Category Archives: Books

books

La Lune: ou le livre des poème

Pierre Albert-Birot, La lune, ou, Le livre des poèmes (Paris: Budry, 1924). “Cet ouvrage a été tiré à 326 exemplaires: 26 exemplaires sur Chine … dont un imprimé pour l’auteur, et 25 numérotés de 1 à 25 … [et] 300 ex. sur vergé pur fil Lafuma … numérotés de 26 à 326”–Page [2]. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process

The artist who in his painting and drawing comes to an understanding of the creative act and produces a microcosm of creation through the form and space of the canvas applies himself as poet to the concrete dimensions of the poem to produce a construction which is at once visual and verbal. It is this which makes an understanding of Albert-Birot’s visual poetry essential for an appreciation of his work as a whole. The fact that he mastered the printing process cannot be reiterated often enough. Creation does not take place only in the mind of the poet, it is received not only in the mind of the reader: creation is concrete, the poem is an object.

The printed space is a practical, functional, mechanical one. The poet and the reader replace it with a “literary or aesthetic space”, an imaginary space, a space of the imagination. Here mechanics and aesthetics fuse to create space which is at once imaginary and material. The superficial visual delight belies deeper bodily sensation just as the sound poems of La Lune explore the archaic noises and rhythms of poetry. This is not experimental poetry for its own sake, nor merely playful audacity in breaking the rules, being willfully “modern”, not a sterile artistic practice in search of something “new”. The relationship between the body of the poet and the body of the poem is fundamental to Albert-Birot’s work as a whole and it is here that it assumes its place in the modern aesthetic as a questioning of the processes of creation and of the place of the self in that creation.”

–Debra Kelly, “From Painter to Poet: the Visual Poetry of Pierre Albert-Birot in La Lune: ou le livre des poème,” in Forum for Modem Language Studies 1996, Vol. xxm, no. 1, p. 50.

For the complete article see: http://fmls.oxfordjournals.org/content/XXXII/1/37.full.pdf+html

Heat Wave

Charles Bukowski, Heat Wave, serigraphs by Ken Price (Santa Rosa: Black Sparrow Graphic Arts, 1995). “There are 170 numbered examples, each copy signed by Ken Price, constituting the regular edition, containing 15 original serigraph prints after illustrations by Ken Price. Four of the 15 original serigraph prints in the regular edition have been individually numbered and signed by Ken Price”–Colophon. Copy 169 of 170. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize NE2237.5.P753 B85 1995f

David Godine wrote a short biography of John Martin, founder of Black Sparrow Books, which is posted on his website: http://www.blacksparrowbooks.com/aboutbsb.htm
Here is a portion:

John Martin, the great collector of avant-garde books, visionary patron of Charles Bukowski, and founder, publisher, and for thirty-six years sole proprietor of Black Sparrow Press, once said: “There have always been two streams in American literature. First, the ‘insiders,’ the ones who conform to accepted standards. Some of these insiders are very good writers . . . but their work is of interest only up to a point, [because] they completely satisfy readers’ expectations of what literature should be. On the other hand, there has also been this second, parallel stream of ‘outsiders’––mavericks, beginning with Walt Whitman. To my way of thinking, Leaves of Grass is the first great modern literary statement . . . and to this day, perhaps the greatest and most astounding.”

From 1966 through 2002, Martin sought out the great and astounding statements of America’s literary outsiders, writers whose kinship is with the red blood of Whitman not the blue blood of Longfellow, with the dirty hands of Dreiser not the kid gloves of Edith Wharton. Writers who, on the whole, have looked west, toward the frontier and its promise of wildness, and away from the east, away from “civilization” and its received ideas of excellence and form. And Martin found them––in little magazines, in collectors’ libraries, and among that band of bards and truth-tellers who emerged from the jazz cellars of the 1950s into the Day-Glo orange sunshine of the 1960s and ’70s. . . . John Martin retired from publishing on July 1, 2002, but his outsider literary legacy will endure. Bukowski lives––indeed he and a handful of his old Black Sparrow stablemates (Paul Bowles, John Fante, and Joyce Carol Oates especially) not only live but now thrive on the “inside”: times change, and tastes change, and small presses like Martin’s are powerful compact agents of change.”

