Category Archives: Books

books

Frances Parker, Countess of Morley

The Times have been
That when the brains were out
The man would die
And there an end

Frances Talbot Parker, Countess of Morley (1781-1857), The Flying Burgermaster: a Legend of the Black Forest ([S.l.]: F. Morley, 1832). Letterpress and lithographs. Rare Books (Ex) 3866.569.335

inscribed on flyleaf

This volume was pulled today to answer a reference question. Both images and text have been attributed to Frances Talbot Parker, Countess of Morley (1781-1857). The Countess is listed in Modern English Biography (1897) as the “celebrated as a woman of wit and the ‘first of talkers’; a painter rn. 23 Aug. 1809, as his second wife, John Parker 1 Earl of Morley, b. 1772, d. 14 March 1840; lithographed the plates in Portraits of the Spruggins family, arranged by Richard Sucklethumkin Spruggins 1829; author of The Flying burgomaster, a legend of the BlackForest 1832 anon; The royal intellectual bazaar, a prospectus of a plan for the improvement of the fashionable circle 1832 anon; The man without a name, 2 vols. 1852; edited Dacre, a novel, 3 vols. 1834. d. Saltram, Plympton 6 Dec. 1857. bur. in family vault at Plympton St. Mary.”

More of her biography can be found at http://anidarayfield.blogspot.com/2013/10/frances-1st-countess-morley-artist.html.

Note, an unillustrated prose version of this story turns up in Henry Glassford Bell, My old portfolio: or, tales and sketches (London: Smith, Elder, and Co., 1832). Hard to know which came first.

Persoz’s calico

Jean-François Persoz (1805-1868), Traité théorique et pratique de l’impression des tissus … Ouvrage avec 165 figures et 429 échantillons intercalés dans le texte …(Paris: V. Masson, 1846). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize TP930 .P46q

“The newly developed and developing techniques of color photography and color printing, particularly “chromotypogravure” in which the dots of the half-tone screen are used to produce grainy color may have encouraged him to pursue his pointillist methods, but are unlikely to have been major causative factors behind his style. For concepts of contrast and harmony, Chevreul is obviously of key importance, but he is not the only author [Georges] Seurat consulted in the field of tapestry design. Jules Persoz’s brilliantly illustrated Traité de l’impression des tissues attracted Seurat’s attention, to the extent that the painter transcribed a section of its text. There was also much interest in oriental color usage, in theory and in practice. The general impression is that Seurat avidly consumed writings on color, turning a variety of apparently diverse ideas to his own coherent account.” –Martin Kemp: The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat (1990) Firestone ND1475 .K45 1990

The study that George Seurat called “brilliant” was written by Jean-François Persoz (1805-1868), a chemist and Professor in the School of Pharmacy at Strasbourg. Persoz prepared the book for the Société d’Encouragement pour l’Industrie Nationale (founded 1802), winning a medal and more importantly, the publication of his work.

The first volume describes the technical aspects of coloring and chemistry, while the following volumes include vibrant fabric samples from the principal calico printers in England, Scotland, Alsace, Switzerland, Normandy and Paris.

The five volumes are illustrated with 429 fabric samples, each individually mounted onto printed pages. Volume 5 includes 3 chromolithographs of decorative dot patterns.

A Schizzo on the Genius of Man

Edward Harington (1754-1807), A Schizzo on the Genius of Man: In which, among various Subjects, the Merits of Mr. Thomas Barker, the Celebrated Young Painter of Bath, is particularly Considered, and his Pictures Reviewed, by the Author of An Excursion from Paris to Fontainbleau. For the Benefit of the Bath Casualty Hospital. Two etched plates by G. Steart. First Edition. Bath: printed by R. Cruttwell; and sold by G.G.J. and J. Robinson, London, and all the Booksellers in Bath, 1793. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process

“D—e, Sir, if tis not as fine a Moon as ever shone from Heaven to lighten this villainous world, and all true judges of Painting will say so, you never saw, nor never had, or ever will have, such a glorious moon in Wales! No, Sir, you must come to England to be enlightened. Vide note to pages 59, &e.”

