Rock and Paper. Revisiting Michael Heizer

Michael Heizer, Tom Slaughter, Ray Charles White, Scott Kilgour, John Giorno, Robert Harms, Daniel Villeneuve, Beatriz Milhazes (Durham, Pa.: Durham Press, 1996). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2006-0386Q

“The son of an anthropologist, Heizer acknowledges numerous ancient sources for some of his forms but sees the comparison as more apt in the realm of effect than of specific reference: ‘It is interesting to build a sculpture that attempts to create an atmosphere of awe. Small works are said to do this but it is not my experience. Immense, architecturally sized sculpture creates both the object and the atmosphere. Awe is a state of mind equivalent to religious experience, I think if people feel commitment they feel something has been transcended.’”

Michael Heizer, Negative Megalith 5, 1998. Dia Art Foundation ©Michael Heizer

“The simplified geometric forms of North, East, South, West [below] suggest the underlying Euclidean lexicon of basic three-dimensional forms—box, cone, and wedge—essential for all sculpture, ancient and modern. The architectural scale and construction of Heizer’s work call forth comparisons to the megalithic monuments of ancient cultures—a comparison that is explicitly addressed in his Negative Megalith #5 (1998, above), a natural, menhir-like stone inscribed in a rectangular niche, installed in a neighboring gallery.”–Dia Art Foundation

Above and below: Michael Heizer, North, East, South, West, 1967/2002. Dia Art Foundation ©Michael Heizer

See also: Michael Heizer—Dragged mass geometric (New York, N.Y.: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1985). Marquand Library NB237.H44 W48

To dry the tear from misery’s eye

Benjamin Tanner (1775-1848) after Charles Canda, General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York [membership certificate], no date [1820s]. Engraving. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.00302

According to the Mechanics Society literature, “Mechanics Institutes were educational establishments formed to provide adult education, particularly in technical subjects, to working men and, later, women. The General Society of Mechanics & Tradesmen of the City of New York was founded in 1785 by the skilled craftsmen of the City.”

In 1820, the General Society opened one of New York City’s first free schools as well as the Apprentices’ Library and in 1858, elected to convert its school into a Mechanics Institute that would “provide training to those citizens whose work obligations prevented their pursuit of a formal technical education.”

The New York Evening Post, November 8, 1832

The first certificate of the Society was issued to William Wright in July, 1790. The 9 x 11 1/2 inch sheets were designed, engraved, and printed by Abraham Goodwin (1763-1835) in 1786 and each one filled in by hand with a large, wax seal at the bottom (certificate no. 196, seen above, is held in the collection of the Winterthur Museum).

From that time forward, the Society budgeted funds for the printing of member certificates. “Be it further ordained, That there shall be a plate engraved for the purpose of striking off the certificates of admission; that each member shall be entitled to a certificate, which shall be presented to him by the Secretary, dated from the commencement of his membership, free from any cost or expense, at any time not exceeding two months from the time he was initiated.”–Annals of the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York (1882).

Historians disagree as to the date that Charles Canda was engaged to redesign a nineteenth century certificate, engraved by the noted Philadelphia studio of Benjamin Tanner, but it was some time after 1820. This version prominently featured the Society’s motto: To dry the tear from misery’s eye. To succour the afflicted and to save the sinking is our aim.

The façade of the Mechanics Bank of New York, opened in 1810 at nos. 31 and 33 Nassau Street, featured a bronze casting of a mechanic’s brawny arm and hand wielding a hammer.
The Church & Dwight Company developed the Arm & Hammer logo for their baking soda in 1867. The American Socialist Party began using the same symbol a few years later.

William Hole

The Scottish National Portrait Gallery is housed in a neo-gothic building in red sandstone. Statues of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce guard the entrance. “Once inside the building, the Main Hall proves a breathtaking introduction to Scottish history.”

“Along the first-floor balustrade runs a processional or pageant frieze that depicts many famous Scots in reverse chronological order. Starting with Thomas Carlyle, it was designed as a ‘visual encyclopaedia’ and includes figures such as David Livingstone, James Watt, Robert Burns, Adam Smith, David Hume, the Stuart monarchs, Robert the Bruce and Saint Ninian. The artist, William Hole, also painted a series of large-scale murals on the first floor.”

William Hole (1846-1917) was also the illustrator of many novels, including James Barrie (1860-1937), A Window in Thrums; with twelve illustrations from etchings by William Hole … Sixteenth edition (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1898). Rare Books: Morris L. Parrish Collection (ExParrish) PR4074 .W56 1898

Phrenological Heads

[left] John Keats (1795-1821) life mask, [ca. 1810]. Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. Loan from the William Ramsay Henderson Trust

[right] John Keats (1795-1821) life mask by Benjamin Robert Haydon, from the original in National Portrait Gallery, London, [ca. 1810]. Laurence Hutton Collection of Life and Death Masks, Princeton University.

