Category Archives: Medium

mediums

Marie-Hélène Vieira da Silva (1908-1992)

Marie-Hélène Vieira da Silva (1908-1992) and Léopold Sedar Senghor (1906-2001), Élégie pour Philippe-Maguilen Senghor pour orchestre de jazz et chœur polyphonique et Soudainement, La terre, Le ciel, trois gravures originales de Vieira da Silva (Paris: Galerie Jeanne Bucher, [1986]). In-folio, 450 x 300: (15 ff. premier et dernier blancs), couverture muette. En feuilles, couverture rempliée, chemise à rabats d’édition.

Very rare edition of this poem written by Senghor in homage to his son who died in 1981, illustrated with 3 original full-page engravings by Vieira da Silva and printed in an edition of 72 copies on Japan, signed by the author and the artist.

 

Marie-Hélène Vieira da Silva (1908-1992)

Léopold Sedar Senghor (1906-2001)

Isabella Piccini


Antonio de Solis y Ribadeneyra. Istoria della conquista del Messico della popolazione, e de’ Progressi nell’America Settentrionale (Venice: Poletti, 1715). Engraved frontispiece portrait and seven additional plates. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process

 

We recently acquired the second Italian edition of this account of the conquest of Mexico by Spanish forces under Hernando Cortéz (1485-1547). The work describes the three years between the appointment of Cortéz as commander of the invasion expedition and the fall of Mexico City.

Solis was private secretary to Philip IV and considered the “cronista mayor de Indias.” His account contains three marvelous full-page engraved portraits of the author, Cortéz, and Montezuma by the famous printmaker Suor Isabella Piccini and five other plates engraved by Alessandro della Via, illustrating significant scenes of the conquest.

 

For the Graphic Arts Collection, it is the engraver Suor Isabella Piccini (1644-1734), who is of particular importance. The daughter of the printer Giacomo Piccini (died 1669), she is becoming better known for her many 17th- and 18th-century engraved portraits commissioned by Venetian publishers. See also: https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2017/11/09/isabella-piccini-and-angela-baroni-18th-century-engravers/  Not unlike the 20th-century Sister Corita Kent (1918-1986), Piccini sent much of her time in the Convent of Santa Croce creating art, in particular to illustrate prayer books and manuals.

 

Alessandro della Via (active 1688–1724) also engraved book plates and portraits in Venice at this time but little more is known of his biography.

 

School Begins



Giulio Tomba (about 1780-1841) after Felice Giani (1758-1823). Rosaspina’s Zeichnungsschule [Rosaspina’s Drawing School], ii/ii. Nuremberg: Johann Friedrich Frauenholz, 1811. Etching and engraving and drypoint. Graphic Arts Collection GAX

The Italian printmaker Francesco Rosaspina (1762-1841) taught engraving at the Accademia di Belle Arti [the Academy of Fine Arts] in Bologna. This scene shows the master sitting at the top of the table, along with various female bystanders only allowed to watch. State i/ii [above] of the print is held at the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University M25869, showing us the various objects in the room before the dark shadows were added. The engraver Giulio Tomba was a student of Rosaspina and could be represented by one of the figures around the table.

Todd Heisler’s 24-column photo-essay


For those who only read the New York Times online, you missed the massive photo-essay on Sunday by NYTs staff photographer Todd Heisler. Two gatefolds open onto a 48 inch, 24 column double-sided spread entitled “This Space Available” with text by Corey Kilgannon. Don’t look for it, the piece will not appear digitally until later this week (according to instagram). Go to the local newsstand and see if they have any leftover or check your neighbor’s porch if they were away for the weekend.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnMwng6HwlF/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=9dk1zks8dm90

https://twitter.com/heislerphoto?lang=en

Editor, Diego Ribadeneira; Visual editors, Jeffrey Furticella, Andrew Hinderaker, and Meghan Louttit; Design, Wayne Kamidoi.

Color printing by Jean Robert, assistant to J. C. Le Blon


For those who study the history of printed color, the German printer Jacob Christoph Le Blon (1667-1741) is celebrated for his development of three and four color prints. We usually think of the deluxe editions he produced but forget his three-color system was also used on simple, utilitarian volumes.

Thanks go to Charles B. Wood III, who found this work on obstetrics by Angélique Marguerite Le Boursier Du Coudray (1712-1789). the pioneering midwife who published the manual on childbirth, developed from the lectures and classes she gave throughout Europe. The illustrations are beautifully printed in colors by Le Blon’s assistant Jean Robert (active 1746-1782) and the frontispiece portrait of Du Coudray is also engraved by Robert.

Angélique Marguerite Le Boursier du Coudray (1715-1794), Abbrégé de l’art des accouchemens, dans lequel on donne les préceptes nécessaires pour le mettre heureusement en pratique. On y a joint plusieurs observations intéressantes sur des cas singuliers. Ouvrage très-utile aux jeunes Sages-Femmes, & généralement à tous les éléves en cet art, qui désirent de s’y rendre habiles. Nouvelle édition, enrichie de figures en taille-douce enluminées. Par Madame Le Boursier du Coudray, ancienne maîtresse sage-femme de Paris (Saintes: Pierre Toussaints. Libraire, imprimeur du Roi, rue Saint Maur. M. DCC. LXIX [1769]). Rare Books and Special Collections RG93 .xD8

See also the 1756 book engraved by Pierre François Tardieu (1711–1771) and Jean Robert (active 1746–1782), and printed by Pierre Gilles Le Mercier (active 1735–1766): “Coloritto or the Harmony of Colouring in Painting” in Antoine Gautier de Montdorge (1701-1768), L’art d’imprimer les tableaux, traité d’après les écrits, les opérations & les instructions verbales, de J. C. Le Blon (Paris: Chés P. G. Le Mercier … Jean-Luc Nyon … Michel Lambert … 1756). Graphic Arts Collection 2004-3391N.

Biblia / Pietá

Biblia/Pietá originated from a performance art piece that took place in the Instituto Francés de Cultura (French Institute of Culture) in Santiago, Chile, during May 1982, created by Juan Domingo Dávila, Carlos Leppe, and the critic Nelly Richard. The event was recorded in photographs by Julia Toro Donoso and republished last year in a limited edition box set, recently acquired thanks to funds provided by the Program in Latin American Studies (PLAS). Special thanks go to Professor Javier Guerrero, Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Chair of the Section on Venezuelan Studies of LASA, who discovered this rare surviving box.

Biblia/Pietá contains the text by Carlos Leppe María Dávila on a 15 mm acrylate plate; a facsimile edition of the article in Art & Text, along with the translation by Patricio Marchant; and eleven signed photographs on rag paper.

“The performance consisted of a staging of La Pietá with inverted gender roles, where Dávila represented the Virgin and Richard died Jesus Christ; Leppe, meanwhile, enters the scene dressed in a suit and tie, but with face makeup and false eyelashes. Leppe washes his face and lights a projection of a video where the scene of La Pietá is repeated, but this time with two men. While the video is being shown, Leppe reads aloud a text about his position on Chilean art.”

For more, see: http://carlosleppe.cl/1982-la-pieta/

Curtis in Alaska

While Edward Curtis (1868-1952) is best remembered for his 2,200 photogravures (ink prints from photographic negatives) published in the 20 volume set, The North America Indian, he began publishing his photographs with images from the Alaskan/Yukon Gold Rush of 1897, and more importantly, as one of the official photographers on E.H. Harriman’s Alaskan expedition of 1899. It was through the Harriman project that Curtis was introduced to the master printers at John Andrew and Son in Boston, who transformed his glass positives into rich aquatinted photogravures. Curtis went on to enlist their services again with his own mammoth series.


When Curtis knew them, the engraving firm was in its thirtieth year, run by John’s son George Theodore Andrew (1843-1934) and their technical skill made it worth the cross-country shipping. Although the scale of the Alaska prints does not compare with the prints in The North American Indian, many of the photogravures in Alaska are equally rich in detail and texture.

The Harriman Expedition to Alaska was the last great 19th-century survey of the North American frontier…

Curtis’ relationship with Harriman, Robert Grinnel, a leading ethnographic expert on Native Americans and other members of the party had a great influence on the rest of his life. After a trip of nine thousand miles the party returned with five thousand pictures and over six hundred animal and plant species new to science. New glaciers were mapped and photographed and a new fjord was discovered. Curtis photographed many of the glaciers, but it was his Indian pictures on this trip that established his artistic genius. Curtis produced a souvenir album of photographs for the participants.