Edward Harington (1754-1807) of Harington-Place, Bath, was the son of Dr. Henry Harington, noted musician, physician to the Mineral Water Hospital, and Mayor of Bath.

An Excursion from Paris to Fontainbleau was published in 1786 and Harington was fearful of the French Revolution along with the “rude, ragged rabble.” A Schizzo on the Genius of Man was intended to prove that genius is conferred not by nurture but by nature, not by a process of evolution but through the agency of divine providence.

Harington took the Bath artist Thomas Barker (1769-1847) [see yesterday’s post] as an example of an individual whose talents were born within him, not acquired. Unlike some painters “who basely prostitute their talents to despicable face-painting,” Barker had “a too generous disdain for the love of money to pervert the talents which Heaven had given him.” Even Gainsborough, he averred, “never possessed a genius so strong and so universal.”

The Graphic Arts Collection has acquired George Cruikshank’s copy of this book with his bold signature and the date 1850 at the head of the title. Cruikshank also added a manuscript note, in ink, in the margin of p. 225.

Discussing Raphael’s cartoon of the The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, he writes: “The boats in the carton [sic] are so small in proportion to the figures that they look ridiculous. The two fishermen who are draging [sic] the net are also bad, both being in the same attitude nearly. The other parts of the picture are beautiful – G.C.”

1850 was a pivotal year in the life of George Cruikshank (1792-1878). His first wife, Mary Anne, died in May 1849 and he collapsed, both emotionally and financially. In March 1850 he married Eliza Widdison, and they moved to 48 Mornington Place.

Cruikshank slowly returned to his art, and turned to oil-paintings, though without the success of his smaller-scale etchings. His studio also became home to his maid, Adelaide Attree, who bore him 11 children between 1854 and 1875. His other passion was temperance and he came to be regarded as “the St. George of water drinkers”.

Bookseller’s label of H. M. Gilbert of Southampton (established 1859). The half-title has the ink signature of the potter William Henry Goss (1833-1906), and a note “See in my library “Barker’s Landscape Scenery” and my remarks therein about pictures in my collection by J. Barker the son of Thomas Barker” with his signature and date 6th December 1887.

The Art of Making Fireworks

[left] T. Angelo, The Art of Making Fireworks made Plain and Easy, Containing Comprehensive Directions for Making Sky Rockets…&c.&c. 3d ed. (London: J. Bailey [1815]). Folding frontispiece by George Cruikshank. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Cruik 1815.4. Gift of Richard Waln Meirs, Class of 1888.
[right] The Juvenile Book for Making Fireworks: Being the Art of Manufacturing Crackers, Squibs &c. &c. of Every Description … / by a public performer at the gardens (London: Printed by Bailey & Company, [ca. 1837]). Cotsen Children’s Library (CTSN) Pams / Eng 19 / Box 064 1940

We noticed recently that the same wood engraved design (in reverse) made by George Cruikshank (“with help from my brother”) was used over twenty years later for the “juvenile” edition of the text. Both published by the London firm run by James Bailey.

Our volume tops the bibliography compiled by Tom Gregorie Tullock in The Rise and Progress of the British Explosives Industry (Whittaker, 1909) “The subjoined complete list of books on explosives, published in England, has been added in the hope that students may find it useful. In some cases the name of the publisher could not be ascertained, no copy of the book in question having been found in the British Museum, or elsewhere in London. The references to books published before 1800 are all to the first editions, these alone having antiquarian interest; the references to books printed after 1800 are to the latest editions only.”

No date. T. Angelo. The Art of Making Fireworks Made Plain and Easy. London, J. Bailey.

No date. Christopher Grotz, Real Engineer. The Art of Making Fireworks, Detonating Balls, etc. London, Dean and Munday.

No date. “Practicus.” Pyrotechny, or the Art of Making Fireworks at Little Cost and with Complete Safety and Cleanliness. London, Ward, Lock and Tyler.

No date. Anonymous. The Art of Making Fireworks Improved to the Modern Practice. Derby, Thomas Richardson.

1560. Peter Whitehorne. Certain Waies for the Orderyng of Souldiers in Battelray. How to Make Saltpetre, Gunpowder, etc. London, John Wight.

