“I have worked with books most of my life,” wrote Gretchen Oberfranc, introducing herself in the Winter 2002 Friends of the Princeton University Library Newsletter. “My first job, at age 14, was as a shelver in the children’s book section of my hometown public library . . . . A job as editorial assistant to the Atlas of Early American History project at the Newberry Library eventually led to a copyediting position at Princeton University Press–where I stayed for twenty-four years.”

When Gretchen moved from the Press to Rare Books and Special Collections in Firestone Library, her first issue of the Princeton University Library Chronicle featured a cat, in connection with the commemorative edition of Adlai Stevenson’s veto message rejecting Senate Bill No. 93, entitled, “An Act to Provide Protection to Insectivorous Birds by Restraining Cats” or the so-called “Cat-Bill.” Thanks to Gretchen, this tiny book in Mudd Library became popular across the campus.
Over the years, Gretchen produced over 40 issues of the Princeton University Library Chronicle (with a few more almost ready for the mail), not to mention dozens of keepsakes, exhibition catalogues, newsletters, and other print material for the department. I would not want to count the tens of thousands of labels she patiently proofed and corrected for the curatorial staff.
When asked to mention some of her most memorable issues, Gretchen points out the first wrap-around cover design; the first issue offering original fiction (published in honor of the Leonard L. Milberg collection of Irish novelists); and an issue dedicated to film. The latter included an essay by Maria DiBattista entitled “The G-String Letters” featuring a photograph of Gypsy Rose Lee from the Theater Photographs Collection.

Gretchen also pointed to the issue featuring Johanna Fantova’s introduction to her “Conversations with Einstein,” along with Alice Calaprice’s “Einstein’s Last Musings.” This, paired with the diary and short story by Ginevra King, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first love, edited by James L.W. West III, made for an outstanding publication in the autumn of 2003.
Gretchen leaves the department of Rare Books and Special Collections this week. For the many of us who benefited from her scholarship, good taste, and clever turn-of-phrase, we wish to express our thanks and appreciation. She has been endlessly generous with her time and patience with our lack of timeliness. Gretchen was always willing to do whatever was necessary to ‘get it just right’ and we were always the better for it.

It is hard to imagine the department without her. Thank you Gretchen and best wishes in your many new endeavors.

“A poem which did not win any prize so far as the writer knows, but which ought to be entered in any future competitions, is Galway M. Kinnell’s remarkable ‘Conversation at Tea at Twenty,’” wrote Carlos H. Baker, Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature in the Daily Princetonian, November 14, 1947. He continued,

Galway Kinnell (1927-2014), Untitled, no date. Charcoal on paper. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2006.02602

“—a poem which combines a high specific gravity with a deep ironic risibility, and unlike most of the other poems in this issue is about something pretty important: one man’s declaration of war against the world until the time, and he, are ripe enough to write the necessary peace. Mr. Kinnell is not afraid to leave his verse rough at the edges; but a strong-thewed giant is emergent from that rock, and there may come a time when Kinnell can set him free—with courage, patience, and determination.”

Four weeks later, The Daily Princetonian announced “Kinnell ’48 Scores as Poet. The National Poetry Association has announced that “Summer,” a poem written by Galway M. Kinnell ’48 has been selected for publication in the Annual Anthology of College Poetry. The book is composed of the best poems written by college students throughout the country.”

Galway Kinnell, class of 1948, died of Leukemia on Tuesday, October 27, 2015. For an extended obituary see: “Galway Kinnell, Poet Who Followed His Own Path, Dies at 87” by Daniel Lewis, New York Times, October 29, 2014.

Conversation at Tea at Twenty

I have been waiting here too long.
Imbibing
Tea, while the souls I love, wan
Troilus, old King
Lear, fool-guided through the world,
The noble
Prince, and Bergerac, O more to tell
Too endless–Gib, Chris, and all—
Hold hell’s
Hot breath back, and muster me to
Battle.

But now I must nurse my courage in
A sling,
For all the ancient skies are ripening:
Soon golden fruit will form like
Summer clouds,
And ask for poet-men to sing like lords
Of giant gods that pace
The mountain-tops. There will I write
My peace.

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Susan Crile, a former Princeton University painting instructor, recently set a precedent for all American artists. The New York Times asked today, “If you say you are an artist, but you make little money from selling your art, can your work be considered a profession in the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service?” Thanks to Crile, the answer is now yes.

The ruling was handed down late last week.  “The case involved the New York painter and printmaker Susan Crile, whose politically charged work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum and several other major institutions. In 2010, the I.R.S. accused Ms. Crile of underpaying her taxes, basing the case on the contention that her work as an artist over several decades was, for tax-deduction purposes, not a profession but something she did as part of her job as a professor of studio art at Hunter College.” –Randy Kennedy, “Tax Court Ruling Is Seen as a Victory for Artists,” New York Times October 6, 2014

To read the complete story: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/07/arts/design/tax-court-ruling-is-seen-as-a-victory-for-artists.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar

To see the ruling: http://ustaxcourt.gov/InOpHistoric/CrileMemo.Lauber.TCM.WPD.pdf

Crile was an instructor at Princeton University in the visual arts program from 1973 to 1976. Good luck to her!

Henry Martin, “I’m afraid I must concur with Dr. Hamilton and Dr. Movin. The cause of death was taxes,” 1977. Pen and ink drawing. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2009.00343 (c) New Yorker

This finished pochoir facsimile of a Wassily Kandinsky painting was created in one day by the members of the Frederic W. Goudy workshop: Pochoir à la Française with Kitty Maryatt and Julie Mellby on Saturday September 27, 2014. Held at the Scripps College Press in lovely Claremont, California, the workshop was followed by a banquet and lecture on the history of pochoir from the Renaissance to the present.
Thanks to Kitty’s the careful preparation, each of the participants spent the morning familiarizing themselves with color separation, a variety of knives, and the cutting of detailed stencils before launching into the Kandinsky.

