Category Archives: Books

books

ONEEVERYONE

“ONEEVERYONE, a public art project by Ann Hamilton, is framed by the recognition that human touch is the most essential means of contact and a fundamental expression of physical care. Commissioned by Landmarks for the Dell Medical School, ONEEVERYONE begins with a series of more than 500 portraits of Austin community members, photographed through a semi-transparent membrane that focuses each point where the body make contact. These images are presented in multiple forms, including porcelain enamel architectural panels; a newsprint publication with commissioned essays responding to the project; public forums; and an exhibition at the Visual Arts Center.”—Andrée Bober, Landmarks Director

“This book presents yet another form for the portraits. Its pages hold at least one image of each participant who volunteered their time and opened themselves to an exchange with the artist. Through the images touch–something we feel more than see–becomes visible.”

The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have acquired this volume, along with the newspaper of commissioned essays, thanks to Landmarks, the public art program of The University of Texas at Austin. For more information on this extraordinary project, see https://www.hamilton-landmarks.org/

Ann Hamilton, ONEEVERYONE (Austin, Texas: Landmarks, University of Texas at Austin, 2017). 1 volume (unpaged): no text. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process

Matching a Thomas Rowlandson sketch to its finished print

In trying to match our collection of Thomas Rowlandson drawings with published prints and books, it took nine copies of Henry Bunbury’s Academy for Grown Horsemen, before the Ackermann edition turned up with a match. Note: Geoffrey Gambado is a pseudonym for Henry William Bunbury.

Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811). An Academy for Grown Horsemen: containing the completest instructions, for walking, trotting, … illustrated with copper plates, and adorned with a portrait of the author by Geoffrey Gambado, Esq. [pseud.] (London: Printed for R. Ackermann, 1825). xxvii, 30-75, lxxx-xcix, 102-201 p., [27] col. plates: ill.; 15 cm. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Rowlandson 1787.33 and Rare Books: Laurance Roberts Carton Hunting Coll. (ExCarton SF301 .xB93 1825

The match was first discovered by Joseph Rothrock (former curator of graphic arts) and documented in the Princeton University Library Chronicle 36, no. 2 (winter 1975): 87-110: http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/pulc/pulc_v_36_n_2.pdf. This was not an easy attribution to make since Bunbury’s book comes in many shapes and sizes, not to mention the variations of plates inside. Here are a few on our shelves:

Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811). An Academy for Grown Horsemen; containing the completest instructions for walking, trotting, cantering, galloping, stumbling and tumbling.: The annals of horsemanship: containing accounts of accidental experiments and experimental accidents, both successful and unsuccessful; communicated by various correspondents to the author, Geoffrey Gambado, Esq. … Illustrated with cuts, by the most eminent artists (London: Printed for Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe; Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme; J. Walker; J. Harris; and W. Bayne; at the union printing-office, … by W. Wilson., 1808). [2], xvi, 28, xvi, 69, [3] p., [29] leaves of plates: col. ill.; 18 cm. With 29 leaves of hand-coloured satirical plates.; plates signed: H. Bunbury esq. delin. Some plates with imprint: London. Pub. by T. Tegg, May 4-1808. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Rowlandson 1787.32

Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811). An Academy for Grown Horsemen: containing the completest instructions for walking, trotting, cantering, galloping, stumbling, and tumbling: illustrated with copper plates, and adorned with a portrait of the author / by Geoffrey Gambado [i.e. H. W. Bunbury]. 2d ed. (London: Printed for Hooper and Wigstead, 1796). xx, 36 p., [12] leaves of plates: col. ill.; 34 cm. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize Rowlandson 1791.5q and Rare Books (Ex) 2011-0036Q

Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811). An Academy for Grown Horsemen; containing the completest instructions for walking, trotting, cantering, galloping, stumbling, and tumbling … By Geoffrey Gambado [pseud.] ... 3d ed. … (London, W. Baynes, 1808). xxiv, 36 p. front., plates. 33 cm. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize Rowlandson 1787.31f

Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811), An Academy for Grown Horsemen; containing the completest instructions for walking, trotting, cantering, galloping, stumbling and tumbling. : The annals of horsemanship: containing accounts of accidental experiments and experimental accidents, both successful and unsuccessful; communicated by various correspondents to the author, Geoffrey Gambado, Esq. … Illustrated with cuts, by the most eminent artists (London: Printed for Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe; Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme; J. Walker; J. Harris; and W. Bayne; at the union printing-office, … by W. Wilson., 1808). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Rowlandson 1787.32

Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811), An Academy for Grown Horsemen; containing the completest instructions for walking, trotting … The annals of horsemanship, containing accounts of accidental experiments … communicated … to the author Geoffrey Gambado, esq.Illustrated with cuts, by the most eminent artists (London: Printed for Vernor, Hood, and Shape [etc,], 1809). 140 p. col. illus. 22 cm. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Rowlandson 1787.34 and Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Rowlandson 1787.34 and Rare Books: Laurence Roberts Carton Hunting Coll. (ExCarton) SF301 .xB93 1809

Burr McIntosh, Class of 1884, and the Burr McIntosh Monthly

The actor, photographer, publisher, and professor Burr McIntosh, Class of 1884 (1862-1942) studied first at Lafayette College and then, for one year at Princeton. Although he never graduated, he went on to have a dynamic if eclectic career, leading first to the Broadway stage and celebrity playing the character Talbot “Taffy” Wynne in the original 1895 Broadway production of Trilby.

McIntosh learned photography by chance and excelled, serving as a photojournalist for Leslie’s Weekly and publishing a memoir, The Little I Saw of Cuba, in 1899. (Recap 10871.604). “In the Spanish-American War,” he wrote, “I was too old to enter the army, but was Leslies‘ chief correspondent as well as representing the Hearst papers, and others.” He also had the first recorded case of Yellow Fever and lost 71 pound in three weeks.

By 1901 McIntosh had recovered and opened a photography studio on West 33rd Street, near the original Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The actor-turned-artist had such success with portraits of the fashionable elite that he added publisher to his resume, designing a lavish magazine to present his work [see Google image above].

Unveiled on April Fool’s Day, the Burr McIntosh Monthly ran from 1903 to 1910, mixing photographs of beautiful women with celebrity profiles and serious information on the contemporary photography scene.

In particular, it is a treasure-trove on American pictorialism, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Carl Moon, and others. Issues were bound by string so the plates could easily be removed and framed. Unfortunately McIntosh’s lifestyle was equally lavish and by 1908, the Burr McIntosh studio was forced into bankruptcy. His magazine limped on for another year or so before closing.

But just as one business was ending, McIntosh announced a new vision for a colossal artists’ colony in Los Angeles and moved west. He purchased land, hired staff, and made plans. With his own funds waning, McIntosh proposed reopening his magazine and using it to fund his enterprise, but this never happened. Instead, he went back to acting, this time in films, where he is best remembered as Squire Bartlett in Way Down East directed by D.W. Griffith in 1920. http://www.aspresolver.com/aspresolver.asp?SILF;1824760

In corresponding with the Princeton alumni association in the 1930s, McIntosh lists his employer as himself, his position in the firm: “The Whole,” and the business of the firm: “Spreading Cheer.” In a second card, his business address is given as “Cross Roads of the World, 6671 Sunset Boulevard.”

The Burr McIntosh Monthly (New York: [Burr McIntosh Publishing Co., etc.] 1903-10). Firestone Library TR1 .B877

See also: Burr William McIntosh (1862-1942), Football and love; a story of the Yale-Princeton game of ’94 … (New York, London: The Transatlantic Publishing Co., 1895). Seeley G. Mudd Library (Mudd) P79.606

https://free-classic-movies.com/movies-02/02-1928-08-15-The-Adorable-Cheat/index.php
Burr McIntosh in The Adorable Cheat, highly recommended.