1579- Thomas Digges. An Arithmeticall Militare Treatise Named Stratisticos (including a treatise of pyrotechnie and Great Artillerie). London, Henrie Bynneman.

1587. William Bourne. The Arte of Shooting in Great Ordnaunce. London, Thomas Woodcocke.

and so on.

Dorothy Day and Fritz Eichenberg

Part One: Searching

Dorothy Day (1897-1980), founder and director of the Catholic Worker, met the Quaker artist Fritz Eichenberg (1901-1990) in 1949 at a conference on religion and publishing. Day asked the artist if he would donate some images to her publication and he agreed without hesitation.

In fact, over the next thirty years, Eichenberg allowed her to use anything he had drawn or printed anytime she pleased. And she did. His most famous wood engraving “The Peaceable Kingdom” (1950) was reprinted in The Catholic Worker ten times between 1953 and 1989.

When Day wrote an autobiography, The Long Loneliness, she asked Eichenberg to provide the illustrations. The wood engravings posted here serve as frontispieces to each of the book’s three sections.

In his oral history for the Archives of American Art, recorded between May 14 and December 7, 1979, Eichenberg spoke about his friend:

Part Two: Natural Happiness

“Dorothy Day was, from a personal point of view, perhaps the most important influence in my life. But, let’s say from an artistic point of view or from the point of view of an illustrator, she was not of any great influence. Because what I did for her was more or less addressed, as she often said, to those people who could not read—to the illiterate. She said she had seen clippings of my work in the hovels of coal miners and so on, people in all parts of the world; people who could not read the Catholic Worker but they understood my very simple images of saints and portraits of people important in the Catholic Worker movement.”

“I met her at a conference on religious publishing in Pendle Hill which is a Quaker study center in Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia – Wallingford. . . . That was around 1940, I would say. I was sitting next to her and I just fell in love with her as a person. She’s really great. She makes you feel at ease and I could talk to her like to an old friend. In the course of the round table there, we talked about the Catholic Worker – publishing, you know. She knew I had illustrated books and she said, “You know, I have trouble finding Catholic artists to work for me because we have no money.” That didn’t sound so good to me! She should find a lot of artists to work for her but she can’t. So she said, “Would you work for me?” And I said immediately, “Yes.” And so the next week she called me up and we got together. I gave talks there very often.”

Part Three: Love is the Measure

“And I told Dorothy from the very beginning, whenever she wants the use of my work, she can use [it]. She doesn’t even have to ask me. But she does ask me. And now . . . with copyright you have to be a little more careful. I just threw my bread upon the water and see it coming back to me somehow in the form of real satisfaction that my work touched people. Sometimes she asked me to illustrate a certain event that happened in the life of the Catholic Worker.”

Dorothy Day (1897-1980), The Long Loneliness; the Autobiography of Dorothy Day, illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg (New York: Harper, [1952]). Firestone Library (F) BX4668.D3 A33 1952

Street Vendors of Naples, 1827

Count Karel Gustav Hjalmar de Mörner (1794-1837) was a Swedish nobleman as well as an amateur artist who experimented with printmaking while living in Italy during the early nineteenth century. He completed this series depicting colorful street vendors in 1827 and published it under the title Nuova Raccolta di scene popolari e costumi di Napoli disegnati esattamente dal vero (A New Collection of Popular Scenes and Costumes of Naples Drawn Exactly from Life).

Hfalmar Mörner (1794-1837) Venditore di maccheroni cotti (Baked Macaroni Vendor) from the book Nuova Raccolta di scene popolari e costumi di Napoli disegnati esattamente dal vero (New Collection of popular scenes and costumes of Naples drawn exactly from life). Also called Street Scenes in Naples. (Naples: Bianchi and Cucniello, 1827). 10 lithographs with added hand coloring. Graphic Arts Collection GAX DG 845.6.N37 1840Q

It is possible that Count Mörner drew his designs directly onto the Bavarian limestone while working at the Naples lithography studio of Lorenzo Bianchi and Domenico Cuciniello. The complex coloring, however, was not printed but added by hand after the lithographs were pulled, probably by a technician in the shop.

Elmer Adler purchased the volume and brought it with him to Princeton for the new collection of graphic arts in 1940.

