Lorenzo Homar’s poster art

A recent offer of Latin American posters led to a search of the Graphic Arts Collection’s 114 screen printed posters designed by the Puerto Rican artist Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004). From 1951 to 1956 Homar worked as a graphic artist and director of the Graphics Section of Division de Educación a la Comunidad (DivEdCo) and in 1957 organized the Graphic Arts Workshop at the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, which he directed until 1973.

“Earning my living as an artist-craftsman,” wrote Homar in 1960, “I try to honor my trade with the maximum of my efforts regardless of the type of work involved. A seal, an illustration or an idea for a painting or engraving; everything that happens around us is worthwhile looking at.”

Homar was one of the first designers profiled when the American Institute of Graphic Arts began their “design journeys” series in 2005. “Lorenzo Homar was a pivotal figure of the fields of design and plastic arts during the second part of the 20th century. While his artistic production encompassed a large number of works across an array of media, his largest contribution to Puerto Rican arts was through his posters and printed engravings. He was a leader behind the popularization and internalization of the afiche, a commemorative medium equivalent to the poster. As a graphic designer and artist, Homar served as a teacher, a mentor and an inspiration for a group of Puerto Rican artists who collectively became known as Generación del Cincuenta (Generation of the Fifties).” http://www.aiga.org/design-journeys-lorenzo-homar/

The posters, along with several hundred other drawings, prints, carved blocks, and other work has been digitized and can be enjoyed at: http://pudl.princeton.edu/collections/pudl0033 .

Update: previously listed as a poster, the following is a signed and numbered fine art print:

Lorenzo Homar (1913-2004), Quote from José de Diego (1866-1918), 1971. Serigraph. Signed and numbered 33/35. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2007.04022. “De la tormenta el iracundo empuje. No has de balar como el cordero triste, sino rugir,como la fiera ruge! ¡Levantate, Revuelvete, Resiste! ¡Haz como el toro acorralado: muge! ¡O como el toro que no muge : embiste!”

Constance Whitney Warren

Constance Whitney Warren (1888-1948), Bronco Rider (also called Texas Cowboy), ca. 1921. Cast bronze at Valsuani Cire Perdue. Museum objects collection.

“The Texas Cowboy Rides at Austin,” declared the New York Times on February 1, 1925. “Statue given to the state by Mrs. Constance Whitney Warren of Paris, commemorating the frontiersman, unveiled by Charles Casson, Vice President of the Chemical National Bank of New York.”

The life-size sculpture also known as The Cowboy or Cowboy Riding a Bucking Bronco, received an honorable mention at the Paris Salon of 1923. Two years later, Warren donated the statue to the State of Texas and had it installed outside the Texas State Capitol in Austin where it can still be found.

Three smaller models for the Warren’s statue are known to exist, cast from a mould copyrighted 1921. One of them is in the sculpture collection of Rare Books and Special Collections in the Princeton University Library.

The American sculptor Constance Whitney Warren (1888-1948) was the daughter of the millionaire George Henry Warren (1856-1943), a founder of the Metropolitan Opera and Real Estate Company and, at one time, president of United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Company.

According to exhibition reviews, Constance was drawing and painting at an early age. This came to a halt in 1912, when she fell in love with Count Guy de Lasteyrie, married him and moved to Paris.

In 1921, Warren was one of eight American sculptors whose work was included in the Paris Salon of that year, placing her next to Katharine Fuller, Edward Stanford, and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Unfortunately, later in her life, Warren suffered from a mental illness and spent her last 18 years in an institution for the insane.

Alfred Bendiner

The Graphic Arts Collection holds 74 original drawings by the Philadelphia artist Alfred Bendiner (1899-1964). By far the largest is this 4 x 5 foot pastel design labeled on the verso “wine festival,” possibly for The Century Association in New York where Bendiner was an active member.

Alfred Bendiner (1899-1964), Wine Festival, [1953]. Pastel. Approximately 122 x 150 cm. (4 x 5 feet). GC034 Alfred Bendiner Collection. Gift of Alfred and Elizabeth Bendiner Foundation.

Transcription: “Prétendre qu’il ne faut pas changer de vins est une hérésie ; la langue se sature ; et, après le troisième verre, le meilleur vin n’éveille plus qu’une sensation obtuse” (To argue that we should not change the wine at dinner is heresy; the tongue becomes saturated; and after the third glass, the best wine arouses no more than a dull sensation) — Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755-1826)

William Stillman Disappears

[above] William James Stillman (1828-1901), Athens, ca. 1869. Albumen silver prints. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.00003. Funds provided by the Friends of the Princeton University Library.