Thanks to the Mudd Library staff for their help. All documents found in the Princeton University Archives. Alumni Records, Undergraduate, Box 173. https://rbsc.princeton.edu/databases/undergraduate-alumni-index-part-1.

Arcadio Díaz Quiñones

On October 28, 2016, Arcadio Díaz Quiñones, emeritus professor of Spanish and Portuguese Languages, and former director of the Program in Latin American Studies at Princeton University, was given the distinction of Humanist of the Year 2016 by the Puerto Rican Foundation of the Humanities (FPH). Granted annually, this award recognizes Puerto Ricans who, through their life and work, have made significant contributions to the diffusion of humanistic knowledge. The ceremony took place at the Jesús María Sanromá Theater of the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, in Miramar.

In addition, the FPH published a limited edition book with two essays by Dr. Díaz Quiñones, entitled Sobre principios y finales or About Beginnings and Endings. The Graphic Arts Collection is proud to have acquired copy 15 from the edition of 250.

The FPH is a non-profit organization affiliated with the National Endowment for the Humanities and dedicated to exalting humanistic values through the development of programs and activities that stimulate the analysis and dissemination of knowledge related to the Puerto Rican humanistic experience, educational innovation, and social history.

http://www.fphpr.org/es/content/humanista-del-a%C3%B1o-2016

Arcadio Díaz Quiñones, Sobre principios y finales [About Beginnings and Endings] (Naguabo, Puerto Rico: Puerto Rican Foundation of the Humanities, 2016). Copy 15 of 250. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process

Exiles

Also uncovered during the renovation of the Princeton University Library was this small but important playbill from a French production of James Joyce’s Exiles, held at the Théâtre Gramont, Paris. The play in three acts was written in 1914 and published simultaneously in an English and an American edition on May 25, 1918. To read Edna O’Brien’s review of the National Theatre’s production in 2006, see: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2006/jul/29/theatre.fiction

To mark the acquisition of the Leonard L. Milberg ’53 Collection of Irish Theater, the Princeton University Library mounted the exhibition, Players & Painted Stage: The Leonard L. Milberg Collection of Irish Theater, running October 2006 to April 2007. The show merged holdings from the library, newly acquired Milberg material, and other donations. View the exhibition website: http://milberg.princeton.edu/highlights

See also: James Joyce (1882-1941), Exiles; a play in three acts (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1918). First American edition. Rare Books (Ex) 3807.38.333.1918a

The Language of the Lament

Lynne Avadenka. Lamentations = Ekhah. Lamentations = איכה (Huntington Woods, Mich.: Land Marks Press, 2009). Copy 8 of 8. “This edition of Lamentations was created with woodcuts, photopolymer plate printing and stencils, and letterpress printed with Centaur and Koren types on Yamada Hanga cream paper”–Colophon. Housed in a cloth-covered oblong clamshell box, which has a woodblock inset on its top. Text of the book of Lamentations in Hebrew, with English translation from the Jewish Publication Society: leaves [3-12]. Graphic Arts Collection GAX in process

Additional digital images available at: http://www.lynneavadenka.com/gallery.html

Colophon [above]: “Echoes, reverberations, multiplicities, repeats: the long narrow sheet – a scroll unrolled – like the original Book of Lamentations; prints from wood, the same material from which houses are built, with traces of home cut out: doors, windows, openings; orbits linked and overlapped, inked and overprinted, suggesting absence, presence, and interconnected lives.”

