Grandma’s Kitchen

Wanda Gag (1893-1946), Grandma’s Kitchen, 1931. Lithograph. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.00407.

Minnesota-born Wanda Gág was a struggling young artist when Carl Zigrosser gave her a one-woman-show in his Weyhe Gallery in 1926. The Greenwich Village feminist was also outspoken about women’s rights and published an article stating her views in Nation magazine on June 22, 1927. “These Modern Women: A Hotbed of Feminists” began with an editorial note, “We print herewith the seventeenth and last of a series of anonymous articles giving the personal backgrounds of a group of distinguished women with a modern point of view.”

Ernestine Evans at Coward-McCann Books saw the article and liked both her politics and her art. She offered Gág the possibility of doing a children’s book with their firm and Gág delivered Millions of Cats in 1928 (which is still in print today). The book won a Newbery honor award the following year and led to a series of lithographs, loosely based on the premise. One of them made its way into Elmer Adler’s collection and was circulated at Princeton University as part of our Princeton Print Club exchange in the 1940s.

Wanda Gág (1893-1946), Millions of cats (New York: Coward-McCann, inc., 1938, c1928). Gift of Frank J. Mather, Jr. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2003-0111N.

Wanda Gág (1893-1946), Millions of cats (New York, Coward-McCann, 1928). Cotsen Children’s Library (CTSN) Eng 20 94934

Jonathan Sturges

Jonathan Sturges (1864-1911), a member of the Princeton Class of 1885, began writing for the Nassau Literary Magazine during his junior year. He later boasted that it was “a journal whose Addisonian simplicity & ponderous traditions I endeavoured to relieve by the publication of several stories of my own begetting.”

Four years after graduation, Sturges published The Odd Number, a translation of thirteen stories by Guy dc Maupassant (1850-1893). The Princetonian saluted the achievement, describing the book as having “a very rapid sale. The first edition of 1500 appeared the last of October and sold out almost immediately. The second edition of 1,000 is exhausted and the third edition is in press.” (9 December 1889).

Settling in London, Sturges wrote travel letters for The New York Times and short stories for Harper’s and Cosmopolitan. He joined a circle of friends that included Henry James (1843-1916), John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), and James Whistler (1834-1903), with whom he collaborated on The Baronet and The Butterfly magazines.

After Sturges death in 1911, his sister commissioned a pastel sketch from Harper’s illustrator Albert Sterner (1863-1946), which was completed after a portrait owned by Mary Fuller Sturges (Mrs. Andrew Chalmers) Wilson (1870-1962). The pastel was photographed and one copy hung over Henry James’s desk until his own death four years later.

Albert Edward Sterner (1863-1946), Jonathan Sturges, 1912. Pastel and charcoal on paper. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2006.02652.

Don’t Forget A Little Chaos

Get to the theater early to pick up your tickets for the 7:00 sneak preview of A Little Chaos today, June 17, at the Garden Theatre. Thanks to the co-sponsors: the Friends of the Princeton University Library and Renew Theaters

http://princetongardentheatre.org/films/a-little-chaos

A Little Chaos comes to the Princeton Garden Theatre for one night only on June 17, prior to its June 26 release. This special early screening is being presented in conjunction with the Princeton University Library’s current exhibition Versailles on Paper: A Graphic Panorama of the Palace and Gardens of Louis XIV, which continues through July 19.

The exhibition will stay open until 6:30 so you can drop by before going to see the movie. Alan Rickman both directs and stars in the historical drama, which was shot in England using Blenheim Palace in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, to represent the Palace at Versailles.Blenheim Palace: http://www.blenheimpalace.com/

About Renew Theaters: Renew manages the County, Ambler, and Hiway Theaters in Pennsylvania and the Princeton Garden Theatre in New Jersey. These historic movie houses function as arthouse cinemas, screening independent, foreign, and classic films for their local audiences.

For more information on the exhibition, see the website: http://rbsc.princeton.edu/versailles/.
For more information on the Garden Theater’s films and special events, see http://thegardentheatre.com/.

Gwathmey

Robert Gwathmey (1903-1988), Portrait of a farmer’s wife, 1954. Screen print. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.00416.

Robert Gwathmey (1903-1988) created colorful paintings and screen prints depicting rural life in the American south. When the artist had his first important New York show in 1946. Paul Robeson (1898-1976) wrote an essay for the catalog, commenting “In the coming years, when as we all hope, true equality and the brotherhood of man will be a reality, Gwathmey’s paintings will have earned him the right to feel that he has shared in the shaping of a better world.” (Annex A ND237.G98 A5)

Robert Gwathmey (1903-1988), Watching the Parade, 1947. Screen print. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.00417.

