Category Archives: Medium

mediums

Game of the Great Exhibition of 1851

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired this unabashedly politically incorrect board game, in which people from around the world meet in London at the 1851 Great Exhibition. Caricatures of all races, creeds, and occupations are encountered as players make their way around this ‘game of the goose’ published by William Spooner.

For some reason, this game has 76 squares rather than the typical 63. The central winning square is the Crystal Palace itself with international visitors mingling outside the building.

**Note, square 34 representing the Americans holds a gun that can even shoot around corners. This is a reference to the Hartford inventor Samuel Colt (1814-1862), who brought 500 of his new Colt revolvers to display in the Exhibition.

No artist is identified on the board but the figures are redolent of Richard Doyle’s work, such as his comic An Overland Journey to the Great Exhibition, published the same year.

Artistic skits of the Great Exhibition of 1851: There were, doubtless, many of these— separate publications—in addition to the illustrations in Punch and other journals. I can mention two by distinguished men. 1. Overland Journey to the Great Exhibition, showing a few Extra Articles and Visitors, by Richard Doyle. These sketches were in nine panoramic plates in oblong quarto. 2. The Great Exhibition “Wot is to Be “; or, Probable Results of the Industry of All Nations, by George Augustus Sale. This was a folding panorama, eighteen feet in length, the designs, about 350 in number, being coloured, oblong octave. Not very long since I saw a copy of this, priced 385., in a London catalogue of second-hand books.” –Notes and Queries (March 16, 1889): 206.



Comic Game of the Great Exhibition of 1851 (London: William Spooner, 1851). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process.

See also: Richard Doyle (1824-1883), An Overland Journey to the Great Exhibition: showing a few extra articles & visitors (London: Chapman and Hall, [1851]) Graphic Arts Collection Oversize NE910.G7 D7 1851q

Hal Siegel

Design for Babylon Revisited painted by Hal Siegel. (c) Charles Scribner’s Sons

The illustrator and designer Hal Siegel (active 1950s-1980s) gained a dedicated following among art directors for his striking book cover designs. Freelancing for various major publishing houses, his commissions grew until the late 1970s, when Siegel became art director for Prentice-Hall in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

One of his most important early commissions came from Charles Scribner’s Sons, where a decision was made to publish a series of paperback editions of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels.

The Graphic Arts Collection holds ten paintings by Siegel, oil on board, which served as the basis for ten Fitzgerald book covers, each sporting bright yellow lettering. Here are a few examples.


Design for Tender Is the Night painted by Hal Siegel. (c) Charles Scribner’s Sons

 

Design for The Beautiful and the Damned, painted by Hal Siegel. (c) Charles Scribner’s Sons

 

Design for Flappers and Philosophers painted by Hal Siegel. (c) Charles Scribner’s Sons

 

Design for The Last Tycoon painted by Hal Siegel. (c) Charles Scribner’s Sons

 It is unfortunate that Siegel fails to appear in any American art index or directory, leaving his biography sadly incomplete. Here is a partial list of the books (taken from online sources) with a cover design or art direction by Siegel.