See also Hjalmar Mörner (1794-1837), Il Carnevale di Roma (Roma: Presso Francesco Bourliè, 1820). 20 etchings with hand coloring. Rare Books (Ex) Oversize GT4452.R6 xC2E

The Lulu Plays by Frank Wedekind and William Kentridge

Timing is everything.

On the very day that we are fortunate to have the South African multimedia artist William Kentridge visiting Princeton University as our 2015-16 Belknap Visitor in the Humanities, we also received our copy of his new artist’s book The Lulu Plays.

Frank Wedekind (1864-1918), The Lulu Plays,
with sixty-seven drawings by William Kentridge (San Francisco: Arion Press, 2015).
Copy 118 of 400. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process

Described in the prospectus as “one of Arion’s most ambitious artist books, this limited edition contains 67 drawings by William Kentridge bound into the book.

The text is the original telling of the Lulu story by playwright Frank Wedekind, which inspired the silent cinema classic Pandora’s Box and the Alban Berg opera Lulu.”

The images are derived from brush and ink drawings for projections created for Kentridge’s 2015 production of Alban Berg’s opera Lulu, which was based on the two Wedekind plays from the turn of the century, Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box.

The artist drew with brush and ink directly onto dictionary pages. The definitions are in the background but the opening and closing words, in larger type, can be read.

Often, after drawing, Kentridge moves the sheets, rearranging elements of the drawings so that they become collages and can resemble moving pictures. The appearance of the drawings on pages of the book is very different from the much larger versions in the opera set, where sometimes only a detail is used and images can be altered by the surfaces on which they are projected, as well as fractured or distorted by the planes and interfering elements of the scenery.

The public is invited to Kentridge’s lecture today, October 14, “O Sentimental Machine,” which will take place at 5:00 p.m. in McCosh 10. http://humanities.princeton.edu/events/belknap-visitors. He will be introduced by Susan Stewart, Avalon Foundation University Professor in the Humanities, who has written a monograph on Kentridge’s works. A reception will follow at Princeton University Art Museum and is open to the public.

Portmeirion

Leslie Gerry and Robin Llywelyn, Portmeirion (Risbury: Whittington Press, 2008). Copy 116 of 225. Graphic Arts Collection RECAP-91157790

Since 1971, The Whittington Press has been printing and publishing limited edition, letterpress books. In 2008, they broke with tradition to work with artist Leslie Gerry who designed the plates for Portmeirion on his iPad. The flat layers of digital color give the surprising effect of screen prints.

“Portmeirion, the extraordinary Italianate village built by the eccentric architect Clough Williams-Ellis on a remote peninsula in North Wales. Clough’s grandson, Robin Llywelyn, who spent much of his childhood with his grandparents at Portmeirion, has written short but evocative texts about each of Leslie Gerry’s seven images of the village.”–prospectus.

Princeton University library holds 49 limited edition books from the Whittington Press along with a complete run of their fine-press journal Matrix: A Review for Printers & Bibliophiles. Issued annually since 1981, Matrix has made distinguished contributions to the study, recording, preservation, and dissemination of printing history, and has done so utilizing a remarkable combination of authoritative scholarship and fine printing.

50th anniversary of Beckett’s Imagination Dead Imagine

No trace anywhere of life, you say, pah, no difficulty there, imagination not dead yet, yes, dead, good, imagination dead imagine.

Jamie Murphy at The Salvage Press in Dublin has published a new edition of Samuel Beckett’s Imagination Dead Imagine, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of its release in 1965. Beckett first wrote the prose fragment Imagination morte imaginez, in French and translated it himself to English. The new edition is a collaboration between typographic designer Jamie Murphy and the visual artist David O’Kane, with an essay by Stanley E. Gontarski, the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State University and a Beckett scholar who specializes in twentieth-century Irish Studies. https://instagram.com/thesalvagepress/

The Salvage Press is a new studio, devoted to preserving, promoting and pursuing excellence in design, typography & letterpress printing. You can follow them at: http://websta.me/n/thesalvagepress

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), Imagination Dead Imagine. A collaboration between typographic designer Jamie Murphy & visual artist David O’Kane. Essay by Stanley E. Gontarski. (Dublin: Savage Press, 2015). Copy 2 of 40. Graphic Arts Collection GA2015- in process.