http://www.klotzgallery.com/edward-s-curtis-bio


Harriman Alaska Expedition (1899), Alaska… (New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1901). “Advertisement. The publication of the series of volumes on the Harriman Alaska Expedition of 1899, heretofore privately printed, has been transferred to the Smithsonian institution by Mrs. Edward H. Harriman, and the work will hereafter be known as the Harriman Alaska series of the Smithsonian institution. The remainder of the edition of volumes I to V, and VIII to XIII, as also volumes VI and VII in preparation, together with any additional volumes that may hereafter appear, will bear special Smithsonian title pages. Smithsonian institution … July, 1910.” ReCAP WA Q115 .H2 1901

Alice Guy Blaché, First Female Filmmaker

Detail from Hook and Hand [poster] from [Alice Guy] Blaché productions. Chromolithograph. 1913. Film opened February 1914, produced by her husband Herbert Blaché.

From 1896 to 1906 Alice Guy was probably the only woman film director in the world. She had begun as a secretary for Léon Gaumont and made her first film in 1896. After that first film she directed and produced or supervised almost six hundred silent films ranging in length from one minute to thirty minutes, the majority of which were of the single-reel length. In addition, she also directed and produced or supervised one hundred and fifty synchronized sound films for the Gaumont Chronophone.

—https://wfpp.cdrs.columbia.edu/pioneer/ccp-alice-guy-blache/

See also:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/movies/be-natural-untold-story-alice-guy-blache-review.html
Emmanuelle Gaume, Alice Guy, la première femme cinéaste de l’histoire : roman (Paris: Editions Plon, [2015]). Firestone Library PQ2707.A945 A625 2015
Daniel Chocron, Alice Guy: pionnière du cinéma ([Paris]: Jardin d’essai, c2013). Firestone Library PN1998.3.G89 C46 2013
Alison McMahan, Alice Guy Blaché: lost visionary of the cinema (New York; London: Continuum, 2002). ReCAP PN1998.3.G89 M39 2002

José Angel Toirac’s “Parables”

“Parables, with Cuban artist José Angel Toirac and writer Robert Glück, is an extension of Toirac’s life project of examining how the Cuban State has used press imagery to manufacture consent and sell the Revolution which Fidel lead in 1959,” writes Loring McAlpin, ’83. “It’s a sumptuous book meant to be a scripture for Fidel and the Cuban Revolution.”

You may have missed the evening last spring at The David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS), Harvard University, where Toirac, Glück, and McAlpin present their limited edition, fine press book gathering photographs from magazines and newspapers like Granma, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, and re-purposing the Cuban Revolution as a Gospel, a new religion with a new scripture.

But you can still catch them if you happen to be in Washington D.C. in October 2018, when artists Meira Marrero, Loring McAlpin, and José Angel Toirac will join in a conversation about Parables with Michelle Bird at National Gallery of Art. https://www.nga.gov/calendar/lectures/lectures-signings/parables-the-conversation.html
 


They note:

Parables (the project/exhibition) by Meira Marrero and José Angel Toirac is a collection of 33 photographs of Cuban life published by the official Cuban press. Sources range from magazines and newspapers like Granma, the mouthpiece of the Communist Party, to books on the history of the revolution. These photographs constitute a narrative of the Cuban Revolution as well as a retelling of the Gospels, with Fidel Castro performing the life of Christ from his childhood in Nazareth to his ascension into Heaven. Just as Christianity appropriated pagan festivals, the Cuban state has incorporated biblical stories into its narrative of the Revolution. Christian expressions have been fashioned into official slogans such as “these are the days to unite.”

In Parables the religious roots of this idolatry are exposed. Poet, fiction writer, editor, and New Narrative theorist Robert Glück was invited to write the “scripture” accompanying these images, as if compelled by the faith they conveyed, without mention of either Fidel or Jesus. Parables (the book) is a limited-edition artist book of 33 parables, each with a corresponding image, designed by Cynthia Madansky and Loring McAlpin.

In Fidel’s Shadow: Cuban History (and Futures), One Year On

 

José Angel Toirac, Meira Marrero, and Robert Glück, Parables, design by Cynthia Madansky and Loring McAlpin ([New York?]: Faithful Castle Press, 2017). Graphic Arts Collection 2018 in process.

 

Welcome Visiting Scholars and Artists from Puerto Rico


The Graphic Arts Collection welcomed the second of two groups from the 2018 visiting scholars and artists from Puerto Rico (VISAPUR) together with their hosts Alma Concepción and Arcadio Díaz-Quiñones.

