Leonard Trask, the Wonderful Invalid


As a healthy young man, the Maine farmer Leonard Trask (1805-1861) stood 6 feet, 1 inch tall. He was married in 1830 to Eunice V. Knight and together they had 7 children between 1831 and 1846.

While out riding in 1833, Trask’s horse bolted and he was thrown to the ground, injuring his neck and shoulders. Over the next few months he gradually recovered but his symptoms returned with a stiffening of his back and neck, and his head curving forward. In 1840, he fell again and in 1853, he was thrown from his wagon, breaking his collar bone. Each accident aggravated his symptoms and the curve of his spine grew worse. Eventually, his height was measured at 4 feet, 10 1/2 inches.

Trask was now severely disabled. He published this account of his condition to raise money for the family; worked briefly for a local circus as a curiosity; and according to The Maine Register for the year 1855, was given a pension of $12 per month because of his condition (known today as ankylosing spondylitis).

 

Leonard Trask (1805-1861), A Brief Historical Sketch of the Life and Sufferings of Leonard Trask, the Wonderful Invalid (Portland [Maine]: Printed by David Tucker, 1857). Graphic Arts Collection 2019- in process

 

Public Typewriter


Now through July 27, 2019, is the exhibition “New Typographics: Typewriter Art as Print,” featuring Lenka Clayton, Dom Sylvester Houédard, Gustave Morin, Elena del Rivero and Allyson Strafella, at the Print Center, 1614 Latimer Street, Philadelphia, PA 19103: http://printcenter.org/100/siena-and-new-typographics/

The exhibition highlights work by artists who use the typewriter as a matrix for forming text into image. Typically referred to as typewriter “art” or typewriter “drawings,” this exhibition posits that artworks created with a typewriter should be recognized as prints, in light of the mechanism and process of their production.

“I use the typewriter against itself. It was built to draft first chapters of novels and resignation letters; I use it to draw my son’s eyelashes and knitted socks . . . . I really enjoy that this process allows me to focus on those very simple forms and moments that are, perhaps, usually overlooked.”–Lenka Clayton

While you are there, you can “Create Your Own Typewriter Print.” The Print Center will host a “Public Typewriter” as part of Philly Typewriter’s “Philadelphia Public Typewriter Program.” Philly Typewriter is a retail typewriter store located in Philadelphia that also repairs typewriters and hosts classes and events. A temporary loan of a manual typewriter prepared for use by typewriter restoration classes at Philly Typewriter will allow visitors to make their own typewriter prints.

On Thursday, May 2, at 6:00 p.m. curator Ksenia Nouril will give a talk on the history of typewriter prints, highlighting key moments and artists that were influential to the thinking around the exhibition.

Concrete poets Dom Sylvester Houédard and Gustave Morin highlight the typewriter print’s immense potential for both visual and linguistic communication. In concrete poetry, the representation of language supersedes its legibility and even meaning. The results are wildly whimsical and fantastically funny renderings that allude to historical and imaginary people, places, and things.

Houédard, whom Morin calls “The Great Typewriter Poet,” was a Benedictine priest in post-World War II England. His typewritten visual poems, which he named “typestracts,” were developed together with leading conceptual writers and artists of the period, including but not limited to William S. Burroughs, Bob Cobbing, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Allen Ginsberg and Yoko Ono.–Press release

http://printcenter.org/100/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/TPC_Siena_Typewriter_Gallery-Notes-1.pdf

Dom Sylvester Houédard

Drawings for the Iliad [no drawings included]

Lithographs after drawings

 

Richard Lattimore’s now-classic translation of Homer’s The Iliad was first published by the University of Chicago Press in 1951. A decade later, the Press invited the artist Leonard Baskin (1922-2000) to produce drawings for a lavish illustrated edition, which came out in 1962.