Fourteen individual colors were identified and analyzed for their relationship with the segments alongside, or in some cases, inside an area.

Each person cut the stencil for one color and mixed the paint to match Kandinsky’s color palette.
Then, piece by piece the colors were laid down to reconstruct the original Kandinsky. Special pompons or French pochoir brushes were used to paint through the stencils.

Various colors went down quickly, while others took longer to complete.
It was a wonderful day for one and all, with a completed edition of 20 pochoir prints. Best of luck to Kitty’s students who will be building a book about silence over the next semester.

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Landscape with a Steam Locomotive, 1909. Oil on canvas. © Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

If you are on the west coast next week, why don’t you come to the Frederic W. Goudy Lecture at Scripps College, Saturday, September 27 at 7:00 p.m? Here’s a brochure. This event was organized by the Director of Scripps College Press Kitty Maryatt.

An empty shelf is like a mind—
Fill it with compelling verse.
Keep some order or you shall find—
chaos, confusion, or something worse!

by Miriam Jankiewicz
This week Rare Books and Special Collections will move 200,000 books (give or take a few almanacs), along with fishing rods, educational wall hangings, bronze sculpture, pastel portraits, and much more. After eight months on temporary shelves down the hall, we will move it again to a (hopefully) permanent location. Sincere thanks to the our generous staff who are all helping. Please wish us luck.

Congratulations to our colleague Sandra Brooke, Marquand Librarian, who this morning opened the IFLA pre-conference in Paris together with Véronique Thomé of the Bibliothèque centrale des musées nationaux. Their website not only offers the complete program but also abstracts of each presentation in French and English.

“Tuesday welcome: Conference theme overview (Auditorium Colbert) – Véronique Thomé (conservateur/Curator at the Bibliothèque centrale des musées nationaux , coordinatrice de la pré-conférence / Satellite Meeting coordinator) & Sandra Brooke (Marquand Library, Princeton University, Présidente de la section des bibliothèques d’art /Chair of the IFLA Art Libraries section)”

The conference theme is: Art Libraries Meet the Challenges of E-Publishing: New Formats, New Players, New Solutions. Meetings will be held from August 12 to 14, 2014. For more information: http://iflaparis2014.sciencesconf.org/?lang=en

(c) Tony Bates Associates Ltd

“Recent years have seen an increase in experimental electronic publishing concerning the visual arts. Art publishers are not simply reproducing traditional print publications electronically; they are also creating remarkable works with unique digital functionalities. Artists, arts organizations, and publishers worldwide use applications, e-book readers, and Web resources in order to produce original artworks and new art resources. These new publications—media-rich, collaborative, open-ended, or immersive—are extending the scope of art publishing.”

Best of luck to all those involved!

Self-portrait by Robert Nanteuil

On May 26, 1660, twenty-one year old Louis XIV signed the Edict of St-Jean-de-Luz, pronouncing the art of engraving free and distinct from the mechanical arts and declaring that all French engravers were henceforth entitled to the privileges of other artists. Many believe that the young king was inspired by the beauty of the engravings by Robert Nanteuil (1623–1678), his royal engraver, and wished to give the talented printmaker equal rank with the portrait painters.

Thanks to the wonderful donation of Princeton resident and Francophile John Douglas Gordon, Class of 1905, the Graphic Arts Collection holds 134 seventeenth-century engravings by Nanteuil, given in memory of his wife, Janet Munday Gordon. We are grateful to the Gordons and to Louis XIV on this monumental day.

To celebrate the promotion of engravers everywhere, museums and galleries throughout France are opening their collections to the public on Monday, May 26, 2014, for a day they are calling Fête de l’estampe: http://www.fetedelestampe.fr/page/manifestampe

Included will be nearly 150 events across the entire country, including exhibitions, performances, open artist studios, museum tours, interviews, films, printing demonstrations, and much more.  In Paris alone, there will be 23 events, with an additional 30 in the Île-de-France. If you can get there, everything will be free and open to the public.

Vive le roi!     Vive la France!     Vive l’estampe!

Over at 185 this week, the students of Graphic Design: Typography with David Reinfurt pinned paper to the wall to share their innovative designs using words and images. The class has been reading essays by Beatrice Warde (1900-1969), Herbert Bayer (1900-1985), László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946), and Paul Elliman, which provide “the raw material for hot metal typesetting in the letterpress print shop, photo-typesetting in the mechanical paste-up studio, and state of the art typesetting and design software in the digital computer lab.” They practiced design not only from their own imagination but in the spirit of historical masters.

As an additional exercise this year, each of the students designed a class stone for Nassau Hall. http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S39/63/00K80/#comp000052ff592200000035935c56

What a treat it was to see all the provocative and strong pages to come from the class.

Since 2010, David Reinfurt has been teaching elements of graphic design to Princeton students, opening the type shop to them for the first time in many years as well as a state of the art digital studio. In addition to his teaching, in 2012 Reinfurt, Stuart Bailey and Angie Keefer set up a 501c3 corporation called The Serving Library, a cooperatively-built archive that assembles itself by publishing. It consists of 1. an ambitious public website; 2. a small physical library space; 3. a publishing program which runs through #1 and #2. http://www.servinglibrary.org/