“The undressed human form has been a major subject in Western art since the classical period, but presented particular challenges to photographers who depicted real rather than idealized bodies.” This begins the description for the Princeton seminar in the history of photograph “The Naked and the Nude in Photography.” The course explores the practices of fine arts, pornographic, medical, and ethnographic representations of the body, but who knew this might also include the members of your local arts society?

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a photography album attributed to Edward J. Schwartz called Kokoon Club Photographer’s Index Album, which contains 1,296 gelatin silver prints of the Club models, members (only men allowed), and the Great Lakes Exposition ([Cleveland: KoKoon Arts Club, ca. 1934-1938]). A label on cover reads “PHOTO PRINT FILE.”

This is of particular interest to our collection because of our strong holdings by the Cleveland artist William Sommer (https://www.princeton.edu/~graphicarts/2012/06/sommer.html). The Kokoon Club was founded in 1911 by Sommer and his friends who were sometimes called the “Cleveland Secessionists,” an informal group of artists who embraced the ultra modernist art of the Fauves, the Blue Rider group and the Dadaists. Many of the early members, like Sommer, were employed with the Otis Lithograph Company, a major producer of stone lithographic posters based in Cleveland.

From its inception, the KoKoon Club artists gathered for life drawing sessions, hiring female models for the (male) members. This album is largely composed of figure studies taken at the Kokoon Arts Club headquarters. A smaller group depicts Club members, including a “Vagabond Party,” “Halloween Dance,” a “KoKoon Artists Masquette,” the 1935 “Bal Artistique”, the 1937 “Costume Bal”, and the 1938 “Silver Jubilee Bal.” About 80 images were made at the Great Lakes Exposition of 1936-1937.

While the identity of the creator of the album is not stated, the most likely candidate is Edward J. Schwartz, who had been photographing Bal Masque events at least since 1925 and was listed in the 1931 Kokoon Arts Club Narrative and Roster as the official photographer.

Fawkes family photography  album compiled by Ellen Fawkes (Yorkshire, ca. 1860s). 42 leaves, containing 89 albumen silver prints. Graphic Arts Collection 2019- in process

We recently acquired this Victorian photograph album, compiled by Ellen Fawkes (1841-1890) of Farnley Hall, North Yorkshire, containing individual and group portraits of family and friends. Fawkes was the daughter of the Rev. Ayscough Falkes, and the granddaughter of Walter Ramsden Fawkes (1769-1825), MP for Yorkshire, abolitionist, and friend and patron of J.M.W. Turner. She married Sir George John Armytagein in 1871 and this album is presumed to predate her marriage.

The album includes many portraits of the Fawkes family, along with portraits of the Calleys, Calverleys, Haworths, Hothams, Parkers, Smyths, Vernons, Whartons, Wilkinsons, and Wilmots. Several prints can be attributed to the French photographer Camille Silvy, who moved to London in 1859 and opened a studio. These include Edith Cleasby (f. 13); Mrs Calley (f. 18); and the prominent opera singer Adelina Patti (1843-1919) (f. 38). The buildings depicted include Farnley Hall, where J.M.W. Turner frequently stayed; Thorpe Green; Sawley Hall; Lincoln Cathedral; Stainburn chapel; and Magdalen College, Oxford.

The history of Farnley Hall:

Farnley hall was occupied in the 1780s by Francis Fawkes. After his death in 1786, Farnley Hall was inherited by Walter Hawkesworth of Hawksworth Hall, who adopted the surname Fawkes by Royal Licence and commissioned John Carr to build the new range alongside the old. When Walter Fawkes died in 1792 the hall passed to his son, also Walter Hawkesworth, who also adopted the surname Fawkes, and was known as Walter Ramsden Fawkes. He was MP for Yorkshire in 1806 and was High Sheriff of Yorkshire for 1823.

During his tenure a regular visitor was the Victorian artist and philosopher John Ruskin, who was taken with the enormous collection of paintings by J.M.W. Turner, a close friend of the Ramsden Fawkes. Between 1808–1824 Farnley was a second home to Turner. Ramsden Fawkes owned over 250 Turner watercolours and 6 large oil paintings. A selection of Turner’s works from the Farnley Hall collection were sold in 1890 for £25,000. Frederick Hawksworth Fawkes of Farnley Hall was High Sheriff for 1932. During the Second World War the hall served as a maternity hospital. Nicholas Horton-Fawkes owned and carefully restored the house until his death in 2011. Horton-Fawkes served as President of the Turner Society. Guy Fawkes was related to the Fawkes of Farnley.

In recognition of twenty-five years of service, this 1923 photograph album was prepared and presented to Nils Arvid Svenson, Director of Fiskeby Paper Mill, located outside Norrköping, Sweden. Eighty-six gelatin silver prints are mounted on forty-seven pages with Svenson’s monogram on the front cover.

Forty-four prints show the Fiskeby Paper Mill interspersed with forty-two oval portrait photographs of the executives and employees of the factory. There are interior views of the machine halls for the production of the large paper sheets and rolls, including details of machines and equipment. The final section of the album shows other buildings based in the forests and lakes where the trees were cut, collected, and transported both in the summer and winter.

Founded in 1637, the Fiskeby Board AB is today one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of packaging board and is Europe’s oldest manufacturers of paper and board. In 1872, Fiskeby totally renovated its plant, inaugurating a new modern paper mill based on the innovative cellulose technique and this is why the album, dated 1923, celebrates their 50th anniversary.

“A green company with a long history. That is one way to describe Fiskeby,” notes the company website. “Already in the 1630s Queen Kristina handed us a privilege letter to start paper production. Today we are the only mill in Scandinavia that offers a packaging board made by 100% recovered fibre. Fiskeby is one of Europe’s oldest manufacturers of paper. Over the years we have made everything from wall and silk paper to today’s packaging board manufactured from recovered fibre.

Our story starts in 1637 when Nils Månsson and Anders Mattsson receive a letter of privilege from Queen Kristina with permission to start paper production in Fiskeby. The letter becomes the starting point for a paper mill that will use discarded textiles as raw material for many years to come. Handmade manufacturing continues in Fiskeby until 1852. Technological development is moving rapidly in the world at this time and as a result, a revolutionary machine mill is established in Fiskeby in 1872. Almost a century later, in 1953, Fiskeby installs a new board machine and launches Multiboard.

The board machine is rebuilt in 1987. In 2010 the mill is complemented with a new solid fuel boiler and in 2015 Fiskeby inaugurates its own biogas plant. Even today, all our manufacturing takes place at the same location where everything began almost 400 years ago, at Motala River’s outlet to lake Glan in Norrköping. With the exception of a short interruption in the mid 1800’s, the production has been ongoing since Queen Kristina’s privilege letter in 1637.–http://www.fiskeby.com/about-fiskeby/our-history/?lang=en