[below] William James Stillman (1828-1901), The Acropolis of Athens (London: Printed by the Autotype Company for F.S. Ellis. 1870. Carbon prints. Graphic Arts Collection 2015-0062E. A joint purchase and gift from the Program in Hellenic Studies with the support of the Stanley J. Seeger Hellenic Fund and matching funds provided by a gift of The Orpheus Trust to the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, in honor of the 35th anniversary of Hellenic Studies at Princeton. Additional funds provided by the Friends of the Princeton University Library.

Thanks to a recent photography request, we noticed that the 19th-century photographer William Stillman used his own figure in the preparatory albumen silver print of the eastern portico of the Parthenon, view looking northward, and showing Mount Parnes in the extreme distance. But when the carbon print was finalized and published in his book The Acropolis of Athens the next year, the figure is no longer included in the picture.

Perhaps he felt it was a distraction from the beauty of the architect? No matter the reason, the earlier albumen silver print has become one of the most loved of Stillman’s photographs.
Stillman-012c

Stillman-012b

291

fifth2 Thanks to the New York Public Library’s newly released digital collections, we can better understand the history of modern American photography.

In 1907, Alfred Stieglitz ran a small gallery on New York City’s Fifth Avenue called the Little Galleries of the Photo-Sucession, affectionately known as 291 (the building’s address). Soon after a celebrated exhibit of Auguste Rodin’s drawings in 1908, Stieglitz’s landlord took note of the gallery’s success and doubled the rent. Unable to raise the money, 291 was closed.

Thanks to the help of millionaire Paul Haviland, Stieglitz signed a lease on a new space in the building next door to his original gallery, at 293 Fifth Avenue. “The wall between the two buildings had been removed during a previous renovation, however, so by all appearances the new gallery seemed to share the same address as the old one.” (see Dorothy Norman, Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer (1973), pp. 75-80).

Stieglitz and his colleagues continued to call the gallery 291 until it closed in 1917. fifth

http://www.nypl.org/research/collections/digital-collections/public-domain

Henry Martin exhibit

The work of cartoonist Henry Martin, Class of 1948, will be on display at Pennswood Village in Newtown, PA, beginning this Sunday, 10 January 2016. Titled “Through the Years at The Inquirer: An Extensive Collection of Cartoons by Hank Martin,” the show features work that Martin published at the Philadelphia Inquirer. There will be an opening reception in Pennswood’s Passmore Lounge from 3:00 to 5:00 pm. Refreshments will be served

Martin’s cartoon posted above and below with the caption, “That’s Harry Phillipston and his wild imaginings,” was published in Punch on 25 August 1982.

“Work Outstanding among the Tiger’s features is the art-work. Bernie Peyton, Bill Brown and Henry Martin are three excellent cartoonists who can transplant ideas from brain to paper with considerable finesse. Their composite work outranks that of any of their predecessors, with the possible exception of Henry Toll, originator of the little sloe-eyed Princeton tiger, and A. M. Barbieri, both of whom toiled on the magazine in the past decade.”–Daily Princetonian, 71, no. 156, 20 November 1947

The Pennswood Art Gallery is located in Pennswood Village, a continuing care retirement community, at 1382 Newtown-Langhorne Road, Newtown PA. All are welcome.

Henry Martin, Class of 1948, “That’s Harry Phillipston and his wild imaginings,” 1982. Pen and ink on paper. Published in Punch on 25 August 1982. Graphic Arts collection

Maurice-Edgar Coindreau (1892-1990)

Among the many sculptures and portrait busts in Rare Books and Special Collections is this likeness of Maurice-Edgar Coindreau (1892-1990), a Professor of Romance Languages at Princeton University for many years. Coindreau is known as one of the most prestigious translator of American fiction into French, remembered in particular for his translations of the works of William Faulkner. William Faulkner, Lumière d’août (A Light in August), traduction et introduction de Maurice E. Coindreau (Paris: Gallimard, 1935). Ex 3734.92.358.58

Pryas (1891-1985), Bust of Maurice-Edgar Coindreau (1892-1990), 1900s. Bronze. Museum Objects Collection.