Gazette du Bon Ton completed

Gazette du bon ton: arts, modes et frivolities (Paris: Lucien Vogel, 1912–1925). 700 pochoir plates. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize GT500 .G252q

The Graphic Arts Collection holds nearly 200 books and magazines with pochoir (stencil) coloring, assembled primarily by Charles Rahn Fry, Class of 1965. Fry’s collection includes the first half of the French fashion magazine Gazette du Bon Ton, published by Lucien Vogel (1886-1954) from 1912 to 1915 when it was suspended at the outbreak of the First World War.

Each issue contains ten unbound, pochoir colored fashion plates produced by notable artists and illustrators such as Georges Lepape, Pierre Brissaud, Georges Barbier, and Bernard Boutet de Monvel.

Recently, we had the opportunity to acquire the second half of the publication, 1920 to 1925, completing the set of all 70 issues contained in 69 fascicles. These not only include all the original pochoir plates but the advertising supplements as well.

Several changes occurred when the magazine resumed publication in 1920. In particular, it had a second editor, the American Condé Nast (1873-1942). Vogel collaborated with Nast on a pavilion and publication for the 1915 Panama Pacific International Exposition. The two men worked so well together that when the Gazette resumed in 1920, Nast provided the financial backing and both men were listed on the masthead. Nast was so taken with the French publication that he began his own American edition called: Gazette du Bon Genre (not at Princeton).

The Complete Collation of the Gazette du Bon Ton is as follows:
No. 1 Undated no volume number (Novembre 1912); No. 2 Undated no volume number (Décembre 1912); No. 3 Undated no volume number (Janvier 1913); No. 4 Février 1913 no volume number; No. 5 Mars 1913 no volume number; No. 6 Avril 1913 no volume number; No. 7 Mai 1913 no volume number; No. 8 Juin 1913 no volume number; No. 9 Juillet 1913 no volume number; No. 10 Aout 1913 no volume number; No. 11 Septembre 1913 no volume number; No. 12 Octobre 1913 no volume number; No. 1 Noël Janvier 1914 no volume number; Février 1914 first appearance of a volume number: 2e Année No. 2; Mars 1914 2e Année No. 3; April 1914 2e Année No. 4; Mai 1914 2e Anné No. 5; Juin 1914 2e Année No. 6; Juillet 1914 2e Année No. 7; Été 1915 2e Année Nos. 8-9.

Recently added: Janvier-Février 1920 3e Année No. 1; Mars 1920 3e Année No. 2; Avril 1920 3e Année No. 3; Mai 1920 3e Année No. 4; Juin 1920 3e Année No. 5; Juillet 1920 3e Année No. 6; No month given, 1920. 3e Année No. 7; No month given, 1920. 3e Année No. 8; No month given, 1920. 3e Année No. 9; No month given, 1920. 3e Année No. 10; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 1; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 2; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 3; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 4; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 5; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 6; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 7; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 8; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 9; No month given, 1921. 4e Année No. 10; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 1; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 2; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 3; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 4; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 5; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 6; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 7; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 8; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 9; No month given, 1922. 5e Année No. 10; No month given, 1923. 6e Année No. 1; No month given, 1923. 6e Année No. 2; No month given, 1923. 6e Année No. 3; No month given, 1923. 6e Année No. 4; No month given, 1923. 6e Année No. 5; No month given, 1924. 6e Année No. 6; Mars, 1924. 6e Année No. 7; Avril, 1924. 6e Année No. 8; Mai, 1924. 6e Année No. 9; Juin, 1924. 6e Année No. 10; Juillet, 1924.7e Année No. 1; No month given, 1924-1925 7e Année No. 2; No month given, 1924-1925. 7e Année No. 3; No month given, 1924-1925. 7e Année No. 4; No month given, 1924-1925. 7e Année No. 5; No month given, 1924-1925. 7e Année No. 6; No month given, 1924-1925. 7e Année No. 7 (Special issue Le Pavillon de l’Élégance); No month given, 1924-1925. 7e Année No. 8; No month given, 1924-1925. 7e Année No. 9.

Souvenir travel books

Nearly 100 souvenir travel books just turned up in the Graphic Arts Collection, most with pictorial covers and accordion bound images. Some have original photographs or photogravures. Many are no bigger than the palm of your hand. Here are a few examples.