In his Gwathmey biography, Michael Kammen writes,

Robert and Rosalie returned from Philadelphia to her family home in Charlotte during the last stage of her pregnancy, and Charles was born there in June 1938. Coming back to the South for a spell had immense consequences for Robert’s sense of place and its implications for his art. He later recalled the initial shock of returning to Richmond following his first year at the academy: “Suddenly, I saw with terrible clarity how it was, especially how it was for the Negro in the South. Things I had always taken for granted. That’s when my politics changed, long before the Depression came along.” Robert Gwathmey: The Life and Art of a Passionate Observer (The University of North Carolina Press)

Zapf

Master typographer Hermann Zapf died on Thursday, June 4, 2015, at his home in Darmstadt, Germany. He was 96. The obituary from the New York Times can be read at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/arts/design/hermann-zapf-96-dies-designer-whose-letters-are-found-everywhere.html?_r=0

Posted here are a few of the alphabets and pages of calligraphy that Zapf designed between 1939 and 1941, cut in metal by August Rosenberger in 1952. A remembrance is being planned for the fall in New York City. Details will be posted as they develop.

Hermann Zapf (1918-2015), Pen and graver: alphabets & pages of calligraphy (New York: Museum Books, 1952). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2007-0577Q

Georges Gremillet

Georges Gremillet (1893-1971), Montmartre. Descriptive notes by H. de Labruyere (Paris: Edmond Chognard, 1928?). 13 etchings variously signed, dated and titled in the plate; lettered with publication detail and address of artist on cover: Au singe qui lit, 4 Place du tertre, 12 & 14 rue Lamarck, Paris 18e. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2015- in process. Gift of David McAlpin, Jr., Class of 1950.

In the 19th century, the inexpensive working class neighborhood of Montmartre became the home for artists, actors, and writers. By the 1920s, when Georges Gremillet moved in, the bohemian 18th arrondissement was the destination for wealthy art collectors and tourists.

Gremillet specialized in etchings offering charming views of Paris, which he hung in his Montmartre shop, known as Au singe qui lit (The Monkey that Reads). Located at 4 Place du Tertre, Gremillet was in the exact center of Montmartre’s central square, in the area where artists spent their days in the sidewalk cafes and their nights in the cabarets, dance halls, theaters, and bars.

Today, Gremillet’s shop is still open, filled with postcards and posters for visiting art historians. The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have received a gift of two Gremillet portfolios from the 1920s, holding dozens of the artist’s drypoints and etchings. Thanks to David H. McAlpin, Jr., Class of 1950 for these wonderful new acquisitions.

See more: http://www.montmartre-secret.com/2015/01/le-singe-qui-lit-montmartre-place-du-tertre.html

Thomas Annan of Glasgow: Pioneer of the Documentary Photograph

Photographic Views of Loch Katrine and of Some of the Principal Works Constructed for Introducing the Water of Loch Katrine into the City of Glasgow… (Glasgow: Glasgow Corporation Water Works; printed by James C. Erskine, 1889). Photographs by Thomas Annan. Graphic Arts Collection

Congratulations to Lionel Gossman, M. Taylor Pyne Professor of Romance Languages emeritus at Princeton University, who just released a study of the Glasgow photographer, Thomas Annan, through the online publisher Open Book. The book available for free download at:
http://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/339/thomas-annan-of-glasgow–pioneer-of-the-documentary-photograph

A native of Glasgow, Gossman’s own graduation portrait was made in 1951 at the studio of T. &. R. Annan in Sauchiehall Street. Several years ago, we introduced him to our nearly complete collection of Annan’s photography (bound and unbound) in the Graphic Arts Collection and Gossman was immediately entranced. The Scottish images brought him back to his roots, triggering a period of intensive research on the places depicted and the man who created them.

As a scholar committed to the open access of information, Gossman is the author of two other books published by Open Book Publishers: Brownshirt Princess: A Study of the ‘Nazi Conscience’, The Passion of Max von Oppenheim: Archaeology and Intrigue in the Middle East from Wilhelm II to Hitler. For OBP he also edited and translated The End and the Beginning: The Book of My Life by Hermynia Zur Mühlen and On History, a collection of essays by Jules Michelet in English translation.

Alexander Hastie Millar (1847-1927), Castles and Mansions of Ayrshire: illustrated in seventy views, with historical and descriptive accounts ([Edinburgh : W. Paterson], 1885). Includes albumen prints by Thomas Annan. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2008-0021E

Wilson’s Watermill Center

As a fundraising event for the New York Art Libraries Society, a small group was welcomed into the Watermill Center on Long Island for a tour of its buildings and grounds. Special thanks go to Deb Verhoff, Librarian, and Clifford Allen, Archivist, who gave up their Saturday to lead the tour.

The Watermill Center is an interdisciplinary laboratory for the arts and humanities completed in 2006 on the Long Island, NY site of a former Western Union communication research facility. Founded by theatre and visual artist Robert Wilson as a place for young and emerging artists to work, learn, create, and grow with each other, Watermill integrates performing arts practice with resources from the humanities, research from the sciences, and inspiration from the visual arts.

Watermill is unique within the global landscape of experimental theatrical performance, and regularly convenes the brightest minds from all disciplines to do, in Wilson’s words, ‘what no one else is doing.’