Mont Orgueil Castle, Jersey

On leaf 54 of the 19th-century photography album compiled by Richard Willats and held at Princeton University is a very early calotype of a seaside town with a castle in the background. That structure has now been identified by Mike Sunier as Mont Orgueil Castle, Jersey.

For the last few years, Mr. Sunier has been researching and writing historical articles for the local Jersey newspaper, the Jersey Evening Post. A new piece is expected soon concerning the Willats album, its many portraits of Jersey residents, and the views it offers of local landmarks. Up until now, we were transcribing the handwritten note in the album as “Query Jersey/or Guernsey.” Thanks to Mr. Sunier’s good work, we can now correct that.

If you would like to see more of the Willats album, click on the permanent Link: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/k930bx11x. The castle is found on leaf 54.

The London Dailymail posted a similar photograph, so we can compare the Mont Orgueil Castle and Grouville Bay of today with the view from the 1840s. To read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2324807/The-real-Jersey-shore-Gourmet-grub-wonderful-walks-Channel-Island-haven.html#ixzz3wOmWArHs

Albert Rutherston

Ian Rogerson, Pen, Paper & a Box of Paints: Albert Rutherston, Illustrator and Designer for the Stage (Upper Denby: Fleece Press, 2015). Graphic Arts Collection GA2015- in process

“Ninety years after the first and only book on Albert Rutherston was published,” notes the book’s colophon, “you now hold one of the 250 copies of this new study.”

The Graphic Arts collection recently acquired one of the 250 copies of a new study of the pochoir printed designs by British artist Albert Rutherston, published by Fleece Press.

The prospectus notes, “Albert Rutherston is well known as a distinctive book illustrator whose work benefited from the pochoir process employed by the Curwen Press. He illustrated many books and for a short period before the First World War had a profound influence on theatre and stage costume design, though he chose not to pursue this. There has been no book on his work until now.”
Albert Rutherston was a figure and landscape painter, book illustrator, and designer of posters and stage sets. He studied at the Slade School from 1898 until 1902 and was a member of the New English Art Club from 1905. Rutherston was Ruskin Master of Drawing at Oxford from 1929 to 1948. –(note from the National Portrait Gallery, London)

Princeton University Library holds 29 books illustrated by Rutherston, beginning with Ronald Firbank (1886-1926), Inclinations (London: G. Richards, 1916). Rare Books (Ex) PR6011.I7 xI5 1916.

See also: Alan Powers, Art and print: the Curwen story (London: Tate, 2008). Marquand Library (SA) NE628.4 .P69 2008
David McKitterick, Wallpapers by Edward Bawden printed at the Curwen Press (Andoversford, Gloucestershire: Whittington Press, 1989). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2014-0025F

Whitney Darrow Jr.

One of the many gifts to the Graphic Arts Collection in 2015 was the generous donation of 20 drawings by Whitney Darrow Jr., Class of 1931, given by his daughter Linda Darrow.

Confound it, Mockridge, let’s forget our off-season job & get our mind back on baseball.

“Mr. Darrow, one of the last of the early New Yorker cartoonists,” wrote Mel Gussow in the artist’s 1999 obituary, “published more than 1,500 cartoons in the magazine from 1933 to 1982. He was considered a master draftsman and, in contrast to some of his colleagues, he wrote his own captions. ‘He was a great creator of comic ideas, and he avoided most of the standard cartoon cliches,’ Lee Lorenz, the former art editor of The New Yorker, said yesterday. Even away from the drawing board, Mr. Darrow was known for his sense of humor and for being shrewdly observant of the contradictions of human behavior.”

“Mr. Darrow was born in Princeton, N.J., where his father was one of the founders of the Princeton University Press. Growing up in Greenwich, Conn., he wrote parodies for his school paper. In 1931 he graduated from Princeton, where he wrote a humorous column for The Daily Princetonian and was art editor of The Princeton Tiger. He thought about being a writer but seemed to move naturally into drawing.”

“He studied with Thomas Hart Benton and other artists at the Art Students League and in his early 20’s began selling cartoons to Judge, Life and College Humor. In 1933, at 24, he made his breakthrough to The New Yorker at a time when, in Mr. Lorenz’s words, the cartoon, at least as The New Yorker was to popularize it, “was still being born.” –Mel Gussow, “Whitney Darrow Jr., 89, Gentle Satirist of Modern Life, Dies,” New York Times, August 12, 1999.
Here are a few samples.

Well, why didn’t you earn what you estimated?

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