Oxford

Martin Parr. Beating the Bounds. Ascension day.2014.

“The very first photo-documentary of Oxford was created by William Henry Fox Talbot,” reads the announcements. “A century and a half later, Martin Parr’s new project pays tribute to [that] great pioneer of photography.”

Commissioned by the Bodleian Library and Oxford University Press, Parr’s upcoming book is a collection of around 100 photographs documenting the life of the university between 2014 and 2016. The images capture day-to-day life of the school, highlighting the colorful and arcane rituals “that make Oxford so distinctive.”

Last Friday, we were given a preview of the book, entitled simply Oxford, due out on September 7, 2017. An exhibition to accompany the book’s release will be held from September 8 to October 22, 2017 in Blackwell Hall, Weston Library, Bodleian Libraries on Broad Street, Oxford.

In paging through the maquette with Bodley’s Librarian Richard Ovenden, we were introduced to the many bizarre, eccentric, peculiar, and unique activities at Oxford University (including a cat that is really a dog). One of the most memorable was the ancient practice of ‘beating the bounds,’ ceremonially re-enacted every year. The photograph by Parr at the top of this post is one such beating, although not the print that eventually made the cut for the book.

 

Another view of this ritual from the Graphic Arts Collection is: George Cruikshank (1792-1878), “May – Beating the Bounds,” in The Comic almanack; an ephemeris in jest and earnest, containing merry tales, humorous poetry, quips, and oddities. Text by William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863); Albert Smith (1816-1860); Gilbert Abbot À Beckett (1811-1856); Horace Mayhew (1816-1872); and Henry Mayhew (1812-1887) (London: Tilt and Bogue, 1837). Graphic Arts Collection Cruik 1835.81. Published in a run of approximately 20,000.


Beginning in 1835 and continuing for nine years, Cruikshank alone drew the plates for each monthly issue. Thackeray contributed small stories and promoted the series writing that it showed “a great deal of comic power, and Cruikshank’s designs were so admirable, that the ‘Almanack’ at once became a vast favourite with the public and has remained so ever since.”

See also: http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/whatson/whats-on/upcoming-events/2017/sep/martin-parr-oxford

Common Sense

Today we studied Martin Parr’s photobook Common Sense, which “takes a candid look at our everyday excess and social stereotypes to reveal our connection to global consumer culture.” [https://www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture/society-arts-culture/martin-parr-common-sense/]

Princeton University Library holds 56 of Martin Parr’s 63 photobooks (most found in the art and architecture library), beginning with The Last Resort: Photographs of New Brighton, with text by Ian Walker (Wallasy, Merseyside: Promenade Press, 1986) and most recently Real Food (London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2016). Many are released with Dewi Lewis Publishing, founded by his friend Dewi Lewis in 1994 and the 2014 recipient of the PHotoEspana’s prize for Outstanding Publishing House of the Year. https://www.dewilewis.com/pages/about-us

**See above right, what does an author do when he is asked to autograph a book filled with images, without writing on his art? Parr answered this with the white bubble added near the beginning of the book.

Common Sense (1999) was published in an unbelievably large edition of 12,000. A problem with glue in the binding left 600 with pages stuck together and unsaleable. The rest of the edition finally sold out this year.

The Martin Parr Foundation is a sponsor of PhotoBook Bristol, scheduled to return in the summer of 2018. In the meantime, the Martin Parr Foundation will open a new hub of activities at Paintworks in Bristol, including a gallery and shop in October 2017. Details at: http://www.martinparrfoundation.org


Martin Parr, Common Sense (Stockport, Eng.: Dewi Lewis, 1999). (SAPH): Photography TR654.P378 1999. The cover image shows a portion of a piggy-bank shaped like a globe.

Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, The Photobook: a History (London: Phaidon Press, 2004- ) SAPH Photography reference Oversize TR650 .P377 2004q

Rare Book School I-45. The Photographic Book since 1844 http://rarebookschool.org/faculty/illustration/richard-ovenden/

300 Coburn prints destroyed


The Graphic Arts Collection holds two copies of The Door in the Wall by H.G. Wells with photogravures from negatives by Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1966). Princeton’s first book has ten mounted prints with letterpress captions while the second has only one.

The text was set by Bertha S. Goudy (1869-1935) at the Village Press, New York, with types and decorations designed by Frederic W. Goudy (1865-1947), under whose supervision it has been printed by Norman T. A. Munder & company, Baltimore, Maryland. Six hundred copies were printed on French hand-made paper in November, 1911.