That same year a deluxe portfolio of 150 lithographs [seen at the top] after Baskin’s pen and ink wash drawings was published by Delphic Arts in New York, with the title Drawings for the Iliad. The first 90 copies included an additional three etchings, which were also distributed separately (two copies of each etchings) under the same title. If that isn’t complicated enough, an exhibition of Baskin’s drawings traveled to multiple venues in 1962 and an exhibition catalogue published under the same title.

Princeton University is fortunate to have all the variations of publications reproducing Baskin’s drawings, albeit without any original pen and ink wash drawings.

Homer, The Iliad. Translated with an introduction by Richmond Lattimore. Drawings by Leonard Baskin ([Chicago] University of Chicago Press [1962]). Graphic Arts Collection Oversize PA4025.A2 L35 1962q
“In addition to the generous size, the forty-eight full-page illustrations are printed on a rich ivory paper, especially manufactured to reproduce as flawlessly as possible the color and texture of the paper used by Leonard Baskin in creating the original drawings.” The book was offered at an introductory price of $11.50 after which it would be sold for $13.50.

Leonard Baskin (1922-2000), Drawings for the Iliad [by] Leonard Baskin [an exhibition at the] Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, Philadelphia Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania [and the] Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Oregon ([Chicago, Art Institute, 1962]). Graphic Arts Collection 2012-0145Q
“Delphic Arts has acquired the sixty drawings for the Iliad in conjunction with their publication of a deluxe portfolio. This exhibition has been prepared and organized by Delphic Arts, New York City”–T.p. verso.

Leonard Baskin (1922-2000), Drawings for the Iliad (New York: Delphic Arts, 1962). [68] leaves of plates. Copy 27 of 150. Marquand Library Oversize NE539.B2 A4e
“150 copies … have been published … The paper throughout is Fabriano … text … printed at the Gehenna Press … quotations are Lattimore’s translation … The edition has been arranged as follows. Copies number one through ninety are accompanied by three original etchings by Leonard Baskin …

Leonard Baskin (1922-2000), Drawings for the Iliad (with six original signed etchings by Leonard Baskin: two impressions each of “Hephaistos”, “Ares”, and “Homer”) (New York: Delphic Arts, 1962). Edition: 60

The first eight Surgeons-General of the United States Navy

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, The Maltine Company of Brooklyn published a series of pamphlets advertising the company to the general public through interesting facts and medical history. This was the first, ca. 1898, listing the Surgeons-General of the U.S. Navy.

William P.C. Barton (1786-1856), Princeton Class of 1805, studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania before entering the Navy at the age of 23 as a surgeon. The portrait below left is by Thomas Sully (1783-1872), depicting Barton in his first uniform [Philadelphia Museum of Art]. The artist of the portrait used by the Maltine Company is not identified.

Besides teaching and practicing medicine, Barton was a talented botanical illustrator, publishing: Vegetable Materia Medica of the United States or, Medical botany: containing a botanical, general, and medical history, of medicinal plants indigenous to the United States (Philadelphia: M. Carey & Son, 1817-1818). Graphic Arts Collection 2015-0057Q

and

A Flora of North America. Illustrated by coloured figures, drawn from nature by William P.C. Barton (Philadelphia: M. Carey & sons, 1821-23). Graphic Arts Collection 2015-0055Q

According to Appletons’ Cyclopaedia, the U. S. Naval Bureau of Medicine and Surgery was organized by Barton and he was the first chief clerk of that Bureau, appointed in 1842 by President John Tyler. Although the post of Surgeon General of the Navy wasn’t created until 1871, Barton is considered the first to hold the Navy’s senior position.