Many other versions of the Lamentations are available in the Princeton University Library, including: Sefer Ḳol bikhyi: reʼu zeh ḥadash ḳetsat ḥidushim ʻal sefer Iyov… ṿe-ʻimo nilṿeh sefer Metsudat Daṿid le-vaʼer ʻinyana . . . / Raḥamim Bukhrits (Liṿorno: Sh. Belforṭe, 657 [1897]). Rare Books (Ex) BS1415 .K642 1897

We also hold a number of artists’ books featuring Jewish themes. Here are only a few:
Sue Coe, X (with Art Spiegelman). Design by Françoise Mouly (New York: Raw Books & Graphics, 1986). Rare Books (Ex) N6797.C55 A4 1986 Milberg
Mark H. Podwal, A Sweet Year: a Taste of the Jewish Holidays (New York: Random House Children’s Books, 2003). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2004-2542N
Carol Rosen, The Holocaust Series. XXI, We All Disappear ([Califon, N.J.?: C. Rosen, 2004?]). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2014-0939Q
Paul Auster, Reflections on a Cardboard Box; Drawings Henrik Drescher ([Mt. Horeb, Wis.]: Perishable Press, 2004).Rare Books (Ex) 2005-2248N
D.R. Wakefield, Pugilistica Judaica: Jewish Prize-fighters in London 1785-1840 ([East Yorkshire]: Chevington Press, 2006).Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2008-0022F
Art Spiegelman, Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young [squiggle][star]! 1st rev. ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 2008). Rare Books (Ex) Oversize 2008-0492Q
Lynne Avadenka, Plum Colored Regret (Huntington Woods, Mich.: Land Marks Press, 2010). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2011-0060Q
Sarah Horowitz, Alpha Botanica ([Portland, Or.: Wiesedruck, 2007]) Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2014-0009S

Holdup

Emmett Williams (1925-2007) and Keith Godard (born 1942), Holdup (New York: Works Editions, 1980). Graphic Arts Collection 2016- in process

This is a book of famous thumbs.

Both printer Keith Godard and visual poet Emmett Williams had been collecting pictures of thumbs of friends and famous people for years and so, for their first collaboration, they combined their collections for a book of visual humor and visual poetry.

The two worked together at Godard’s studio and publishing house, Works Editions, only once again in 1983 producing A Little Night Book.

“Emmett Williams, an American poet whose transposition of words into visual art and performances made him one of the founding artists of Fluxus, a performance-oriented avant-garde art movement of the 1960s, died on Feb. 14 in Berlin. He was 81 and had lived in Berlin for many years. . . . In 1966 Mr. Williams took a job as editor in chief of The Something Else Press, a publishing house in New York City founded by Dick Higgins, another pioneer of Fluxus. By 1967 Mr. Williams had edited The Anthology of Concrete Poetry and written Sweethearts, two of his most widely recognized works. “When I have exhibitions, I do not say I am a Fluxus artist, I say it is my work,” Mr. Williams said . . . “And that makes me very comfortable. And it’s nice to outlive descriptive titles like that.” –Roja Heydarpour, “Emmett Williams, 81, Fluxus-Movement Poet, Dies” The New York Times March 1, 2007.

For more of Keith Godard see: http://www.studio-works.com/
For more of Emmett Williams see: http://www.emmett-williams.com/start.html

Ralph Kirby’s Eccentric Museum Is Not a Place

In the summer of 1802, newspaper advertisements announced the first issue of Granger’s New Wonderful Museum and Extraordinary Magazine, to be published monthly beginning August 1802. William Granger was listed as editor and the stories “communicated by James Caulfield and others.” The magazine was a success but as the sixth issue was being prepared, a revised advertisement for Granger’s Magazine was printed in the form of a letter dated January 1, 1803, addressed “To the Booksellers of the United Kingdom.”

“Whereas last night the most shameful Imposition was committed by a person (Ralph Smith Kirby) who was employed to publish and sell the above work by the real proprietor, [Alexander] Hugo and for which he was liberally paid, but who having declined by Notice dated November 26th, publishing No. VI for January 1803, has unjustly printed a Number for the same Month . . . and establish a spurious one on its Foundation, calling it Kirby’s Original Wonderful Museum, New Series.”

Kirby falsely stated that Granger’s printer and editor had been changed and circulated a report that he was the new proprietor in the work. The two publications ran simultaneously for a few years and then, both were reissued in bound sets.

