646-1704); Louis Feuillée (1660-1732); Louis Feuillée (1660–1732); Marin Mersenne (1588–1648); Jean François Niceron (1613–1646); and Charles Plumier (1646–1704).

St. Francis of Paula has his own webpage: http://www.francescodipaola.info/ where you can learn more about the miracles he performed.

Armadale illustrations

Miss Gwilt, Armadale, v. 1. Preliminary drawings and final wood engraving

According to Mark Bills, writing for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, the British artist George Housman Thomas (1824-1868) apprenticed to the wood engraver George Bonnar, learning to both design and cut engravings for illustrations.

Thomas spent several years in New York City illustrating books, newspapers, and banknotes, alongside his younger brother William Luson Thomas (1830-1800). Back in London, Thomas became “one of the first, if not the first, to draw on wood direct from life.”

The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to hold a number of Thomas’ preliminary sketches for the illustrations of Wilkie Collins’ Armadale (1866), offering a look at how the original design changed in the engraving of the image. Collins (1824-1889) was one of the most successful writers of Victorian England. Armadale, his longest novel, received a mixed reception when published, probably due to the scandalous portrayal of its female villain, Lydia Gwilt. For more about the author, see: http://www.wilkie-collins.info/index.htm

Force and Cunning, v.2

Wilkie Collins (1824-1889), Armadale (London: Smith, Elder and Company, 1866). 20 wood engravings designed by George Housman Thomas (1824-1868), engraved by his brother William Luson Thomas.

Read Thomas’s obituary: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Times/1868/Obituary/George_Housman_Thomas

Tempesta, “Raging death steers the boat”

Antonio Tempesta (1555-1530), Vita et miracula D. Bernardi Clarevallensis abbatis. Opera & industria Congregationis regularis obseruantiae eiusdem Hispaniarum ad alendam pietatem Vniuersi Ordinis Cisterciensis. Aeneis formis expressa. Pars prior. Cum priuilegio, & superiorum permissu. = The Life and Miracles of Lord Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux. The Works and Diligence of His Regular Observant Congregation of Spaniards for the Spiritually Nourishing Piety of the Whole Cistercian Order. Printed with copper plates. Part one. With the privilege and permission of the superiors (Rome, 1587). 56 engravings depicting the life of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090 or 1091-1153), 11 with monograms identifying various printmakers.

Bound with: Les Portraits de quelques personnes signalées en piété … de l’ordre des minimes (S.l., 1668) and Les figures et l’abrégé de la vie, de la mort et des miracles de S. François de Paule (Paris, 1664). More about these two in other posts.

Antonio Tempesta (1555-1630) was a multifaceted Baroque artist who worked both large and small, in color and in black & white, designing enormous wall frescos as well as modest, albeit complex, book illustrations. In Rome, he was one of the artists Pope Gregory XIII selected to decorate the Loggia Gallery of the Vatican Palace, among many other projects. At the same time, he produced over 1,500 engraving, released in portfolios and as bound plates.

For his first published book, Tempesta was commissioned by the Cistercian Order to tell the story of the French abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, (1090-1153) who founded a monastery known as Claire Callée or Clairvaux. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Bernard “began that active life, which has rendered him the most conspicuous figure in the history of the 12th century. He founded numerous other monasteries, composed a number of works, and undertook many journeys for the honor of God.”
Custodit Dominus animas sanctorum suorum. Psal. 96. Lib. I. Cap. XII. Aduersa laborans valetudine uno tempore, & de daemone, & de morte triumphat. = [The Lord] preserveth the souls of his saints. Psalms 97:10. Book 1, ch. 12. Struggling simultaneously against disease, the devil, and death, he triumphs.

For the text, the Jesuit, humanist and polygraph Giulio Roscio (1550-1591) was selected, a specialist in religious poetry. He wrote six lines of verse at the bottom of each of Tempesta’s plates. This one translates:

Lying sick in bed, Bernard sees both the horrors of the enemy, and the face of the one who is gentle in judging. / This one befriends, that one flees; now the nether regions themselves hold no terrors; he, however, stands; and raging death steers the boat. / The boat also departs, and sets sail far from shore. A double crown encircles Bernard’s head.

See more of Tempesta’s work:

Antonio Tempesta, Metamorphoseon, siue, Transformationum Ouidianarum libri quindecim, æeneis formis ab Antonio Tempesta Florentino incise… (Amsterodami, Wilhelmus Ianssonius excudit [1606?]) Rare Books (Ex) NE662.T45 O94 1606

Antonio Tempesta, Septem orbis admiranda ex antiqvitatis monimentis collecta, et oblectationi pvblicae in aereas tabvlas ab Antonio Tempesta Florentino relata (Antuerpiae, Venduntur apud I.B. Vrintium [1608]) Marquand Library (SAX): Rare Books NE662.T24 A3

Otto van Veen, Batavorum cum Romanis bellum, engraved by Antonio Tempesta (Antuerpiae: Apud auctorem vaeneunt, 1612) Rare Books (Ex) Oversize 2009-0462Q

The Elysium of Animals: A Dream

“The Knacker’s Yard,” by George Cruikshank (1792-1878), second state, in Egerton Smith, The Elysium of Animals: a Dream (London: J. Nisbet … 1836). Frontispiece by W. Harvey, the other illustration by Cruikshank. Originally published in The Melange. Prospectus of the Late Association for Promoting Rational Humanity towards the Animal Creation, and of its quarterly periodical, The Voice of Humanity, issued together. Arts Collection (GA) Cruik 1836.9. Gift of Richard Waln Meirs, Class of 1888.
The Knacker’s Yard, First state. (c) British Museum

The Monthly Review for 1836 commented on the book,

“That the author has succeeded in his endeavour to exhibit to the reader the odious character of wanton severity towards the lower animals, in a more forcible light than the common observer would discover for himself we admit. He has also put the subject upon such a ground, and treated it in such a shape as will naturally arouse the attention of the young, and the unreflecting. At the same time, we feel that he sometimes pitches his appeals too high, and that thereby he has run the risk of defeating the very object he had in view. For instance – and we care not by what human authority he backs his conjecture – it seems to us quite unnecessary, in pleading in behalf of the inferior animals, to suppose that they may enjoy a future state of existence.”

Cohn 758: Egerton Smith, The Elysium of Animals. A Dream. 8vo. London: J.Nisbet, Berners Street. 1836. Etched plate at p.83 of “The Knacker’s Yard” in second state (see note to no. 825). There is a frontispiece by W. Harvey.

Cohn 825: The Voice of Humanity: For the Communication and Discussion of all Subjects Relative to the Conduct of Man towards the Inferior Animal Creation. 3 Vols. 8vo. London: J. Nisbet, Berners Street. 1830-1833. The first volume was issued in four quarterly parts, the second and third volumes in white-grey printed cloth boards. The title of the second and third volume was changed to The Voice of Humanity: for The Association for Promoting Ratinal Humanity toward the Animal Creation. In the second volume the publishers’ name upon the title is spelt “Nisbett” instead of Nisbet as in the first and third volumes.

Part 4 of Vol. 1 contains the famous etching of “The Knacker’s Yard” in its first state before its alteration; and the same plate, in the second state, with the addition of more chickens, the notice, and writing above the window, in the centre of the plate, is at p.134 of Vol. 4. Douglas states that there is a still earlier state of the plate with the date at the bottom of the plate in the right-hand corner, and this state should be in Part 4 of Vol. 1. I am very doubtful of this, however, especially as he gives the date 1931, instead of 1830. Certainly it is not so in my copy of the parts, which belonged to Mr. Truman, and in which he has placed an autograph note, stating it to be first state, while the etching in Vol. 3 he designates second state. I have never seen copies with the date as mentioned by Doubglas. The plate appears int he second state in ‘The Melange,’ ‘The Elysium of Animals,’ and ‘Address of Earl Stanhope,’ . . .”

The Life, Death, and Miracles of Saint Francis of Paula

Les figures et l’abrégé de la vie, de la mort et des miracles de S. François de Paule instituteur et fondateur de l’ordre des minimes recueillies de la Bulle de Léon X et des enquestes faites pour procéder à sa canonization. Text by Antoine Dondé (Paris: François Muguet, 1664). Engraved vignettes by Adriaen Lommelin (1637?-1673), Nicolas de Poilly (1627-1696), F. Campion, Abraham Bosse (1602-1676) Jean Bollanger (1607-16??); Michael Noël Natalis (1610-1668); Etienne Picart (1632-1721); Nicolas Pitau (1632-1671); Pierre Petit; Gérard Scotin (1643-1716); and Antony van der Does (1606-1680). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process

Bound with: Antonio Tempesta (1555-1530), Vita et miracula D. Bernardi Clarevallensis abbatis (1587) and Les Portraits de quelques personnes signalées en piété … (1668). More about these in other posts.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired three books bound as one, each book presenting a set of engraved plates depicting the life of one or more saints. This post shows the second book with an incomplete life of Saint Francis of Paula (1416-1507). Our volume holds only 8 plates with 4 scenes each offering a total of 32 scenes. The complete copy in the Bibliothèque nationale shows 20 plates with a total of 80 scenes, along with preparatory material. http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8452395k

The project is closely related to Jacques Callot’s Les images de tous les saincts et saintes de l’année completed almost thirty years earlier. The Fine Art Museums of San Francisco have a nice set of these: http://art.famsf.org/jacques-callot/st-phocas-martyr-march-5-st-theophilus-bishop-march-5-st-conon-martyr-march-6-sts

At the age of fourteen, Francis returned to Paula. “…he selected a retired spot on his father’s estate, and there lived in solitude…. Here he remained alone for about six years giving himself to prayer and mortification. In 1435 two companions joined him in his retreat, and to accommodate them Francis caused three cells and a chapel to be built: in this way the new order was begun. The number of his disciples gradually increased, and about 1454, with the permission of Pyrrhus, Archbishop of Cosenza, Francis built a large monastery and church.

…The rule of life adopted by Francis and his religious was one of extraordinary severity. They observed perpetual abstinence and lived in great poverty, but the distinguishing mark of the order was humility. …In 1474 Sixtus IV gave him permission to write a rule for his community, and to assume the title of Hermits of St. Francis: this rule was formally approved by Alexander VI, who, however, changed their title into that of Minims. After the approbation of the order, Francis founded several new monasteries in Calabria and Sicily. He also established convents of nuns, and a third order for people living in the world, after the example of St. Francis of Assisi.
–Hess, Lawrence. “St. Francis of Paula.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1909.

Alexeieff

Russian émigré Alexandre Alexeieff (1901-1982) moved to Paris in the early 1920s, where he designed and painted sets for the Ballets Russes and other productions. When theater jobs dried up, Alexeieff took up printmaking and found work as an illustrator, creating plates for books by Poe, Baudelaire, Pushkin, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Hoffman, and his friends Andre Malraux and Philippe Soupault. One of the most beautiful is his 1927 Journal d’un fou (Diary of a Madman) by Gogol, illustrated with aquatints, seen above and below.

When the American poet Wallace Stevens was given a copy of one of Alexeieff’s books, he wrote, “I went over some of [the poems] again in the edition illustrated by Alexieff [sic]. I was very much pleased with this big Alexieff book because I love large pages for poetry. On the other hand, I cannot say that I think that Alexieff’s designs are truthful illustrations of the text; they are too individual. The eccentricity of Fargue should be delineated in its own right and not doubled by an additional eccentricity on the part of an illustrator.” –written to Paula Vidal 1950.