A group of “Phrenological Heads: the Famous” are on permanent display in the library of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. Several are portraits of the same sitters represented in the Laurence Hutton collection at Princeton. It is interesting to compare ours with theirs.

[left] Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) death mask, 1834. Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. Loan from the William Ramsay Henderson Trust

[right] Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) death mask, from the original, 1834. Laurence Hutton Life and Death Mask Collection, Princeton University.

Library, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh

The Glasgow Print Studio

Glasgow Print Studio was founded in 1972 as an artist led initiative providing facilities and workshop space to artists using fine art printmaking. Now, as an internationally acclaimed center of excellence in fine art printmaking, the Studio promotes contemporary and innovative printmaking through supporting artists, exhibitions, learning and conservation.

On the fourth floor, the workshop facilities include a Takach motorized etching press, a Rochat etching press, a Columbian Eagle press (seen above) and a Bewick and Wilson “Clydesdale” motorized press.

Over 200 artist members are allowed access to the workshop. A system of session fees, paid daily, quarterly or yearly contributes to the cost of consumables provided by the workshop such as inks, solvents and related print chemistry, rags and cleaning materials. Members can also exhibit in Studio’s gallery and sell in the retail gallery. http://www.glasgowprintstudio.co.uk/

Glasgow

When seen in person, these two well-known triptychs surprise the viewer in several ways. They are not flat paint but multimedia collage with molded gesso, string, glass, and other common materials. And they are not the work of a single artist but two. Originally installed at opposite sides of Catherine Cranston’s early twentieth-century Glasgow tea room, the mural above entitled “Wassail” is by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868-1928) and “May Queen” below is by Margaret MacDonald (1864-1933) who trained alongside Charles and eventually married him.

While it is Charles who is always credited with receiving the commission and designing all aspects of the tearoom, Glasgow natives are fond of repeating his comment, “Margaret has genius, I have only talent.” In the early 1900s, the Mackintoshes worked on a series of interiors but unfortunately, Cranston’s business on Ingram Street was demolished. Today, only the Willow Tea Rooms (1903) remains intact.

Artist unknown, Stained glass from tenement room, ca. 1910.

Song Sparrow

John James Audubon (1785-1851), Song Sparrow, no date [1800s]. Oil on cardboard. Graphic Arts Collection GC154. Gift of John S. Williams, Class of 1924.

Inscribed on verso “Painted by J.J. Audubon, certified by his elder granddaughter Lucy Audubon Williams.” Notes: “A variant version in oils of Plate 25, Birds of America, with added landscape background showing distant mountains.” –Howard Rice, “Princeton University Library Chronicle” XXI, 1&2 (Autumn & Winter, 1959): 45.

After Photoshopping, this is closer to what the original painting may have been. The heavy varnish has darkened over years of over exposure to light and unstable humidity.

This is the 1859 chromolithograph by Julius Bien (1829-1909) after Audubon’s original Song Sparrow.

In the 1959 exhibition catalogue of the Princeton University Library’s Audubon collection, Howard C. Rice went on to note, “From numerous references in [Audubon’s] journals it is known that Audubon did many oil paintings, especially during his sojourns in England, where they provided an additional source of income to him when he was hard pressed for funds. The oil paintings nevertheless pose certain problems of attribution, not entirely resolved.”

“For example, in his journal, Edinburgh, 20 March 1831 . . . Audubon notes that he made an agreement with a young painter named J.B. Kidd “to copy some of my drawings in oil, and to put backgrounds to them, so as to make them appear like pictures. It was our intention to send them to the exhibition of sale and to divide the amount between us. He painted eight, and then I proposed, if he would paint the one hundred engravings which comprise my first volume of the ‘Birds of America,’ I would pay him one hundred pounds.”

Also available in the bound sets:

John James Audubon (1785-1851), The birds of America : from original drawings by John James Audubon … (London: Pub. by the author, 1827-38). Rare Books: South East (RB) Oversize EX 8880.134.11e

John James Audubon (1785-1851), The birds of America: from original drawings; reissued by J.W. Audubon; chromolithography by J. Bien (New York: Roe Lockwood & Son, 1860). Rare Books (Ex) Oversize 8880.134.1860e

Su Friedrich’s “Sink or Swim” added to the National Film Registry

Sink or swim [electronic resource] by Su Friedrich. West Hollywood, CA : Stag Films, 2013. One online resource (47 min.).