The Program in Latin American Studies (PLAS) is hosting members of the academic and artistic communities of Puerto Rico as visitors at Princeton University this summer. This effort aims to provide relief to scholars, students, and artists affected by the catastrophic aftermath of hurricanes Irma and Maria by allowing them to continue their work at Princeton on a temporary basis. The VISAPUR program provides a range of support including a stipend to cover living expenses, office space, access to libraries and other scholarly material, and an opportunity to engage with colleagues at Princeton.

The program is sponsored and managed by PLAS and the Office of the Provost, with the endorsement of the Princeton Task Force on Puerto Rico. Additional support has been provided by the Firestone Library, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, Department of Music, American Studies Program, Program in Dance, Princeton Mellon Initiative in Architecture, Urbanism & the Humanities, Lewis Center for the Arts, Office of the Dean of the Faculty, Office of the Dean of the College, Graduate School, Office of the Registrar, and the Housing and Real Estate Services office.

Special thanks to professor emeritus Arcadio Díaz Quiñones, former PLAS director and professor of Spanish and Portuguese, for his leadership and commitment to the project.

As we were looking at programs designed by Lorenzo Homar, we found a photograph of Alma Concepción when she was dancing with the Ballets de San Juan in 1954. A former soloist with the San Juan Ballet and Antonio’s Ballet of Spain, she received her early training in Puerto Rico followed by study in New York at the School of American Ballet and at American Ballet Theatre. Ms. Concepcion is the founder of Taller de Danza, a children’s movement and dance grassroots organization based in Trenton. She is also a member of the Society of Dance History Scholars and has written many articles, mainly on Caribbean music and dance.

Here are a few of the prints, drawings, and printed books we enjoyed:

Plenas: 12 grabados de Lorenzo Homar y Rafael Tufiño; introducción por Tomás Blanco; diseño de Irene Delano. San Juan, P.R., Editorial Caribe, 1955. Copy 540. Graphic Arts Collection Oversize NE585.H66 A4 1955q

Rafael Tufino (1922-2008), Elmer Adler Homenaje [Poster from memorial exhibition at the Gallery Fundador de la Casa del Libro]. Graphic Arts Collection

Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004) [Sketchbook created during Homar’s army days in Korea during World War II]. 1945. Pencil and pen drawings. Graphic Arts Collection

Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004), Pablo Casals, 1955. Inscribed in ink along right margin: ‘Offset lithography BUT: The experiment went like this: I silkscreen black ink over an acetate sheet (clear). Then, over a light table I scratched this head of Don Pablo thus making a negative. When exposed over a sens.” Graphic Arts Collection

Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004), El Maestro // [The Master], 1972. Includes two quotations from speeches given by Pedro Albizu Campos (1891-1965) in 1930. Graphic Arts Collection

Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004), Alma, 1983. Graphic Arts Collection

Tomás Blanco, Tres estrofas de amor para soprano; musica de Pablo Casals; illustrada en serigrafia por Lorenzo Homar (San Juan, P.R.: Galeria Calibri, 1970). Copy no. 26. “La edicion consta de 150 ejemplares firmados y numerados en papel “Arches” asi distribuidos : del uno al cien en numeros arabicos; veinte ejemplares, del uno al veinte en numeros romanos … ” Graphic Arts Collection

Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004), Sala fray Bartolome de Las Casas, 1992. Carved woodblock. GA 2007.04029. Gift of Princeton University’s Program in Latin American Studies.

Salmos, versos de Ernesto Cardenal; grabados de Antonio Martorell (San Juan de Puerto Rico: Martorell, 1971). “Esta selección de versos … impresosá mano … en papel japonés “Okawara” caligrafiados individualmente firmados y numerados por el grabador en edición limitada a 200 ejemplares se comenzó a imprimir el 18 de octubre de 1971 en el Taller Alacrán.” Princeton copy is no. 24. Graphic Arts Collection Oversize 2006-0078F

Luis Palés Matos, Puerta al tiempo en tres voces; grabados de Consuelo Gotay (Puerto Rico: Taller de las Plumas, 1998). “Edición limitada a 35 ejemplares y 10 pruebas de artista.”–Colophon. “Textos: Arcadio Díaz Quin̂ones.” Graphic Arts Collection Oversize 2006-0221Q

Luis Palés Matos, Esta noche he pasado; xilografías Raquel Noemi Quijano Feliciano (San Juan, Puerto Rico : Taller El Polvorín, 2003). Copy: No. 6. Graphic Arts Collection Oversize 2006-0076E