Nikolai Vasilʹevich Gogol (1809-1852), Journal d’un fou, gravures de A. Alexeieff; traduction de B. de Schloezer et J. Schiffrin (Paris: J. Schiffrin, les Editions de la Pléiade, 1927). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) PG3334.F5 Z3 1927

Alexeieff went on to make animated films using his own invention, the écran d’épingles (pinscreen) together with his second, American wife Claire Parker (1906-1981). The texture of these movies is surprisingly similar to the grainy quality of his earlier aquatints. Take a look.

Night on Bald Mountain by Alexandre Alexeieff, 1933

Gogol’s Le Nez, 1963.

Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin (1799-1837), La dame de pique; adaptation française de Prosper Mérimée; bois gravés en couleurs de A. Alexeieff (Paris: Pouterman, 1928). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) PG3348.F5 P5 1928

The Diary of George Templeton Strong

John O’Hara Cosgrave II (1908-1968), Original watercolor for the dust jacket of The Diary of George Templeton Strong edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas (New York: Macmillan, 1952). Graphic Arts Collection
The New York lawyer George Templeton Strong (1820-1875) began keeping a diary at the age of fifteen and continued until his death in 1875. The original, held by the New York Historical Society, was featured recently in Ken Burn’s PBS documentary on the American Civil War. A firm abolitionist, Strong’s diary offers a first-hand account of his efforts in support of the Union Army and the end of slavery in the United States.

In 1952, when Macmillan began preparing Strong’s diary for publication, the artist John O’Hara Cosgrave II (1908-1968) was commissioned to design the dust jacket. The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to hold the original watercolor, along with the final printed cover. Fortunate because the Princeton University Library, like many libraries, removes all the dust jackets from the books as soon as they are purchased.

Illustrations by the California-born watercolorist can be found in over 100 books, including Pardon My Harvard Accent (1941) by William G. Morse; Gnomobile (1936) by Upton Sinclair, Wind, Sand, and Stars (1939) by Antoine de Saint Exupéry; Come In and Other Poems (1943) by Robert Frost; Carry On, Mr. Bowditch (1955) by Jean Lee Latham; among many others.

To read selections, see: The Diary of George Templeton Strong edited by Allan Nevins and Milton Halsey Thomas (New York: Macmillan, 1952). Firestone Library (F) E415.9.S86 A3 1952

Isaac Cruikshank Frontispiece

The Graphic Arts Collection was recently offered the gift of Isaac Cruikshank’s frontispiece for The Life of the Late Most Noble Francis Duke of Bedford, completed March 16,1802. We already have the book, with its frontispiece in place, However, we were thrilled to acquire the duplicate print.

Why? In the Krumbhaar Catalogue Raisonné from 1966, this particular print is described in entry 648: “IC. Oval colored portrait frontispiece, ‘The Late most Nable Francis Duke of Bedford,’ unsigned but inscribed ‘From a drawing by my Father I. Cruikshank’ in GC’s [George Cruikshank’s] handwriting.”

Krumbhaar goes on to say the print was “Bought by me at a Parke-Bernet auction, November 18, 1958, item 142. See also Chubbock, p. 4, no. 22”

The bound-in frontispiece on the left with the inscribed print laid next to it on the right. Thanks to Thomas V. Lange for his watchful eye to catch this treasure for Princeton’s collection.

Isaac Cruikshank (1764-1811), Frontispiece etching for The Late most Noble Francis Duke of Bedford… (London: J. Fairburn, 1802). Inscribed by George Cruikshank. Graphic Arts Collection 2014- in process. Gift of Thomas V. Lange.

The Life of the late most noble Francis, Duke of Bedford : including the speech of the Hon. Charles James Fox in the House of Commons, March 16, 1802 …(London: John Fairburn, [1802]). Rare Books (Ex) 3580.161

Edward Bell Krumbhaar (1882-1966), Isaac Cruikshank; a catalogue raisonné, with a sketch of his life and work (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press [1966]). Rare Books: Reference Collection in Dulles Reading Rm. (ExB) NE642.C82 K7

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