When Coburn’s photogravures arrived in New York, an assistant mistakenly pounded a nail through the top of one crate destroying half of the prints. 600 photogravures had been prepared in England and only 300 were left for Frederic Goudy to fit into the New York edition.

Some books have 10 and the rest are missing one or more images. Princeton’s second copy is missing all but one. A slip is tipped onto the front board of each incomplete book. Some give the explanation that missing photogravures are replaced with prints made by the aquatone process. The slip in Princeton’s book reads “It was for this volume that Frederic W. Goudy designed his now famous Kennerley Type. Six hundred copies were printed. Unfortunately, only three hundred sets of the illustrations were complete, so that there remain three hundred copies of the book lacking one or more illustrations, of which this is a copy. The text is perfect.”

It was a complete surprise today to find the Rare Book division of the Library of Congress not only holds both complete and incomplete copies of Door in the Wall, but they also have Goudy’s own copy of the book’s maquette, originally placing the photographs on the right instead of the left and without his special type.

The binding and pages are larger in the maquette than the published version. The layout of the cover text is uniformly printed in plain type. Published books used a fancier, pseudo-Gothic face and reduce the size of Coburn’s name, giving his contribution less importance.

Library of Congress, Rare Books, Wells c.4

Library of Congress, Rare Books, Wells c.4

 

The maquette also holds additional prints, seen here laying side by side to check for variations.

 

 

H. G. Wells (1866-1946), The Door in the Wall and Other Stories by H. G. Wells, Illustrated with photogravures from photographs by Alvin Langdon Coburn (New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1911). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2006-0844Q previously owned by Elmer Adler and GAX 2006-0845Q previously owned by Edwin Hooper Denby.

 

Goudy’s pencil design for the title page layout, at the Library of Congress. He might have anticipated a longer production schedule, assuming the publication date would be 1912 instead of 1911.

See also: Alvin Langdon Coburn and H.G. Wells: the photographer and the novelist: a unique collection of photographs and letters from the University Library’s H.G. Wells collection ([Urbana]: University Library : Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1997). Marquand Library (SA) No call number available

James and Coburn

We were looking today at the photogravure frontispieces by Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1966) for all but the final two volumes of what is known as Henry James’s New York Edition. The books were published two volumes at a time between December 14, 1907 and July 31, 1909. Above are the copies at the University of Virginia.

James famously called photography the “hideous inexpressiveness of a mechanical medium.” He told his publishers at Scribner’s that he wanted only a single good plate in each volume of the New York edition. “Only one but of thoroughly fine quality.”

George Bernard Shaw called Coburn “the greatest photographer in the world.” Alfred Stieglitz wrote that “Coburn has been a favored child throughout his career… No other photographer has been so extensively exploited nor so generally eulogized,” but that didn’t stop him from giving the young artist two solo exhibitions at 291.

In 1905, sixty-two-year-old Henry James was photographed by the twenty-three-year-old Alvin Coburn for the April 26 issue of Century Magazine. They became friends and collaborators, mutually agreeing on each of the twenty-four photogravures that Coburn created, beginning with a new portrait of the author for volume one.

Coburn cruised the Mediterranean and traveled to Paris, Rome, and Venice searching for the appropriate entrance scenes for each of his friend’s novels. The gravures are printed directly onto the book page with a tissue guard printed with a facsimile of James’ signature. This might be the greatest series of frontispieces ever created.

 

Henry James (1843-1916), The Novels and Tales of Henry James. New York edition ([New York: C. Scribner’s sons, 1907-17]). 26 volumes with 24 photogravure frontispieces by Alvin Langdon Coburn. (Ex) 3799.7.1907

The Graphic Arts Collection also has a single portrait of Henry James attributed to Alvin Langdon Coburn (1882-1866): https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2014/01/18/henry-james/

 

Rare Book School goes dark


Terry Belanger’s students engrave copper plates, James Mosley’s students cast metal type, and so it should come as no surprise when Richard Ovenden’s students disappeared early into a nearby darkroom to develop a photograph. Although many had tried this at some time in the past, waiting long minutes between the dozens of separate steps to see what went right or wrong gave us a new appreciation for the medium. Back in the library, it is amazing to find so many prints that actually worked.

Large format, medium format, and tiny cell phone cameras.

Before (above) and after (below). Can you pick out the mistake?

And  the biggest mystery of all: the silver recovery system. This was not in Gernsheim.

 

Cigarettes and Gymnastics


The British American Tobacco Company was formed in 1902 in a merger between the British Imperial Tobacco Company and the American Tobacco Company. The first chairman, James ‘Buck’ Duke was a global thinker and a master of merchandising. Each package of machine-rolled cigarettes included trading cards from and/or for countries throughout Europe.