Surgeon-Generals of the Navy
William P. C. Barton 1842–1844
Thomas Harris 1844–1853
William Whelan 1853–1865
Phineas J. Horwitz 1865–1869
William Maxwell Wood 1869–1871
Jonathan M. Foltz 1871–1872
James C. Palmer 1872–1873
Joseph Beale 1873–1877

Extinction Aria

Anne Waldman, Extinction Aria: Its Exegesis, the Realms, How Ink is Blood (Hopewell, New Jersey: Pied Oxen Printers, [2017]). 60 x 25 cm. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process

 

Poet’s note for Extinction Aria:

“Extinction Aria” was composed responding to what is known as the cycle–within the Wheel of Life–of the six realms in Buddhist philosophy: hell realm, hungry ghost or preta realm, animal, human, warring god, and pleasure-seeking god realm. The text seemed to emanate from a vibrating larynx and dance in the air. The words here are meant to project the tangibility of the psychological state of each realm. Thus the poem is proclamation of a specific insight into “samsara,” Sanskrit for a wandering through the endless cycle of existence, transmigrating lifetime after lifetime. “Extinction” may be interpreted here in both a negative and positive sense. Extinction as in the “sixth extinction” comes to mind; the planet is threatened from many directions by global warming, nuclear war and other ominous threats of the Anthropocene, where humankind is constantly running interference. From the spiritual perspective one aspires to the exhaustion of “ego” and its grasping. “We are here to disappear” is a tenet of Buddhism. I felt a vatic assertive voice on both sides of this inhabiting the poem … the voice of a harpy, a hag, a seer, conjuring images of gloom and doom to wake the world up to itself, and also a consciousness or impulse seeking to disappear. The title may also be read as “extinction air” as in our atmosphere so threatened by unmitigated pollution. The image and insistent repetition of “ink” during the piece was important to the sense of the poem needing to be scribed, physically embodied as spell or charm or transmission. This originally came from a dream that inflected the power of ink as a kind of lifeblood for poetry. These spiritual aspirations can’t merely exist in air. They needed to be written in “blood” and in the minerals of an earthy ink and project a strong visual presence, as they do in David Sellers’ inspired design and rendering. The mantra “E Ma Ho!” weaves in, which is an exclamation of amazement and wonder, and when repeated, carry the blessing of purifying body, speech and mind. The writing of this piece was extremely visceral, performative, in that a pulse of kinetic energy kept pushing the momentum of the language and its images forward. The poem comes off the center of the page; its lines settle down the middle axis as if it is a core of wind, or air, a channel of breath. This centering gives spine and location for the textures and language of the aria.

Additional notes: https://www.piedoxen.com/aria-notes-and-commentary

 

 

Additional images: https://www.piedoxen.com/books#/extinctionaria/

Brother Jonathan: Stop the Presses

William Henry Harrison (1773-1841), the ninth President of the United States, died on his 32nd day in office, April 4, 1841. Only six days later, the spectacular mammoth double sheet pictorial newspaper Brother Jonathan published a special spring issue with a commemorative note on their masthead [see above], replacing the usual logo [seen below].

 

“For the first time in its history, the nation is called to lament the death of a chief magistrate,” wrote the editor Benjamin Henry Day (1810-1889), “…we thought it our duty, in the recess of Congress, and in the absence of the Vice President from the seat of Government, to make this afflicting bereavement known to the country, by this declaration, under our hands.”

Nine years later, July 9, 2850, the second president to die in office, Zachary Taylor, was similarly honored by Brother Jonathan. Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth in 1865, after Brother Jonathan had ceased publication.

According to their own advertisements, these enormous newspapers (called bedsheet size) began in 1840:

“The Pictorial Double Brother Jonathan for Christmas and New Years was first issued in the year 1840-—just twenty years ago. It was at that time such a novelty that the demand for it continued three or four months, and even then the circulation reached eighty thousand copies. Since that period it has been issued regularly each year, with the avearage [sic] sale of over one hundred thousand copies for every number. Among the Newsvenders, the Brother Jonathan is extremely popular, as they never have a copy of it leftover unsold.

The immense size of the Mammoth Double Brother Jonathan enables us to give in it a profuse amount of reading and still leave room for the great number of Elegant Large Pictures. Altogether, you will find it to be a paper unsurpassed in interest, in point of handsome embellishment and agreeable reading. We give away this elegant Pictorial Paper to every yearly and half-yearly subscriber to the Weekly Brother Jonathan. The Christmas and New Years Pictorial Brother Jonathan will be sent, post-paid, to purchasers at 12 cents per single copy, or ten copies for One Dollar; but if you [subscribe] to the weekly paper, you will get a copy of the pictorial for nothing. Be sure to mention that you want the Pictorial Brother Jonathan, to prevent any mistake. Send cash to B. H. Day, 48 Beekman-Street, New York.”