Colophon:

This new edition of loose sheets celebrates the 50th anniversary of the original publishing in 1965. The project is a collaboration between typographic designer Jamie Murphy & visual artist David O’Kane. The work is introduced with an essay by renowned Beckett scholar Stanley E. Gontarski.

The text has been hand-set & letterpress printed by Jamie Murphy in 18 point Caslon Old Face, supported by a newly drawn ten line grotesque typeface by Bobby Tannam, cut from maple by Tom Mayo. David O’Kane has supplied two lithographs inspired by the text, editioned by Thomas Franke at Stein Werk Lithography studio in Leipzig. The sheets are printed on 250 gsm French made Venin Cuve BFK Rives mouldmade.

The edition is limited to 50 copies, 40 of which make up the standard format, ten accounting for the de luxe. The bindings were executed by Tom Duffy in Dublin. The standard is housed in a cloth covered portfolio, protected inside a slipcase. The de luxe is presented in a clam-shell box accompanied by a typographic triptych based on the text. The standard copies are numbered 11-50, the de-luxe are numbered 1-10. Each copy has been signed by the collaborators.

Notes on the images: The two images included in this edition were made using a lithography technique called Schablithografie. This lithography technique is highly labour intensive and involves scratching away at a surface of the blackened lithographic stone to form the image; literally scraping light forms out of darkness, reinforcing the constructed nature of the text, which Beckett goes to great lengths to emphasise.

The first image is a kind of schematic. It is not fully formed and harkens back to Greek and Roman style images, suggesting a metaphorical excavation. The letters and image turn it into a kind of logotype [literally word-imprint in Greek] or emblem and form a bridge between the text and the image.

The second image is larger. The unusual format of the image echoes the formatting of the prose text as it appears in this edition. There are noticeable discrepancies between what Beckett describes and what is depicted in the image. The image is in fact a failed attempt to portray what is fabricated in the story. What interested the artist in staging it is the fact that the positions and space Beckett describes are anatomically impossible without gross distortion of the human body. Beckett would have known this as he also sketched the space out in his notes. So he deliberately stresses the cramped nature of the scenario. The fact remains that in the artist’s mind’s eye the extreme positions were not exactly related to what is described in the story. The spatial discrepancies are only revealed completely when the space is mapped out point for point.

The finalised lithographs are a combination of the mental image conjured up during the initial reading of the text and the interpretation of the physical reenactment made in the artist’s studio.

Typoretum: A Letterpress Workshop from Jamie Murphy on Vimeo.

Yellow Wagtail

Listen to the Yellow Wagtail’s call here: https://www.audubon.org/sites/default/files/snd-1-961-149-2804963252304559332.mp3?uuid=560e688a50f98

Preparing for ART 562, Seminar in American Art-Impossible Images, taught by Rachael Z. DeLue, we pulled a selection of Audubon paintings and drawings including this preparatory drawing for the Yellow Wagtail finished in 1834. John Woodhouse Audubon, the son of John James Audubon, worked on his dad’s famous project: John James Audubon (1785-1851), The Birds of America : from original drawings (London: Pub. by the author, 1827-38). 4 v. 100 cm. Rare Books: South East (RB) Oversize EX 8880.134.11e

Princeton has a rich collection of Audubon material, by the father and the son. One of the best descriptions can be found in the exhibition catalogue: Howard C. Rice, “The World of John James Audubon; Catalogue of an Exhibition at the Princeton University Library. 15 May-30 September 1959” published in the Princeton University Library Chronicle XXI, 1&2 (Autumn, 1959 & Winter, 1959) pp. 9-88. [full text]

John Woodhouse Audubon (1812-1862), Yellow Wagtail (Matacilla flava), 1834. Pencil and watercolor, and gouache on paper. Signed: “Drawn from Nature by J. W. Audubon. Sunday, Sept. 21, 1834. London.” Graphic Arts Collection GC 154

The Yellow Wagtail did not make it into the Birds . You can double check this thanks to The University of Pittsburgh’s digitized copy of The Birds of America here: http://digital.library.pitt.edu/a/audubon/plates.html

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