Congratulations to Princeton University Professor of Visual Arts Su Friedrich, whose 1990 documentary “Sink or Swim” has been added to the National Film Registry by the Librarian of Congress. The autobiographical story about the schism between a daughter and her father can be viewed here: http://www.aspresolver.com/aspresolver.asp?GLTV;2180783

“Acting Librarian of Congress David Mao announced today the annual selection of 25 motion pictures to be named to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. These films, which epitomize the diversity and richness of the nation’s cinematic heritage, have been identified as motion pictures that deserve to be preserved because of their cultural, historic or aesthetic importance.

‘Selecting a film for the National Film Registry recognizes its importance to cinema and America’s cultural and artistic history,’ said Mao. ‘The registry is an invaluable way to advance public awareness of the richness, creativity and variety of our nation’s film heritage.’”

For a complete list of the 2015 inductees, see http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2015/15-216.html

From the registry:
Sink or Swim (1990). In this autobiographical tale told in voice-over by a teenage girl (Jessica Lynn), Su Friedrich relates a series of 26 short vignettes that reveal a subtext of a father preoccupied by his career and of a daughter emotionally scarred by his behavior. Black-and-white film clips of ordinary daily activities illustrate Friedrich’s poetically powerful text to create a complex and intense film. Of this work, which garnered numerous festival awards, Friedrich wrote, “The issue for me is to be more direct, or honest, about my experiences, but also to be analytical. ‘Sink or Swim’ is personal, but it’s also very analytical, or rigorously formal.”

Friedrich’s films and videos have been featured in retrospectives at major museums and festivals, and she has received both Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships. Michael Zyrd wrote in Senses of Cinema: “The textures, cinematic and emotional, of Friedrich’s work are both private and highly mediated, embodying an aesthetic style and range of concerns that make her one of the most innovative and accessible artists currently working in the dynamic tradition of the modernist American Avant-Garde.”

Rare Kobayashi Toshimitsu triptych

This underwater battle scene appears to be quite rare among the Sino-Japanese war prints designed by the artist Kobayashi Toshimitsu (active 1877-1904). Information about the artist himself is also limited.

The Graphic Arts Collection holds two copies of Toshimitsu’s more popular print Our Army’s Great Victory at the Night Battle of Pyongyang (Heijô yasen wagahei daishôri) seen further below. They both have the artist’s seal: Suidô shujin, and each include graphic depictions of war.

Kobayashi Toshimitsu (act. 1877-1904), Oryokko okino daikaisen (Great naval battle off the bank of the Yalu River), no date. Color woodblock triptych. Graphic Arts Collection. Gift of Professor Marius Jansen, Class of 1944.

Kobayashi Toshimitsu (active 1877-1904), Our Army’s Great Victory at the Night Battle of Pyongyang (Heijô yasen wagahei daishôri), Meiji era (September 1894). Color woodblock print. Graphic Arts Collection. Gift of Professor Marius Jansen, Class of 1944.

The Herald Printing Works 1901

The Counting House

“In celebration of his Silver Wedding and birthday, Mr. J. W. Ackrill entertained the staff of the Herald Printing Works and a few other friends to dinner at the George Hotel, on Wednesday evening. Mr. Haywood, the manager, provided a most tempting menu and a pleasant evening was spent.

The employees arranged a surprise for the host in the form of a handsome silver tray, beautifully engraved and bearing suitable illustration executed in the finest form of the engraver’s art. Unfortunately Mr. Ackrill was called from the table as soon as the toast list was opened, in consequence of the illness of Mrs. Ackrill, his mother.

Under the circumstances the presentation to him was made by Mr. J R Foggo, the oldest member of the staff (40 years) through Mr. Robert Ackrill Breare, his eldest nephew. The cause of Mr. Ackrill’s absence was not made known, so the evening was spent most happily.”

“The valuable present was accompanied by an illuminated address in book form, entirely executed in the works, in the manipulation of which every person in the employ had some share. The tray was supplied by Mr. Ogden, of the Little Diamond Shop, together with a very unique engraving thereon.” –unidentified author, “Wednesday Gossip,” Harrogate Herald, May 8, 1901

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired this keepsake prepared by the staff of the Herald Printing Works in North Yorkshire, England. The pages are filled with photographs, drawings, examples of printing, and other memorials to their manager. The volume provides a unique look at a printing firm at the turn of the last century.

The female staff

Herald Printing Works. The whole of the work, printing, lithographing, embossing, illuminating, photographing, binding, was executed by the employees of the Herald Printing Works, Harrogate (Harrogate [England]: Herald Printing Works, 1901. 64] card leaves : ill. (some col.) ; 29 x 22 cm.”Presented to Mr. and Mrs. J.W. Ackrill, as a souvenir of their silver wedding, April 29th, 1901, by the employees of the firm as a mark of their respect and esteem.” Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Q-000067

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