Princeton University Library now owns 24 mammother issues and and 2 prospectuses of the Pictorial Double Brother Jonathan. Many have been cleaned, flattened, repaired, catalogued, digitized, and posted online for the public to read and enjoy. This one will also soon be cleaned and repaired. See more: http://pudl.princeton.edu/objects/9z903261b

It took a great deal of text to fill the mammoth newspaper. Charles Dickens’s Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty was the fifth of his novels to be published, first appearing in serial form in Master Humphrey’s Clock from February to November 1841. At approximately the same time, Day published it in the United States serially in Brother Jonathan. This is only one of many novels to appear in the paper.

Brother Jonathan, special memorial edition, vol.2, no. 41 whole number 92 (April 10, 1841). Gift of Ivan J. Jurin, 2019. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process

Notre-Dame Cathedral in silent films

https://rbsc.princeton.edu/pathebaby/node/2329

The Graphic Arts Collection of French silence movies from the 1920s holds several films that include images of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Two are documentaries and one is a movie about several tourists on holiday [see above]. Each of these can be downloaded to your own media device, if you like. Because the title frames are held for a long time (our first attempt at digitization), you might want to fast forward to get to the pictures.

https://rbsc.princeton.edu/pathebaby/node/2451

https://rbsc.princeton.edu/pathebaby/node/2412

For more information about the collection or to search it by key work, use this link: https://rbsc.princeton.edu/pathebaby/films

A Potentiality…

Susan Silton, A Potentiality Long after its Actuality Has Become a Things of the Past: 1/5 (Los Angeles: Susan Silton, 2018). Gift of James Welling, Lecturer with the rank of Professor in Visual Arts. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2019- in process

https://www.susansilton.com/a-potentiality

Full Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) quote: “It is in the very nature of things human that every act that has once made its appearance and has been recorded in the history of mankind stays with mankind as a potentiality long after its actuality has become a thing of the past.”

In early 2018 Silton acquired a collection of old newspapers from the 1930s and early 1940s. In stark fashion all share an article about Hitler’s Germany. The artist is particularly struck by how the archive reflects an unfolding of events in a “daily” context—a harbinger of the imminent Holocaust. Returning to that era’s quotidian from the vantage point of our own is especially potent and unsettling.

For this project, ten to twenty original newspaper pages are framed; placed between each is a black and white photographic image culled from Silton’s own previously unprinted proofsheets from the 1980s and early 1990s—observational in nature, documenting moments from everyday life—a dead possum, the shadow of a swing on sand, a group of people gazing upward at a subject off-frame, a church marquee with the words “DISTANT FROM GOD.”

While in Quartet for the End of Time she holds a space for viewers to musically feel the work’s original historical context, in A potentiality… the artist inserts her own body and histories to insist on the importance of remembering the mundane across multiple generations, as well as on the vital role of a free press in disseminating truth. Silton conceived this project following her presentation of Quartet for the End of Time in 2017, and considers this, and The stain of________. A stain on________. to comprise a trilogy that reflects on the ways we absorb and document history and bear witness to trauma.

The artist’s website notes: A potentiality… exists in various forms: the exhibited form as described above, and a mailed version, which consists of digital reprints of five New York Times front pages from the early 1930s. In January, 2019, Silton will be mailing the set of prints, one at a time over several weeks, to a list that includes political journalists and leaders at the forefront of civil rights advocacy in the US.

Thanks to our generous donor, the Graphic Arts Collection now has the complete set of 5 papers.