Edouard Glissant, The Ripening (New York: George Braziller, 1959).
Arthur C. Clarke, Tales of Ten Worlds (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1962).
Bruno Bettelheim, The Empty Fortress: Infantile Autism and the Birth of the Self (New York: Free Press/A Division of the Macmillan Company, 1967).
Ray Birdwhistell, Kinesics and Context: Essays on Body Motion Communication (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1970).
Maurice Chevalier, I Remember It Well ([New York] The Macmillan Company [1970]).
F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970).
Robert Flynn, The Sounds of Rescue, The Signs of Hope (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970).
Pamela Hansford Johnson, The Honours Board (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970).
William L. Henderson and Larry C. Ledebur, Economic Disparity: problems and strategies for Black America (New York: Free Press, 1970).
Marshall McLuhan and Wilfred Watson, From Cliche to Archetype (New York: Viking Press, 1970).
Ursule Molinaro, The Borrower, An Alchemical Novel (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1970).
Alice Walker, The Third Life of Grange Copeland (New York: Harcourt Brace & Jovanovich, 1970).
David Amram, Vibrations – The Adventures and Musical Times of David Amram (New York: Viking Press, 1971).
Walter Allen (editor), Transatlantic Crossing: American Visitors to Britain and British Visitors to America in the 19th Century (New York: William Morrow, 1971).
Adolph F. Bandelier, The Delight Makers: a novel of prehistoric Pueblo Indians (New York: Harcourt Brace/Harvest, 1971).
Alfred Coppel, Between the Thunder and the Sun (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich 1971).
Kenneth W. Grundy, Guerrilla Struggle in Africa: an analysis and preview (New York: Grossman, 1971).
James Henderson, Copperhead (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971).
Stanley Kauffmann, Figures of Light: Film Criticism and Comment (New York: Harper & Row, 1971).
Kenneth Keniston, Youth and Dissent: The Rise of a New Opposition (New York: A Harvest Book/ Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1971).
John Kobler, Capone, The Life & World of Al Capone (New York: Putnam’s, 1971).
Jerzy Kosinski, Being There (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971).
Patricia Laubger, Of Man and Mouse How House Mice Became Laboratory Mice (New York: Viking Press, 1971).
Tom McHale, Farragan’s Retreat (New York: The Viking Press, 1971).
Nicholas Monsarrat, Breaking in-Breaking Out, An Autobiography (New York: Morrow, 1971).
Augustus J. Rogers, III, Choice: An Introduction to Economics (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice- Hall, 1971).
Derek Robinson, Goshawk Squadron a Novel (New York: The Viking Press, 1971).
Muriel Spark, Not to Disturb (New York: Viking Press, 1971).
John Stickney, Streets, Actions, Alternatives, Raps (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971).
Ian Wallace, The Pearl and Prince (New York: McCall Books, 1971).
Jay David, (editor), Black Defiance: Black Profiles in Courage (New York: William Morrow, 1972).
Robertson Davies, The Manticore (New York: The Viking Press, 1972).
G. Davis and K. Pedler, Mutant 59: The Plastic Eaters (New York: Viking Penguin, 1972.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972).
Helen Hayes and Anita Loos, Twice Over Lightly: New York Then and Now (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. [1972]).
George V. Higgins, The Friends of Eddie Coyle (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972).
Elizabeth Jane Howard, Odd Girl Out (New York: Viking Press, 1972).
Jeanine Larmoth, Murder on The Menu [Food and Drink in The English Mystery Novel] (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons [1972]).
David O. Selznick, Memo from David O. Selznick (New York, The Viking Press [1972]).
Arthur C. Clarke, Rendezvous with Rama (New York; Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973).
Spencer Dunmore, The Last Hill (New York: William Morrow, 1973).
Lebar Gerard and Jacques Israel, When Jerusalem Burned (New York: William Morrow, 1973).
Ross MacDonald, Sleeping Beauty (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973).
Arthur Miller, The Creation of the World and Other Business: A Play (New York: Viking Press, 1973).
Jesse Stuart, The Land Beyond the River (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1973).
I.S. Young, Uncle Herschel, Dr. Padilsky, and the Evil Eye: A Novel of Old Brooklyn (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, c.1973).
Stanley Ellin, Stronghold (New York: Random House, 1974).
Jess Stearn, A Prophet in His Own Country: The Story of the Young Edgar Cayce (New York: William Morrow & Company, Inc., 1974).
Berkely Mather, With Extreme Prejudice (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975).
Rumer Godden, The Peacock Spring (New York: The Viking Press, 1976).
Ross MacDonald, The Blue Hammer (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1976).
Maria Rasputin and Patte Barham, Rasputin: The Man Behind the Myth (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1977).
Stephen Marlowe, Translation (New York: W H Allen, 1977).
Robert Westall, The Wind Eye (New York: Greenwillow Books, 1977).
Children’s Toys You Can Build Yourself (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Inc [c.1978]).
Cheli Duran, Kindling (New York: Greenwillow, 1979).
Alma J. Koenig, Gudrun (New York, NY: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard, 1979).
Jane Roberts, The Further Education of Oversoul Seven (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1979).
Christiaan Barnard, Good Life Good Death, a Doctor’s Case for Euthanasia & Suicide (Englewood Cliff, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1980).
Mary Glatzle with Evelyn Fiore, Muggable Mary: My Life with the Street Crime Unit (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1980).
Maxine Marx, Growing Up with Chico, The Biography of Chico Marx by His Daughter (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1980).
Joel L. Fleishman (Edited by), The Future of American Political Parties – The Challenge of Governance (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: A Spectrum Book/ Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1982).
James Reid Macdonald, The Fossil Collectors’ Handbook: a paleontology field guide (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1983).
Lawrence Fawcett, Clear Intent: The Government Coverup of the UFO Experience (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Reward Books, 1984).
David Pepi, Thoreau’s Method: A Handbook for Nature Study (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1985).
Chet Raymo, Honey from Stone: A Naturalist’s Search for God (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company Inc [1987]).
Lynne Bravo Rosewater, Changing through Therapy: understanding the therapeutic experience (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1987).
Dolores Weeks, The Cape Murders (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1987).

 

El Show del Niño Burro

El Show Del Niño Burro: Charles Glaubitz. 5 two-color etchings, each printed from an original drawing directly on the zinc plates (Tijuana, B.C.: La Brigada Ediciones, Agosto 2014). No. 16 of 30. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process.

The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have acquired the portfolio El Show Del Niño Burro by the Tijuana-based artist Charles Glaubitz. Quoting from the wonderful dealer’s note:

The niño-burro (boy-donkey) is a California border character par excellence and has a close relationship with the American comics and illustration. Is not an appropriation of the donkey-zebras of Tijuana, but a remake of the same emblem of the city. It is not a harmless animal that pleases the tourist. It is a controversial character: childhood as a symbol of no domestication, of irreverence and, paradoxically, of candor. In addition to traveling back and forth between San Diego and Tijuana for many years, Charles Glaubitz regularly crosses borders and pushes boundaries in his work.

The Tijuana-based painter, illustrator and graphic novelist has a visual style that employs iconic, cartoonish imagery such as Lucha Libre masks and skeleton-faced Mickey Mouse figures, as well as children in spacesuits and Zonkey costumes (Zonkeys are Tijuana Donkeys painted to look like Zebras). ‘During school, I was exposed to Joseph Campbell who is this scholar and academic who talked about world mythologies and focused not on their differences but on their similarities,’ says Glaubitz, referring to his time at the California College of Arts in Oakland.

How to make a relief line block and a halftone plate (old school)


Here are our worn but still useful teaching progressives for the making of metal relief line blocks and the making of metal halftone plates. These were done many years ago, when we still brushed on acid without a fume hood. The images are fairly high resolution so you should be able to zoom in but here are also a few details.

 

Rockwell Kent design for an invitation done in two color metal relief, sent to Elmer Adler (who did not drink), 1930.

New Compositions in Human Beauty

 

Nakagawa Shūzō, 人体美の新構成 [Jintaibi no shin kōsei = New Compositions in Human Beauty] (東京 : 太陽社, [1932]). 12 unbound folded sheets with 12 photographs tipped onto the page opposite text. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2018- in process.

Almost nothing is written, English or Japanese, about this book or the photographer/designer Nakagawa Shūzō, except for entry no. 53 in The Japanese Photobook 1912-1990 ([Göttingen: Steidl, 2017]). Marquand Oversize TR105 .J365 2017q.

If you can tell us more, please write.


La Comédie française 1680-1880

Arsène Houssaye (1815-1896), La Comédie française 1680-1880 ([Paris: L. Baschet, 1880]). 38 portraits, engraved and photogravure. One of 400 copies. ReCAP Oversize 32261.479.3f


Henri Rousselon (1822-1902) joined the Parisian art publishers Goupil & Cie. in 1860 as director of the photographic division, operating from their print “factory” in Asnieres. At first, the company specialized in albumen silver prints, then Woodburytypes, and finally, Rousselon perfected his own unique technique of photogravure, presented to the Société française de photographie in 1872. Within a year, his Goupil-gravures gained international acclaim as the most luxurious of all photomechanical prints, superbly printed in deep, rich blacks with remarkable detail.


The Goupil Company marked the 200th anniversary of the Comédie française with a luxurious volume of full-length portraits, some actors posing in character (deceased members represented from paintings and prints), along with a text written by the theater’s former director Arsène Houssaye (1814-1896).

Included are Molière, Samson, Geffroy, Regnier, Aug. Brohan, Bressant, Talbot, Got, Delaunay, Maubant, Max. Brohan, Marie Favart, Jouassain, Coquelin, Edile Riquier Febvre, Provost-Ponsin, Dinah Félix, Thiron, Reichenberg, Croizette, Mounet-Sully, Laroche, S. Bernhardt, Barré, Barette, Broizat, Worms, Coquelin cadet, Sarnary, Baron, Mlle Clairon, Préville, Mlle David, Mlle Mars, and two company portraits from 1841 and 1863.

To create the photogravures for this compilation, Rousselon used the negatives by five contemporary photographers, the majority of which are by Count Stanislaw Julian Ostrorog (1830-1890) who went by the moniker Walery (also used by his son). A naturalized British citizen, Walery ran a successful portrait business in Paris until 1878, when he returned to work in London. Although his primary studio was on Regents Street as this project was underway, he undoubtedly traveled as demand for his work required.

Only a few portraits in the volume are by the gregarious Étienne Carjat (1828-1906), who learned to use a camera in 1855 and used it to captured hundreds of award-winning portraits of the leading actors, writers, and artists of Paris (all of whom he called his friends). Carjat shot with various size cameras, including large format glass negatives, which were then used to print both Woodburytypes and photogravures, sometimes many years after the initial capture.

Carjat’s friend Paul Nadar (1856-1939) is also represented with a few portraits, as are Ferdinand Mulnier (1817-1891) and the little-known Charles Klary (born 1837).

 

The Civil Rights movement in America

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Here is a small selection from a group of approximately 120 press and wire photographs dating from the early 1960s through 1980, recently acquired by the Graphic Arts Collection with the help of Steven Knowlton, Librarian for History and African American Studies. These heavily used prints all relate to the Civil Rights movement in the United States, documenting protests, marches, sit-ins, and police confrontations in Atlanta, Alabama, Chicago, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, and Washington, D.C.

Typed captions provide details of the event, often with names, dates, and other specifics to place the picture in its historical context. Many prints have a clipping from the newspaper where the photograph appeared taped to the back.

These photographs and all our collections are available to researchers, without appointment, Monday to Friday 9-5. Just register here: https://rbsc.princeton.edu/research-account-access

“Selma, Ala., Mar. 12 — The ‘Wall’ is down — Jubilant demonstrators held aloft a rope barricade after it was cut down in Selma, Ala. today [by] public safety director Wilson Baker. The demonstrators had sung [unclear] referring to the barricade as the Berlin wall and Baker unexpectedly walked over and severed it. He said “nothing has changed” and still refused to allow the non-stop demonstrators to march. …1965.”

Read more about 1965 events in Selma: https://www.cnn.com/2013/09/15/us/1965-selma-to-montgomery-march-fast-facts/index.html

“St. Augustine, Fla., June 19 — Up goes the confederate flag at Monsons — Manager James Brock and his daughter Robyn, 13, raise a confederate flag today in front of the Monson Motor Lodge in St. Augustine, Fla. The motel has been a target for several weeks of Negro integrationist. Yesterday they jumped into the pool at the motel… 1964.”

The Monsons responded by pouring acid in the pool: https://www.npr.org/2014/06/13/321380585/remembering-a-civil-rights-swim-in-it-was-a-milestone

Cambridge Boys Celebrate When Women Are Refused Degrees

Thomas Stearn (1825-1905), [Cambridge University protest], May 21, 1897. Albumen silver print photoshopped to remove some yellow for easier viewing. Graphic Arts Collection GA2018- in process

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired three unmounted albumen silver prints taken on May 21, 1897. That was the day when the Cambridge University Senate voted on whether to grant female students the right to receive a full degree. Large numbers of undergraduates, alumni, and staff protested. Degrees to women were rejected and it wasn’t until 1947 that Cambridge reversed this decision.

The above photograph features an effigy of a new, emancipated woman on a bicycle, hung from a window of a bookshop (Macmillan & Bowes at 1 Trinity Street, today the Cambridge University Press bookshop). The second print shows an female figure hung from Caius College across Trinity Street. A large banner parodying Shakespeare reads, “Get you to Girton Beatrice, Get you to Newnham, Here’s No Place for You Maids, Much Ado About Nothing.” [Girton and Newnham were the two female colleges] The final photograph shows the large crowd of jubilant men gathered on the Senate House steps.

Each print has a blind stamp in lower left corner for the photographer Thomas Stearn, who established a studio at 72 Bridge Street in 1886. His wife, sons, niece, and other family members worked in the firm, which finally closed in 1970. If you look closely, a photographer with his camera is visible on the roof of the north aisle of the University Church, accompanied by assistants and a group of women.
Thomas Stearn (1825-1905), [Cambridge University protest], May 21, 1897. Albumen silver print photoshopped to remove some yellow for easier viewing. Graphic Arts Collection GA2018- in process.

The following account is taken from Teacher Training at Cambridge: The Initiatives of Oscar Browning and Elizabeth Hughes (Routledge, 2004)

[There was] good reason to believe that high education for women . . . was gaining acceptance. Nationally, by 1894 women were receiving degrees from the Scottish universities, Wales, Durham, London and many other universities.

In 1896, Oxford University refused degrees for women at a university vote, but, in Cambridge, 1,234 past students of Hewnham and Girton [Colleges] petitioned the university Senate to have their degrees awarded just like the men, rather than being offered a Tripos ‘certificate’. A highly public campaign by supporters and opponents took place . . . .

The vote to admit women to degree titles was arranged for Friday, 21 May 1897. The Times took the trouble to point out that special trains of the Great Northern Line would leave King’s Cross for Cambridge in time for [graduate students] to register their ‘non-placet’ votes. There was rabble-rousing going on among the undergraduates (who could not vote) for there were near-riots in the streets of Cambridge.

Male undergraduates in one-horse hackney carriages met the [graduates] at Cambridge station and rushed them at break-neck speed along Regent Street, through the marketplace to the Senate House. There they had to press through excited throngs, under the gaze of undergraduates leaning out of Caius College dangling effigies of women students. . . . When at last the result was announced, the women had suffered a crushing defeat. The final vote was 1,707 against women receiving degrees, and only 661 in favour.”

Thomas Stearn (1825-1905), [Cambridge University protest], May 21, 1897. Albumen silver print photoshopped to remove some yellow. Graphic Arts Collection GA2018- in process

50 years after this protest, Cambridge finally accepted women as full members of the University. At Princeton University, it wasn’t until April of 1969 that the Board of Trustees voted to enroll women and the first mixed gender class entered the following fall. In the book world, the Rowfant Club and the Club of Odd Volumes remain closed to women.

The Long Never

When The Long Never arrived yesterday, there was a brief moment of uncertainty as to whether we had received a book without the promised story by Jonathan Safran Foer. A jump to the colophon provided the note, “Foer’s text was printed in the debossed image areas using a lithograph printing press. All plate images were scanned and separated using tritone separation. Plates were printed using tritone lithograph printing on Phoenix Motion Xantur 115 g/sm paper, trimmed and hand-tipped into the debossed image areas.”–Colophon.

 

Hiroshi Sugimoto, The Long Never; story by Jonathan Safran Foer; designed by Takaaki Matsumoto ([New York: Matsumoto Editions, 2014, New York: Matsumoto Editions]). Copy 215 of 360. Graphic Arts Collection.

We are fortunate to have acquired number 215 from the first edition of 365 copies, which we understand is now sold out. Along with Foer’s story, the special edition book presents sixty-five prints by the Japanese photographer and architect Hiroshi Sugimoto.

Press copy for the book says, “The sequence of images in this book conjures a natural history of the planet, perhaps even one untouched by humans. The black-and-white photographs are hand-tipped onto the pages of the book, which is wrapped in silk cloth. Celebrated author Jonathan Safran Foer has written an original story for this book. Foer’s text sits on the page underneath each artwork, so the reader must lift up each photograph in order to read the story.”

 

Ocherki perom i karandashem iz krugosvi︠e︡tnago plavanīi︠a︡

Aleksei Vysheslavt︠s︡ev (1831-1888), Ocherki perom i karandashem iz krugosvi︠e︡tnago plavanīi︠a︡ v 1857, 1858, 1859 i 1860 [Sketches in Pen and Pencil from a Trip Around the World in the Years 1857, 1858, 1859 and 1860]. 2nd corrected edition (Saint Petersburg: M.O. Wolf, 1867). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2918- in process.

 

 

Illustrated with 24 tinted lithographs (including the title page seen at the top), this Russian travelogue takes the reader around the Cape of Good Hope to Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Hawaii, and Tahiti. Vysheslavt︠s︡ev was a doctor sailing around the world from 1857 to 1860, writing and sketching along the way.

He traveled with a military commission inspecting the Russian territories acquired with the Russian-Chinese Treaty of Aigun. The ship returned by way of the Strait of Magellan, Buenos Aires, and Rio de Janeiro.

Vysheslavt︠s︡ev’s “Letters from the Clipper Plastun” appeared from 1858 to 1860 in the Russky Vestnik, later known as the Russian Herald, where Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky also published. By 1862, the doctor was back in Saint Petersburg and published his collected letters with lithographs printed from his sketches by from the studio of Paul Petit. This second edition was published five years later by Mauritius Osipovich Wolf (1825-1883) with the same illustrations.

 


Professor Ella Wiswell notes,

“In Montevideo the Plastun had to undergo some repairs, and the author was transferred to the corvette Novik which was also returning from Japan. The transfer saved Vysheslavtsev’s life because the Plastun was sunk by an explosion just as the two ships were approaching the home port of Kronshatdt in Russia.

Only nine members of the 79-member crew were rescued. The cause of the explosion was never determined, but it was suspected that a fire was started by a sailor resentful of ill treatment by the commanding officer. The final page in the book describes the disaster.” https://evols.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10524/390/2/JL17076.pdf