This 1908 set honors athletes from Denmark. Vægtløfter [bottom center] is Danish for weightlifter; Køllesvinger [above] is Danish for club swings. Some of the athletes include Severin Ahlkvist, Camillus Evertsen, Carl Fredriksen, Axel Hansen, Albert Jensen, Eiler Jensen, C.H.R. Neilsen, Ebbesen, Jul. Jörgensen, Hans Poulsen, Axel Larsen, Neuheimer, S. M. Jensen, Palme, Egeberg, Hjalmar Jocobsen, and Victor Hansen.

Unlike other cards, the backs of these are blank.

Giacomo Lauro

Last fall, Victor Plahte Tschudi, Director of the Oslo Centre for Critical Architectural Studies, published Baroque Antiquity: Archaeological Imagination in Early Modern Europe (Classics DG82 .T78 2017). This led to Anthony Grafton’s review “Invented Antiquities,” in the July issue of London Review of Books.

This led to a search for Giacomo Lauro, “a printmaker, whose albums of prints of Rome, the Antiquae Urbis splendor, command the lion’s share of Baroque Antiquity.” It is much more pleasant reading about old master prints while looking at them.

The earliest dated prints by this engraver, printer, and print publisher are from 1585 and carry the address of C. Duchetti. From 1590 he tried to establish himself as a publisher of his own work by acquiring old copper plates, restoring them, and publishing reprints. According to the British Museum, his Antiquae Urbis Splendor was published in parts from 1612. In the volumes issued in 1614 and 1615 Lauro refers to having worked on it for 28 years which would mean that he began it about 1586.

Grafton writes,

“At a cursory glance, Lauro’s slick, neatly engraved images give an impression of erudition and professionalism. . . But Tschudi’s close and tenacious examination reveals that Lauro was neither a professional antiquarian nor even a skilled draughtsman. His images were adapted from a vast range of existing sources: the drawings and prints of Pirro Ligorio and others, which the enterprising publisher Antoine Lafréry had gathered in albums in the 1570s. Lauro not only copied these, he used them to represent buildings for which no ruins or records survived.”

“…Lauro and [Athanasius] Kircher, in other words, were not making and commissioning these sometimes highly imaginative prints at random. They had a precise notion of the market at which they were aiming. Their work didn’t involve creating images anew, after long weeks camped out at the ancient sites, but reusing existing prints. . . They used the work of others as soon as the privileges that protected them ran out, while invoking privileges of their own to protect the value—and price—of their own work. They were not explorers of ancient sites but aficionados of modern prints.”

Giacomo Lauro (active 1583-ca. 1645), Splendore dell’antica e moderna Roma (Roma: Nella Stamparia d’Andrea Fei, 1641). Pt. 1: Antiquae urbis splendor hoc est præcipua eiusdem templa … Romæ, 1612; pt. 2: Antiquitatum urbis liber secundus … Romæ, 1613; pt. 3: … Antiquæ urbis splendoris complementv̄, … Romæ, 1615; pt. 4: Antiquæ urbis uestigia quæ nunc extant … Romæ, 1628. Marquand Library (SAX) Oversize N6920.L37q

See also: Giacomo Lauro (active 1583-ca. 1645), [Engraved views of Italian gardens, showing the Quirinal, Monte Celio, Vatican, Tivoli, Pincio and Barco di Barnaia (Rome?: 1616?]). Marquand Library (SAX) NA9500 .L37

Giovanni Battista de Rossi (active 1630-1660), Palazzi diversi nel’alma cita di Roma et alter ([Rome]: Ad instanza di Giombattista de Rossi, 1638). Prints by Giacomo Lauro. Marquand Library (SAX) in process

The Anti-Masonic Movement


The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired this early almanac focused on the anti-masonic movement in the United States. So much was written and published, this poem appeared in 1829:

O books! books! books! it makes me sick
To think how ye are multiplied,
Like Egypt’s frogs, ye poke up thick
Your ugly heads on every side.

If a new thought but shake its ear
Or way its tail, tho’ starved it look,
The world the precious news must hear,
The presses groan, and lo! a book.

The American anti-masonic movement was officially formed in 1828 following the disappearance and presumed murder of William Morgan (1774–1826?). Morgan was about to publish a book exposing Freemasonry’s secrets and so, the fraternal society was thought to have killed him to keep their information secret.

A congressional convention took place in Philadelphia in 1930. Eli Bruce, Loton Lawon, Nicholas Chesebro and Edward Sawyer were each convicted of taking part in the kidnapping and served time in prison.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We have dozens of other publications in our collections. Of particular interest are those in the Sinclair Hamilton collection with early American wood engravings and gritholaphic plates. Here are a few others.