Idylls of Rural Life

Charles Shannon (1863-1937), The Garden Plot, from the series Idylls of Rural Life, ca. 1898. Chiaroscuro woodcut. Reproduced in The International Studio, 59 (October 1916). Graphic Arts Collection. Gift of Sally M. and William B. Rhoads, ’66 *75.

 

“The First Exhibition of Original Engraving” was held at E.J. Van Wisselingh’s Dutch Gallery on Old Bold Street in 1898 with work by Charles Ricketts, Charles Shannon, Sturge Moore, Reginald Savage, and Lucien Pissarro. As described 18 years later in The International Studio, Shannon’s contribution featured a series of 12 chiaroscuro woodcuts. These small rondels chronicled the “Idylls of Rural Life,” throughout the seasons of the year, printed in dark green-grey, buff yellow, and white inks.

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired one print from this series entitled “The Garden Plot,” thanks to the generous donation of Sally M. and William B. Rhoads, ’66 *75. As an undergraduate, William Rhoads was inspired to begin collecting prints after attending Robert Koch’s seminar “Art of the Print.” Rhoads was also kind enough to add a print by Shannon’s frequent partner, Charles Ricketts [see below].

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Charles S. Ricketts (1866-1931), Floods (Inondation), ca. 1895. Wood engraving in black on wove paper. Reproduced in Album VII from L’Estampe originale. Graphic Arts Collection. Gift of Sally M. and William B. Rhoads, ’66 *75.

Photographs of Caesar and unidentified young woman

The Graphic Arts Collection recently acquired a 19th-century cased image of an unidentified woman that was sent through the mail. The ninth-plate ambrotype (2 1/2 x 2 inches) is a formal studio portrait of an African American woman with earrings and brooch hand-colored in gold. A note on the case reads: “Mr. Scroggins, Portsmouth Va., Box 1036,” crossed out to read “601” and stamped “ADVERTISED” by the dead-letter office. We presume the date to be late 1850s or early 1860s.

This portrait was delivered through the mail to a Virginia address, but was undeliverable, and marked “ADVERTISED” by the post office. It was found among other similar photographs from a dead-letter office. Was Mr. Scroggins a plantation owner being offered a new house slave or a free African American gentleman getting a picture of a family member? There are many potential connections:

https://bellegrove.org/about/enslaved : The name Scroggin turns up in a note “secured” by Jno Scroggin to pay for the freedom of an enslaved man at Bellegrave Plantation, Virginia. Mr. Scroggin might have been active in securing the freedom of others.

 

The selection above is taken from Temple Tsenes-Hills, I Am the Utterance of My Name (2006), which tells the story of Frances Jane Scroggins, born enslaved in Virginia but emancipated. Might this be connected?

Might the portrait have some connection with this document [above] certifying the freedom of Matthew Scroggins? Not Virginia but also not far away. If you can help us with this intriguing story, please send your research suggestions or results.

The second cased image recently acquired by Graphic Arts has a named sitter:

This sixth-plate ambrotype is a formal studio photograph of Caesar, an officer’s servant near Washington. A small note traveling with the case reads: “W DeW Pringle body servant Caesar while serving in the Civil War, 1862.”

The dealer’s note provides additional research:

A sharp and striking portrait of an Army servant, very likely a freedman, taken during the early period of the war. Contrabands escaping to freedom did not yet have the option of military service before 1863, but often found employment as personal servants for army officers.

Caesar’s employer Lieutenant William DeWolf Pringle (1840-1930) of Lockport, NY, was chosen as an officer for the 22nd New York Light Artillery Battery in September of 1862, which became part of the 9th New York Heavy Artillery Regiment in early 1863; he served there through October 1864. His unit served on the defenses of Washington through May 1864, and then went out on the Overland and Shenandoah Valley campaigns.

His father Benjamin Pringle (1807-1887) has served two terms as a United States Congressman, and in 1863 was appointed by President Lincoln to serve as a judge in South Africa on a special court for prosecuting the international slave trade. After the war, Lieutenant Pringle was a lawyer in Hastings, Minnesota, near where this ambrotype was found.