The Center itself is a 20,000+ square foot flexible working space including a 6,000 volume research library, galleries, rehearsal and staging spaces, workshops, offices, and residences situated on six acres of artist-designed and landscaped grounds. A collection of over 8,000 art and artifact pieces spans the history of humankind is integrated into all aspects of the building and grounds as a reminder that the history of each civilization is told by its artists.

For more information about the Watermill Center: http://www.watermillcenter.org/

Congratulations to the winners of the 2015 Elmer Adler Undergraduate Book Collecting Prize

The winners of the 2015 Elmer Adler Undergraduate Book Collecting Prize were announced at the Friends of the Princeton University Library’s winter dinner in March. The jury awarded first and second prize.

First prize was awarded to Anna Leader, Class of 2018, for her essay, “’Like a Thunderstorm’; A Shelved Story of Love and Literature,” in which she discusses her passionate collecting of books of poetry, particularly translated and original volumes of foreign-language poetry. Anna explains how her “passion for reading” translated poetry “fuelled a passion for creating it.” In 2013, she was awarded joint first prize in the 18-and-under category for the Stephen Spender Prize for poetry in translation. Anna received a prize of $2000, and the book Love Lessons: Selected Poems of Alda Merini (translated by Susan Stewart).

Second prize was awarded to Harrison Blackman, Class of 2017, for his essay “’What Kind of World Do We Live In?’: On Collecting Michael Crichton’s Works and His Successors.” In his essay, Harrison recounts how Crichton’s novels served as the vehicle for his foray into the world of adult fiction. His collection includes many of the pulp novels the author published pseudonymously as well as writers who could be characterized as Crichton’s heirs. Harrison received a prize of $1500, and the book Enhancing Evolution: The Ethical Case for Making Better People by John Harris.

Anna Leader and Harrison Blackman

Each of the winners also received a certificate from the Dean of the College. The book prizes, chosen to complement each student’s collecting focus, were donated by the Princeton University Press. The first prize essays will be printed in the Princeton University Library Chronicle and will represent Princeton in the National Collegiate Book Collecting Competition, which is sponsored by the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America.

Thanks to this year’s judges for their congenial service: John Delaney, former Curator of Historic Maps and Head of the Manuscripts Cataloging Team; Claire Jacobus, member of the Friends of the Princeton University Library; John Logan, Literature Bibliographer; and Paul Needham, Scheide Librarian.

Congratulations to our winners!!

Posted by Faith Charlton, Processing Archivist, Special Collections Cataloging Team

Thomas Smith’s 1707 bookplate in his own book

Nicholas Bownd (died 1613), Sabbathum Veteris et Noui Testamenti: or the true doctrine of the Sabbath, held and practised of the Church of God, both before, and vnder the law; and in the time of the Gospell … (London: Felix Kyngston, for Thomas Man and John Porter, 1606). “This is probably the first ornamental American bookplate.” Binding is old calf with blind toolings on covers. Bookplate of “Thomas Smith, Hunc Librum Vendicat. Anno Dom. MDCCVII.” “Thomas Smith his book 1719”–Written in pen, front flyleaf. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 7

Number 7 within the Sinclair Hamilton Collection of Early American Book Illustrators and Wood Engravers is a bookplate for Thomas Smith (1678-1742). Hamilton writes that it is “probably the first ornamental American bookplate.” He continues, “Earlier plates, of course, had made some use of printers’ type ornaments but none contain woodcut ornamentation in so elaborate a style as this. The cutting is better done and the result more elegant—if such a word can be used for work as early as this—than is the case in earlier American efforts at woodcutting such as John Foster’s seal of the Colony of Massachusetts or the figure which appears in the Cambridge Ephemeris of 1684. It is, however, very rare…”

Winterthur library owns a book with the same woodcut printed “Josephus Parsons, Hunc Librum Vendicat, Anno, MDCCXVII.”

Smith is given a short biography in Oliver A. Roberts’s History of the Military Company of the Massachusetts: “Thomas Smith (1702), merchant, of Boston, son of Thomas (1678) and Rebecca Smith, of Boston, was born May 13, 1678, and married, (1) May 9, 1701, Mary Corwin, who died July 29, 1716, and, (2) April 30, 1717, Sarah Oliver, sister of Nathaniel (1701). He was elected scavenger in 1711 and 1712, and overseer of the poor in 1712, and thereafter until 1719.

March 11, 1717—8, he was chosen with Col. Thomas Fitch (1700), Elisha Cooke (1699), Major Habijah Savage (1699), and Lieut.-Col. Minot, to “Consider and make report of Some Expedient for Securing the Marsh at the Lower end of the Common.” From 1713 to 1 718, he is designated as “Capt.” Thomas Smith (1702) was first sergeant of the Artillery Company in 1705; ensign in 1713; lieutenant in 1715, and captain in 1722.

He joined the Old South Church, April 28, 1717, and was a benefactor of Harvard College. Administration on his estate, which inventoried five thousand seven hundred and forty-three pounds, was granted to his widow, Sarah, and son, March 23, 1742.”

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: