A Four Dimensional Concrete Sculpture Happening

Born in Macon, Georgia, the poet and fine press printer Don Gray (194?-1999) moved to California after college. A motorcycle accident in 1965 resulted in the amputation of his right arm but this didn’t stop him from learning to set type and print with only his left hand. Gray established the imprint of Twowindows Press in San Francisco in 1967 and began making letter press poetry books. When his family moved to Berkeley in the 1978, so did the press. To earn a living, Gray worked as a high school teacher, eventually becoming head of his English Department.

In 1969, he wrote and printed a strip of paper with a poem and twisted it into a Mobius strip, leaving instructions as to how to cut the loop once you acquired it. We have not yet cut our Mobius Poem: Being a Four Dimensional Concrete Sculpture Happening, which sits happily in a clamshell box built by our book conservator at the time.

Don Gray (194?-1999), Mobius Poem (San Francisco: Twowindows Press, 1969). Series: Twowindows folio, 5. No. 30 of 100 signed copies. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2010-0461N

Other books by Gray include Little Un’s Book (1968); The Five Hours (1969); Dark Side of the Moon (1970); and The Saga of Sam & Martha (1978).

Tompkins Harrison Matteson, Fireman and Fine Art Painter

Henry S. Sadd, after a painting by Tompkins Harrison Matteson (1813-1884), The Spirit of 76, 1862 Steel engraving. Published by the Philadelphia Inquirer. Graphic Arts Collection GA2008.00276

“The largest wood engraving ever printed in the world.” This was the declaration made about Tompkins Harrison Matteson’s “Storming of the Castle of Chapultepec,” featured in the July 4, 1848 Jubilee issue of Brother Jonathan, a mammoth double sheet pictorial newspaper. The single image was “made from several hundred blocks of imported East Indian boxwood and measured twenty-two by forty-four inches,” according to Robert Walter Johannsen’s To the Halls of the Montezumas (1985).

It wasn’t the artist’s first brush with fame. Matteson opened a painting studio in New York City during the 1840s and within a few years, sold his first painting, The Spirit of ’76, to the American Art Union, establishing his career. His personal idiosyncrasies brought him additional notoriety, such as his fondness for wearing an unusual steeple-crowned hat and short mantel, which led to the nickname the Pilgrim-Painter.

Matteson’s success with the American Art Union prompted the 1847 painting of the interior of the Tabernacle, an enormous Congregational Church on lower Broadway, where the Union’s annual prizes were announced and distributed (see below).

By 1850, Matteson tired of New York and moved upstate to Sherburne, New York. He married, raised a large family, and became an active member of the community, serving as President of the School Board, Representative to the State Legislature, and the local Fire Chief, while also painting

The prolific artist used a limited number of models for these patriotic scenes. Note the central figure of Major Andre in his wood engraving for The Illustrated News. Then, compare it to the face of the father in The Spirit of ’76 above, to see if you find a similarity in his features. This may be a self portrait of Matteson.

Tompkins Harrison Matteson (1813-1884), Illustrated News! [prospectus], n.d. [1852]. [New York: Published by P.T. Barnum, Henry D. Beach, and Alfred E. Beach]. Wood engravings, Letterpress printing. GC179 Broadsides Collection GA 2012.02800.

The graphic arts collection is fortunate to own examples from each decade of the artist’s lengthy career in single sheet prints, bound in books, and reproduced in newspapers. Here are a few of the books he illustrated:

William Adams (1814-1848), The Cherry Stones, or, Charlton School: a Tale for Youth . . . with engravings executed by Bobbett and Edmonds, from designs by Matteson (New York: General Protestant Episcopal S. S. Union and Church Book Society, Daniel Dana, Jr. agent, 1851). Gift of Sinclair Hamilton. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 1025

William Cutter (1801-1867), The Life of General Lafayette (New York: George F. Cooledge & Brother, [1849]). Frontispiece and illustrations by T. H. Matteson, engraved on wood by Alexander Anderson. Gift of Sinclair Hamilton. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 1023.

Orville Luther Holley (1791-1861), The Life of Benjamin Franklin (New York: George F. Cooledge & Brother, publishers and booksellers, 323 Pearl street, [1848]). 19 wood engravings and a portrait of Franklin by Alexander Anderson; title page cut designed by T. H. Matteson. Gift of Sinclair Hamilton.

Benson John Lossing (1813-1891), A memorial of Alexander Anderson, M. D., the first engraver on wood in America (New York: Printed for the subscribers, 1872). Illustrations by T. H. Matteson and John Wesley Jarvis. Gift of Sinclair Hamilton. Graphic Arts Collection GAX Hamilton 357q.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616), The complete works of William Shakespeare . . . illustrations engraved on wood . . . from new and original designs by T. H. Matteson (New York: George F. Cooledge & Brother [1851?]). Gift of Sinclair Hamilton. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 1026

William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870), The life of Nathanael Greene (New York: George F. Cooledge & Brother, [1849]). Illustrations by T. H. Matteson, engraved on wood by A. Anderson. Gift of Sinclair Hamilton. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Hamilton 339

Jane Taylor, Primary lessons in physiology for children (New York: Published by George F. Cooledge & Brother, 1848). Illustrations by Alexander Anderson and Tompkins Harrison Matteson. Cotsen Children’s Library (CTSN) Eng 19 28481

The illustrated primer, or, Child’s first book (New York: Published by George F. Cooledge & Brother, [ca. 1858]). Illustrations by Tompkins Harrison Matteson and Alexander Anderson. Cotsen Children’s Library (CTSN) Pams / Eng 19 / Box 070 12264

The Odd-fellows’ offering (New York: Samuel A. House & Co. , [1843-1853]). Illustrations by T. H. Matteson, engraved on steel by Rice & Buttre and B. J. Lossing. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2003-0005M and Hamilton 1830

Francis D’Avignon (born 1813) after a painting by Tompkins Harrison Matteson (1813-1884), Distribution of the American Art-Union Prizes at the Tabernacle, Broadway, New York, 24 December, 1847. Lithograph. New York : John T. Ridner; 497 Broadway, Art Union Building. GC024 American Prints Collection.

Satire on gout continued

Dissertationes de laudibus et effectibus podagrae quas sub auspiciis… ([Brün?]: no publisher, [1715]). Illustrated by Johann Georg Gutwein. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process

At the back of our newly acquired satire on gout is a proclamation, making fun of scholarly diplomas and professional certificates. This one congratulates the man who has acquired gout. Our colleague recently did a rough translation of the text, which is too good not to share.

Translation of Podagra Decree:

We, by just misfortune deputy-general or governor, also at present delegated representative of the world-renowned monarch Podagra, the rightfully elected sovereign of those whose human bodies, through immoderate wrath, too ardent love, and superfluous wine, &c. Do present to all faithful members of our upright society, first of all our greetings and good will, and thereby give you to understand, how credible and very disagreeable it has seemed to us, that very many people are usurping our ancient and legitimately acquired privileges and liberties, illegitimately and presumptuously, by lying in bed – under the pretext of Spanish cramps, foot-corns, magpie or hen eyes, erysipelas, gall-foot, strain or sprain, also pain in the limbs, rheumatism, tumors, fire-plaint, gout, cold and hot fluxes, heating and freezing of the balls of the feet and of the toes, faulty clipping of the toenails, rupture of the roots of the toenails, tight shoes and boots (to say nothing of other fictitious diseases) – by lying in bed, that is, for four, five, six, and even more weeks out of the year, in the greatest discomfort, forming the most repulsive facial expressions and loathsome gesticulations, and afterwards tending to their bodies with light food and drink, and making use of felt boots, open-toed shoes, crutches, sedan chairs, litters, cushions, solutions of salt in scented waters, known as “coolness” – – – and by the light of the new moon, with special ceremonies and prescribed bleedings, taking other medicines as well:

Meanwhile they express themselves with the greatest impatience, ire, scolding, cursing, rapping, flinging [of objects], gnashing of teeth, unbearable screaming, with outpourings of desperate utterances, but especially also an extraordinary fear, indeed even sometimes because they notice a feeble little fly advancing towards them in bed; no less do they, when walking in the street, seek out the broadest stones [to walk upon]; and in all things they show themselves to us in the same way. Although all these are Podagrian qualities and characteristics, these people are nevertheless unwilling to confess to it [their true condition], but rather put a brave face on matters in a stiff-necked way, admitting nothing; On the contrary, they proceed against us with outrage and insults, ashamed of our world-renowned name, refusing to be incorporated into our praiseworthy society, and to remit the proper yearly shilling or membership dues. But because this runs immediately counter to our queen and to her dear sister Chyragra [gout of the hand], as co-regent in honor and respect, and as such can in no way be thought to be permitted any longer:

So do we specially, by published command, hereby amicably call on all our faithful members (for the maintenance and propagation of our highly respectable Podagrian Society) to discreetly keep a watchful eye on those recently afflicted and overstimulated and practicing under false pretexts, so that the names of these people, whoever they are, may be made known to us and to our most highly privileged chamber, without fail, as we have charged our expediter, von Polsterberg, with all cases. Those, however, who show themselves to be disobedient in this matter, we command earnestly, and on penalty of 10 pounds of flint-oil (of which [?] any member of our well ordered chamber suffering at any time from the aforementioned infirmities, shall be obliged to be given over to be shod with iron nails or with shoes lined with hedgehog-hide) that they should report to our Cripple-Chancellery within 14 days at the most after being accused, to register there as is befitting, to pay the usual fine, and then to swear an oath of allegiance, and according to the nature of the qualities taken up by the charge then to be discussed, also after the accomplishment of such tasks as are to be performed by the youngest member, they shall duly receive and take charge of the box with all its appurtenances, according to ancient custom and heritage; thereby you will prove your obedience and indebtedness, whereas we on the other hand make you participants in all our most highly bestowed privileges and liberties, and remain, with special grace, well disposed towards you.

Given in our old New-City Featherburg the first day of the New Moon, in the current year.

Bernhard Ouch-Woe, Count of Crippledorf, Baron of Plaint-Feet, Hereditary Lord of Crutchberg, Governor. Screambinus Suffer-House, of Painfield and Ach-House, Secretary. Anxietus of Cushionberg, Expediter.

Skating in Central Park

Winslow Homer (1836-1910), Skating on Central Park, New York, 1861. Color lithograph printed and published by J. H. Bufford & Company in Boston. Gift of Mavis and Mary Kelsey. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.00285

The skating pond in Central Park opened to the public on December 19, 1858 and by Christmas Day, a reported 50,000 people came to the park, most of them to skate. Not long after this, the artist Winslow Homer moved from Boston to New York and began designing scenes for illustrated newspaper Harper’s Weekly. The skating pond was a natural subject

Skating on the Ladies’ Skating Pond in Central Park, New York was drawn on a woodblock that was then cut apart, engraved, reassembled and printed as the centerfold in the January 28, 1860 issue of Harper’s Weekly. The scene documents the fact that there were two distinct skating areas, the rowdy one for men and a calmer one for ladies (and men who accompanied them).

Homer immediately went to work on a variation of the scene, done in watercolor, called Skating on the Central Park, which became the first work he was invited to exhibit in New York at the National Academy of Design. The painting was so popular that the Boston master lithographer John Bufford (1844–1851), arranged to reproduce it as a color lithograph, publishing the print in 1861.

Note the young boy in the center foreground of each scene. In the first he struggles to skate, blending into the rest of the skaters on the ice. In the second work, the boy has just fallen, creating a more active moment that immediately catches your eye.

Harper’s Weekly. New York: Harper’s Magazine Co., 1857-1916. Annex A, Forrestal Oversize 0901.H299f, Vol. 1, no. 1 (Jan. 3, 1857)-v. 62 (Apr. 29, 1916)

Les vieilles histoires

In 1893, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) was commissioned to illustrate five poems by Jean Goudezki (1866-1934, born Edward Goudez). The poetry was then set to music by Désiré Dihau (1835-1909), a classical bassoonist who was also Lautrec’s cousin.

The first state of each lithograph was published without text by Edouard Kleinmann in an edition of 100. Goudezki called the series Les Vieilles Histoires (The Old Stories) and thanks to the Ruth Ivor Foundation, the Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired the first state of no. 5 in that series, Ta Bouche (Your Mouth).

Each design was later transferred to a new stone and printed by Joly-Crevel Freres Successeurs together with text, so that it could be used as a decorative cover to printed sheet music. Additional color also added.

The full portfolio included a cover by Lautrec and ten poems, five with illustrations. In the case of Ta bouche, the added text read: A Monsieur Yvain de l’Eden-Concert, Les Vieilles Histoires, Poésies de Jean Goudezki… Ta bouche…. The set is often listed as Collection Jean Goudezki, avec musique de Désiré Dihau. Les vieilles Histoires, 1893.

For more information, see Götz Adriani, Toulouse-Lautrec, the complete graphic works: the Gerstenberg Collection: a catalogue raisonné (London: Thames and Hudson, 1988): 60. Marquand Library (SA) Oversize ND553.T6 A3713q

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864-1901), Ta bouche, from the series Les vieilles histoires. 1893. Lithograph. Edition of 100. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process. Gift of the Ruth Ivor Foundation.

The Occuprint Portfolio

Beginning on September 17, 2011, a group of activists began occupying a section of lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park. The action became known as Occupy Wall Street (OWS) and lasted until November 15, 2011, when the group of forced to leave and their tents removed. The issues raised by the group were diverse and the material they published equally varied. The OWS Screen Printing Guild was organized as an official working group within the OWS General Assembly to manage visual material, with a subgroup known as Occuprint to help with publishing.

According to their literature, “Occuprint emerged when The Occupied Wall Street Journal asked us to guest curate an issue dedicated to the poster art of the global Occupy movement.” http://occuprint.org “Occuprint showcases posters from the worldwide Occupy movement, all of which are part of the creative commons, and available to be downloaded for noncommercial use, though we ask that artists be given attribution for their work. Our Print Lab is collaboration with the Occupy Wall Street Screen Printing Guild.”

In 2012, a portfolio of thirty-one posters was selected under the curatorial eye of Marshall Weber, director of Booklyn, a non-profit artist and bookmakers organization headquartered in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Occuprint organizer, Jesse Goldstein, and various Occuprint editorial committee members including Molly Fair, Josh MacPhee, and John Boy assisted in the organization and distribution of the screen-printed portfolio. Some posters are signed by the artists and the edition limited to 100 copies. The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have acquired one.

Occuprint Portfolio by edited by Marshall Weber, Jesse Goldstein, Dave Loewenstein, and Alexandra Clotfelter (Brooklyn, N.Y.: Booklyn, 2012). Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process

Ashland, The Homestead of Henry Clay

John Sartain (1808-1897), after a drawing by James Hamilton (1819-1878) after daguerreotypes taken on the spot by John M. Hewitt (active 1840-1860). Ashland. The Homestead of Henry Clay. Second state. Published Philadelphia: F. Hegan, 1853. Etching, engraving, stipple engraving with hand coloring. Graphic Arts collection GAX 2014- in process

Originally created in 1852, during Clay’s lifetime, the first version of this print was published in Louisville, Kentucky. According to Eric Brooks’ book, Ashland: The Henry Clay Estate (2007), the first version or state showed Henry Clay sitting in a chair on the left side of the lawn. When Clay died, Sartain quickly reworked the plate, removing the figure from the chair, and published a second version in 1853. A third print was completed in 1863 with Clay back in his chair, which was published by Sartain in Philadelphia and R.R. Landon in Chicago. It is the second version with an empty chair that the Graphic Arts collection has acquired.

This enormous print shows Ashland, the 600 acre Lexington, Kentucky, estate of Henry Clay (1777-1852). The family lived on this plantation from 1806 to his death, although Clay was often in Washington D.C. He ran for president of the United States five times from 1824 to 1848 but never succeeded in being elected.

Below the scene are three additional images. On the left is a figure of the God Hermes holding a shield; in the center is a bust of Henry Clay; and on the right is Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture sitting on a shock of wheat cradling a scythe. The same note as the first state is at the very bottom: “Entered according to Act of Congress by B. Lloyd in the year 1852 in the Clerk’s Office of the Dist. Court of the U.S. for the Dist. of KY.” An advertisement for this print can be found in the Lancaster (Pa.) Examiner and Herald, Wednesday, August 3, 1853.

Picasso’s studio

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Cover design for book II of Ces peintres nos amis (The Painters Friends), (Cannes: Galerie 65, 1960). Text by Gilberte Duclaud; biographies by Serge Chauby. Lithograph. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process. Gift of the Ruth Ivor Foundation.

Picasso designed this lithograph to be included in the portfolio Dans l’Atelier De Picasso (In Picasso’s Studio), published by the Goldmark Gallery in 1957. The artist later selected the print and embellished it with additional colors, adding a dedication to Gilberte Duclaud and Serge Chauby, his dealers in Cannes at their Galerie 65.

The revised stone was then printed by master lithographer Fernand Mourlot (1895-1988) and used as the cover illustration for the second volume of his friend’s book Ces peintres nos amis (The Painter’s Friends).

The first state of this lithography was printed in six colors but this one is done in seventeen, each one requiring a separate run through the press. Unfortunately, Princeton does not yet own either the first or second books connected with this print.

It is, however, a nice complement to our portrait of the artist by Harry Sternberg (1904-2001), Picasso, 1944. Screen print. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2008.00578

Congratulations, You Have Gout, Signed Ouch

Graphic Arts recently acquired an elaborately designed 18th-century satire on gout, praising those who attain the condition through drinking enough punch or having enough sex. Virtues are extolled with clever emblems and epigrams such as “Breve gaudium, longa miseria (brief joy, long misery).

Written in Latin and German, the four page title translates (very roughly): “Dissertations on the praises and causes of gout, under the auspices of the great and most famous, the most celebrated in the world.

[Dedicated] to the difficulties, sometimes, of the most patient Lord Claudius Expertus, Lord of and in Limping-House, the Valley of Ashes and Pains, his anonymous fellow-sufferer sets forth [for public distribution] to his allies.

Not so much to beguile leisure time, as to dispel the lame troubles of the feet, he has illustrated with emblems, with questions paradoxical to sane people, enlarged humorously with stories and verses, and not without the testimony of that most pleasant person, Caesar Severus, for the pathetic sentence to cases of gout.

Against interrupters assuredly the censorship of the law has strengthened and established it. In the year [1715].”

The date is a beautiful chronogram (time writing) in which the letters are also the numbers of the date: In Mense sIbI sVIsqVe DoLorosè hetero CLIto = IMIIVIVDLCLI = MDCLLVVIIIII = 1715

The first of the satirical emblems is signed by the Austrian artist Johann Georg Guttwein (1678-1718), and the rest have been attributed to the same artist. In the plate above, “Bacchus, the god of wine, who begins the ‘foot-planting’ of those who are merrily occupied with exchanging wine glasses, and waters the plant favorably, so that it is inclined to be wed to his daughter-in-law, gout.” With this postscript: Drinking leads to repentance. Note the inscription in the print: Planta Rigatur=The plant is watered.

The emblem below is inscribed: “Inde genus durum sumus experiensque laborum / et documenta damus qua simus origine nati.” The text comes from Ovid’s Metamorphosis: “The earthy part, however, wet with moisture, turned to flesh; what was solid and inflexible mutated to bone; the veins stayed veins; and quickly, through the power of the gods, stones the man threw took on the shapes of men, and women were remade from those thrown by the woman. So the toughness of our race, our ability to endure hard labour, and the proof we give of the source from which we are sprung.”

Dissertationes de laudibus et effectibus podagrae quas sub auspiciis… ([Brün?]: no publisher, [1715]). Illustrated by Johann Georg Gutwein. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2014- in process

Members of the gout club are congratulated in a proclamation folded into the back of the volume, signed with names that sound like expressions of pain, such as Mr. Ouch:

Éole de déchaîner les vents contre les vaisseaux Troyens

François Louis Dejuinne (1784-1844), after Anne-Louis Girodet de Roucy-Trioson (1767-1824), Éole de déchaîner les vents contre les vaisseaux Troyens (Aeolus unleashes the winds against the Trojan vessels), no date [1800s]. Lithograph. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2012.01466

This scene is one of a series of four subjects borrowed from the Aeneid, including Neptune stopping raging winds against Aeneas’ fleet; Juno sending nearly Dido Love in the guise of Ascanius; the same goddess praying Aeolus to unleash the winds against Trojan vessels; and Dido receiving Aeneas in his palace. The work comes from a drawing by Dejuinne’s teacher and mentor Girodet, who was himself a student of Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825).

“Neoclassicism’s favorite poet was Homer, who was very popular in the late 18th century,” writes Consuelo Marescalchi, Musée du Louvre, “But about 1800, he was supplanted by Virgil, whose Collected Works were published by Didot in 1798 [Junius Morgan Collection (VRG) Oversize 2945.1798.12e]. As illustrators, the publisher chose young artists recommended by David, including Girodet, who made a distinguished contribution to the work. In shifting from Homer to Virgil, from the Greek epic to the Latin poem, classicism assumed a more somber tone: the Aeneid is above all the saga of the defeated. This funereal liturgy, which was easy for people to identify with during the Revolution, is a stately dirge of sound and fury which culminates in the fall of Troy.”

Dejuinne later honored Girodet with a portrait of the artist in his studio painting Pygmalion and Galatea. The painting is now one of the highlights in the Musée Girodet.

François-Louis Dejuinne (1784-1844), Girodet Painting Pygmalion and Galatea In the Presence of Sommariva, 1821. Oil on canvas. (c) Musée Girodet.

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