Edward Giddins, Anti-Masonic Almanac for the year 1832, no. 4. (Utica, [N.Y.]: William Williams [et al], (1831]). Illustrated by D. C. Johnston. 1st ed. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process

Timothy Tickle, The doleful tragedy of the raising of Jo. Burnham; or the “cat let out of the bag”: in five acts, illustrated with engravings  (Woodstock, Vt.: Printed by W.W. Prescott, 1832). Illustartions attributed to Benjamin Tuel by Hamilton and others. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 1958

Morganiana, or, The wonderful life and terrible death of Morgan / written by himself. Illustrated with gritholaphic [i.e. lithographic] plates, by Hassan Straightshanks, Turkey. First American ed., tr. from the original Arabic manuscript. By Baron Munchausen, jr. … (Boston: Printed and published by the proprietors, 1828). “Johnston was fond of using pseudonyms and, as the name Straightshanks is an obvious play on Cruikshank, and as the plates are in the style of Johnston, it seems plausible to attribute them to him.”–Cf. Hamilton. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 937

Henry Brown (1789-1849). A narrative of the anti-masonick excitement, in the western part of the state of New York, during the years 1826, ’7, ’8, and a part of 1829 (Batavia, N.Y.,: Printed by Adams & M’Cleary, 1829). Rare Books (Ex) HS525 .B7

 

Pre-emoji

In honor of the 56 new emojis recently finalized from Unicode 10.0, here are some cloth badges from an uncatalogued collection in Graphic Arts. Although you could photograph and email them, these are really meant to be hand-sewn onto your uniform or sash. Unlike Unicode, they are all gender neutral.

If anyone can identify one or more of the symbols, please let us know.

http://blog.emojipedia.org/final-2017-emoji-list/

John Brown, 1800-1859

Attributed to John Adams Whipple (1822–1891), John Brown, 1800-1859, ca. December 1856. Oval salt paper print portrait. 3 1/2 x 2 3/4 inches. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a rare salt print portrait of the abolitionist John Brown (1800-1859). There are two other known prints from the paper negative: one at the Library of Virginia and the other at the Kansas Historical Foundation. There are four known daguerreotype portraits of John Brown (with a very similar pose): one at the National Portrait Gallery, one at the Massachusetts Historical Society, and two at the Boston Athenæum.

Brown had his portrait made at a Boston studio, either that of Josiah J. Hawes (1808-1901) or John Adams Whipple (1822-1891), in December 1856 or January 1857. Most sources attribute this pose to Whipple. Here is an attempt at a chronology of life portraits: http://www.alliesforfreedom.org/files/exhibit_legends_for_SUPPL.pdf

This clipping is attached to the portrait photograph:

Sally Pierce, formerly of the Boston Athenaeum, quotes a letter from donor James Redpath, “The daguerreotype of John Brown which I gave you some time since was taken in January 1857 or in December of the year before. I think that this was his first visit to Boston after he had become a man of note in connection with Kansas affairs. At least, he was personally known to very few of the friends of Kansas in Boston; and as I happened at the time to be brought into daily intercourse with numbers of them, I availed myself of the opportunity to testify my admiration of the old man by introducing him, whenever I could, to this class of people. …In January he [Brown] had three daguerreotypes of himself taken – one, he gave to Dr. Webb, one to Amos A. Lawrence, one to me. I had asked him for one; he expressed a reluctance to sit; but on leaving, he handed it to me, saying that he gave it because I had ‘been very kind’ to him.” https://www.bostonathenaeum.org/about/publications/selections-acquired-tastes/john-brown-two-daguerreotypes

Brown spent the years 1856-1857 in Boston to promote his cause and raise funds for what would become his famous raid on Harper’s Ferry. Early in 1859, he rented a farm near Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) and on October 16, 1859, together with 21 followers attacked and occupied the federal arsenal in Harper’s Ferry. Brown was captured and executed on December 2, 1859.

See also: Boston Courier report of the union meeting in Faneuil hall, Thursday, Dec. 8th, 1859. Speeches … Resolutions adopted by the meeting. Letters … Names of signers to the call. [Phonographic report] (Boston: Clark, Fellows & company [1859]). Firestone E451 .B74 1859

New York. Citizens. Official report of the great Union meeting, held at the Academy of Music, New York, December 19th, 1859 (New York; Davies & Kent, printers, 1859). Rare Books: John Shaw Pierson Civil War Collection (W) Oversize W26.673q in rehoused pamphlets, box 22