Les Héros de la ligue

Cornelis Dusart (1660-1704), Les Héros de la ligue. Ou, La procession monacale. Conduitte par Louis XIV, pour la conversion des protestans de son royaume (The Heroes of the League: Or, The Monastic Procession. Led by Louis XIV for the Conversion of Protestants in his Kingdom) (Paris [i.e. Hollande]: Chez père Peters à l’enseigne de Louis le Grand, 1691). 2 preliminary leaves: 24 Mezzotints. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection is pleased to add this volume that contains a satirical poem, “Sonnet. Reponse des refugiez aux persecuteurs,” and 24 caricature portraits representing persons playing an important role in the religious struggles at the time. Several years earlier, on October 22, 1685, Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes by signing the Edict of Fontainebleau, which ordered the destruction of Huguenot churches, as well as the closing of Protestant schools.

Each portrait is accompanied by a quatrain. The portraits have been ascribed to C. Dusart, and, with less probability, to L. Gaultier. A set of twelve of the original coloured drawings by Dusart are in the University of Leiden.

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La Lune: Paraissant toutes les nouvelles lunes.

The Graphic Arts Collection holds almost complete runs of La Lune: paraissant toutes les nouvelles lunes (Paris: [s.n.], 1865-1868). GAX 2011-0004E [Princeton owns no.2-98] and the magazine it evolved into: L’Eclipse (Paris: [s.n.], 1868-1876). GAX 2010-0021E. [Princeton owns 1870-1872, 1873-1876].
Founded and edited by François Polo (1838-1874), the magazine’s most important illustrator was André Gill (1840-1885). According to Donald Crafton: “The central attraction was, of course, André Gill (born Louis-Alexandre Gosset de Guines). At this time, in 1878, he was the preeminent caricaturist of France, owing largely to his daring attacks in the illustrated press against the Second Empire….

Hired in 1865 by the courageous publisher François Polo to illustrate his new satirical journal La Lune, Gill was frequently the target of attempts by Emperor Napoleon III to suppress political caricature. In spite of this, the paper had a circulation of 500,000 by 1867.

Gill constantly tested the limits of censorship apparatus that forbade not only unauthorized representations of the government but allegorical content as well. “The Masked Wrestlers” of November 3, 1867, was taken to be an antipapist statement, although it showed only two wrestlers….

It was enough, in December when the case was tried before a magistrate, to send Polo to jail with a stiff fine and meant the end of La Lune. Eight days after the last La Lune, Polo started a new paper to replace it and petulantly called it L’Eclipse.”

—Donald Crafton, Emile Cohl, Caricature, and Film (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990). Firestone Library (F) NC1766.F82 C6433 1990

Inside the issues of La Lune is a hand-written index to the covers of all 98 issues, posted here:

Marie Cosindas, the greatest photographer you do not know

Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Oedipus. Photogravures by Marie Cosindas; translated by Leila Vennewitz; foreword by the author. 1st English ed. (New York]: Limited Editions Club, c1989). Translation of the short story “Das Sterben der Pythia” and its preceding introduction, “Schicksal und dramaturgische Notwendigkeit: Ödipus, Shakespeare, Brecht,” from the “Nachwort zum Nachwort” to the author’s Der Mitmacher. Copy 551 of 650. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize Z232.L67 D87q. Gift of John Wilmerding.

“The photogravure plates were made by Jon Goodman and the plates have been editioned at Renaissance Press and Wingate Studio. The gravures are printed on Arches paper and the text on paper made at Cartiere Enrico Magnani. This book was designed by Benjamin Schiff.”

Marie Cosindas (born 1925) did not intend to be a photographer. The eighth of ten children in a modestly situated Greek family living in Boston, she studied dressmaking in school and took up a career designing textiles and children’s shoes, also acting as a color coordinator for a company that made museum reproductions in stone. On the side, she created abstract paintings filled with atmospheric color.

Cosindas initially thought of the camera as a means for making design notes. But as so often happens, several photographs she took on a visit to Greece convinced her that such prints could stand on their own as finished works. In 1961, she participated in one of Ansel Adams’s photography workshops in Yosemite Valley. The following year, when Polaroid sought photographers to test its new instant color film before bringing it to market, Adams recommended her.—Amon Carter Museum of American Art, 2013

Marie Cosindas, Color Photographs with an essay by Tom Wolfe, [edited by Susan Feldman] (Boston: New York Graphic Society, c1978). RECAP Oversize TR654 .C675q

Die Quelle (The Source)

The Graphic Arts Collection holds the second portfolio in the series Die Quelle, along with a set of pen and ink drawings for the series. These volumes provide color and gilt designs for books covers, wall papers, upholstery, and other decorative materials. Volume 2 is predominately the work of the Austrian artist Max Benirschke, while volume 3 (not owned by Princeton) was primarily the work of Koloman Moser.

Max Benirschke (born 1880). Buchschmuck und Flächenmuster (Book Decoration and Patterns). Series: Quelle 2 ([Wien u. Leipzig]: Herausgegeben von Martin Gerlach, [1900]). 1 portfolio (30 leaves of plates) and 1 portfolio ([12] leaves of drawings). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2006-0347Q and Oversize 2006-0026E

Tracts and Satires on King George IV

This note was published in Notes and Queries (October 1885) by Alfred Wallis:

A Catalogue of William Hone’s Publications is appended to The Political Showman at Home, 1821. This is a tolerably full list, and others may be found at the end of his various tracts. Pamphlets similar to those of William Hone were published about that period by Dolby, Fairburn, Robins, Johnstone, Benbow, &c. The brothers George Cruikshank and Isaac Robert Cruikshank found plenty of employment in drawing caricatures for these publications, and the work of the two artists is so much the same in style and manner at this epoch that one finds some difficulty in assigning the specimens to which no initials are affixed.

I believe that George Cruikshank alone illustrated Hone’s publications and Robert Cruikshank those of Dolby; but both the brothers worked for Fairburn and for Robins & Co. More information upon this subject will be found in the various biographies and bibliographies produced since the death of George Cruikshank. The artist is said to have asserted his claim to be considered the originator of some of Hone’s most successful publications, especially to the Bant Note—not to be imitated; it is, however, tolerably certain that this claim, in common with the pretence that every author with whom Cruikshank had relations “wrote up to” his designs, must be referred to a morbid exaggeration of his characteristic vanity.

The idea of publishing such a caricature, in the form of a bank-note, was attributed to Hone in all the public prints; and as it only illustrated an extended pamphlet “by the author of The Political House that Jack Built,” dealing with “the effects on society of the bank-note system and payments in gold,” the Examiner was most likely right in saying, “This bank-note is by Mr. Hone, and ought to make the hearts of the bank directors (if they have hearts) ache at the sight.” Some of Hone’s political tracts are common, others are very difficult of procurement in a perfect state; for instance, the step-ladder is rarely to be found with The Queen’s Matrimonial Ladder. A complete set is a valuable possession to the student of contemporary life and manners.

Multiple copies of these and other rare tracts are held in various collections at Princeton, including this set in the Graphic Arts Collection given by Richard W. Meirs, Class of 1888. Although several sets are bound together, each title can be searched separately in http://catalog.princeton.edu. Such as:
A Groan from the Throne (London: Printed and published by John Fairburn, 1820). A satire in verse on King George IV, with woodcut title vignette by George Cruikshank. GA copy: No. 7 of a volume of pamphlets. Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Cruik 1817.28. Gift of Richard W. Meirs, Class of 1888

Beardsley oddity

Curt Moreck [pseudonym for Konrad Haemmerling, 1888-1957], Meister der Erotik in der Kunst (=Master of Eroticism in Art). Aubrey Beardsley. Ein Blatt zu Lukians wahrer Geschichte. Zwei Blätter zu Wilde’s Salomé. Juvenal geisselt das Weib. Ein Blatt zu Lysistrata Vignete … (Privatdruck, MCMXX [1920]). Graphic Arts Collection 2015- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a privately printed limited edition of prints by Audrey Beardsley. This small (229 × 225 mm) volume in a dark green paper wrapper holds five prints from different series and a few pages of text.

The item was ingeniously found by Simon Beattie, who notes that the previous year Haemmerling had produced a new German translation of Oscar Wilde’s Salomé, which was published, with Beardsley’s illustrations, by Heinrich Böhme in Hanover. Here, Haemmerling writes about sin and sensuality, championing Beardsley’s work for its “way of viewing the world and people with alarming insight.”

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