While Granger only printed a frontispiece etching, Kirby’s magazine was filled with portraits of the many characters whose stories he told. These exotic images were often cut out of the issue and collected separately by libraries and museums making the complete runs, such as the one in Princeton’s collection, rare even though the editions were large.

Kirby’s Wonderful and Eccentric Museum; or, Magazine of Remarkable Characters. Including all the Curiosities of Nature and Art from the Remotest Period to the Present Time, Drawn from every Authentic Source (London: R.S. Kirby, 1803-1820). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Cruik 1803

William Granger, New, original, and complete wonderful museum and magazine extraordinary: being a complete repository of all the wonders, curiosities, and rarities of nature and art, from the beginning of the world to the present year . . . communicated by James Caulfield and others (London: M. Allen, Printer: Printed for Alex. Hogg & Co., 1802-1808)

The Impostor Unmasked; or The New Man of the People

Richard Brinsley Sheridan [above] says: “Gentlemen – I am proud on this occasion to pay you my respects – I will bring in a bill of rights – I will give your oppressors a ‘Check.”

The electors shout: “You know your Checks are worth nothing.”

Princeton is the only library in OCLC with a recorded copy of this thin volume with a folding frontispiece: The Imposter Unmasked; or, The New Man of the People; with anecdotes, never before published … inscribed, without permission, to that superlatively honest and disinterested man, R.B.S-R-D-N, esq. … (London: Tipper and Richards, 1806). Hand colored frontispiece by Isaac Cruikshank (1764-1811). Graphic Arts Collection Cruik 1806 Isaac

The scene is described by Dorothy George: “The Westminster election mob is seen from the hustings, where Sheridan, isolated from a group of supporters, is speaking. He tramples on a paper inscribed ‘Electors of Stafford’. From his pocket hangs a ‘List of Promisses’. A dog with a human head (Lord Percy), his collar inscribed ‘True Northumberland breed’, befouls his leg. A poll-clerk sits by an open poll-book but no one is voting.”

Thomas Rowlandson designed a satirical print a year or two earlier entitled “Ride to Rumford. Let the Gall’d Jade winch,” which may have inspired the title page quote here.

Savillon’s Elegies

Horace begins the Satires by examining the problem of desire, and in particular with Satires 1.1, on the desire for wealth and domination. This is the quote that the author, ‘a gentleman,’ chose for the epigram on his title page:

Qui fit, Maecenas, ut nemo, quam sibi sortem / seu ratio dederit seu fors obiecerit, illa / contentus vivat, laudet diversa sequentis? = How does it happen, Maecenas, that no one lives content with the lot that either planning has given him or chance has thrown in his way, but instead he praises those who follow other paths?

Catherine M. Schlegel notes that the answer Horace asserts at the end of the poem is that people live life as if it were a chariot race, aware only of who is ahead and discounting those they have overtaken, translating: “So I come back to where I began, how it is that no one can like himself, being greedy, but, rather, praises those with different lives; because his neighbor’s goat has an udder that stretches bigger, he’s eaten up with envy; and he wouldn’t compare himself to the bigger crowd of those worse off, but works only to get ahead of one after another. There’s always a richer man to stand in the way as he hurries—it’s the same as when the horses’s hooves sweep the chariots free of the gates, and the charioteer presses against the horses defeating his own, and takes no note of whom he passes and left among the stragglers.” — Catherine M. Schlegel Satire and the Threat of Speech (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005)

James Wallace (1766-1829), Savillon’s Elegies, or Poems, written by a gentlemen, A.B., late of the University of Cambridge … (London: Printed by T. Rickaby, for Hookham and Carpenter, 1795). All but one of the plates were designed by Isaac Cruikshank (1764-1811) and engraved by Burnet Reading (1749/50-1838). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Cruik 1795 Isaac. Gift of Richard Waln Meirs, Class of 1888.

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