Category Archives: Acquisitions

new acquisitions

Ichikawa Danjuro IX (1838-1903) meets Adolfo Farsari (1841-1898)

Utagawa Yoshiiku 歌川芳幾 (1833-1904), [Meeting between the Kabuki actor Danjuro IX and the Italian photographer Adolfo Farsari], [Tokyo: Nichinichi Shinbun, 1874]. Color woodblock print. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process A vault

“Utagawa Yoshiiku was a Japanese printmaker and illustrator. As a printmaker, he designed a wide range of prints including those depicting bijin (beautiful women), musha (warriors), yakusha (actors), and the sensationalized pictures of blood-stained mayhem called chimidoro-e and muzan-e, among others. From 1874 to 1875 he designed nishiki-e shinbun for the Tokyo newspaper Nichinichi Shimbun, which he co-founded.”

“. . . The founders of Tōkyō nichinichi shinbun are: Johno Denpei (1832-1902, pseud. “Sansantei Arindo” as gesakusha: popular fiction writer), Nishida Densuke (1838-1910, former clerk of TSUJI Den’emon’s kashihon’ya: lending library), and Ochiai Ikujiro (1833-1904, pseud. “Utagawa Yoshiiku” as Ukiyoe print artist).” –See William Wetherall’s News Nishiki website; Amy Reigle Newland, The Hotei Encyclopedia of Japanese Woodblock Prints (Hotei Publishing Company, 2005), p. 505.

One of the prints Yoshiiku designed for his newspaper was this meeting of the renowned Kabuki actor, Ichikawa Danjuro IX (1838-1903) and the Italian-born photographer, Adolfo Farsari (1841-1898).

According to the Japanese text, in May 1872 an unidentified “yojin” (“ocean person”) visited Danjuro IX backstage and asked to photograph the actor in exchange for some European cigarettes.

The Westerner, not identified in the text, was almost certainly Adolfo Farsari, who took up residence in Japan in the early 1870s and became one of the most prominent photographers in the country.

To read the entire newspaper, see: Tōkyō nichinichi shinbun [microform] = 東京日日新聞 (Tōkyō: Nippōsha, 東京 : 日報社, Feb. 21, 1872- Dec. 31, 1942). East Asian Microfilms (HYGF): Forrestal Annex Microfilm J00057

For more on Farsari, read the catalog of an exhibition held at the Villa Contarini, Piazzola sul Brenta, Italy, Dec. 18, 2011-April 1, 2012: East Zone: Antonio Beato, Felice Beato e Adolfo Farsari : fotografi veneti attraverso l’Oriente dell’Ottocento / a cura di Magda Di Siena ; testi di Magda Di Siena, Rossella Menegazzo (Crocetta del Montello (Treviso): Antiga, 2011). Marquand Library use only DS508.2 .E27 2011

Avalon Ballroom

What do these pictures, above and below, have in common?

The postcards were found during the renovation of rare books and special collection’s technical services offices. Manufactured by Family Dog Productions, the corporation that managed The Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco, the cards advertise Avalon rock concerts presented from 1966 to 1969.

Our cards announce concerts by the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Steve Miller Band, Moby Grape, the Butterfield Blues Band, and Big Brother and the Holding Company, with designs by Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley and Victor Moscoso.

Like our offices, the Avalon’s building was renovated many times and since 1969, has housed a Regency movie theater, American Pacific Linens, Wantful.com (internet startup), and currently, the ad agency Argonaut.

Thanks to Maria Grandinette, Preservation Librarian, who found these cards and other ephemera.

The Language of the Lament

Lynne Avadenka. Lamentations = Ekhah. Lamentations = איכה (Huntington Woods, Mich.: Land Marks Press, 2009). Copy 8 of 8. “This edition of Lamentations was created with woodcuts, photopolymer plate printing and stencils, and letterpress printed with Centaur and Koren types on Yamada Hanga cream paper”–Colophon. Housed in a cloth-covered oblong clamshell box, which has a woodblock inset on its top. Text of the book of Lamentations in Hebrew, with English translation from the Jewish Publication Society: leaves [3-12]. Graphic Arts Collection GAX in process

Additional digital images available at: http://www.lynneavadenka.com/gallery.html

Colophon [above]: “Echoes, reverberations, multiplicities, repeats: the long narrow sheet – a scroll unrolled – like the original Book of Lamentations; prints from wood, the same material from which houses are built, with traces of home cut out: doors, windows, openings; orbits linked and overlapped, inked and overprinted, suggesting absence, presence, and interconnected lives.”

Many other versions of the Lamentations are available in the Princeton University Library, including: Sefer Ḳol bikhyi: reʼu zeh ḥadash ḳetsat ḥidushim ʻal sefer Iyov… ṿe-ʻimo nilṿeh sefer Metsudat Daṿid le-vaʼer ʻinyana . . . / Raḥamim Bukhrits (Liṿorno: Sh. Belforṭe, 657 [1897]). Rare Books (Ex) BS1415 .K642 1897

We also hold a number of artists’ books featuring Jewish themes. Here are only a few:
Sue Coe, X (with Art Spiegelman). Design by Françoise Mouly (New York: Raw Books & Graphics, 1986). Rare Books (Ex) N6797.C55 A4 1986 Milberg
Mark H. Podwal, A Sweet Year: a Taste of the Jewish Holidays (New York: Random House Children’s Books, 2003). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2004-2542N
Carol Rosen, The Holocaust Series. XXI, We All Disappear ([Califon, N.J.?: C. Rosen, 2004?]). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2014-0939Q
Paul Auster, Reflections on a Cardboard Box; Drawings Henrik Drescher ([Mt. Horeb, Wis.]: Perishable Press, 2004).Rare Books (Ex) 2005-2248N
D.R. Wakefield, Pugilistica Judaica: Jewish Prize-fighters in London 1785-1840 ([East Yorkshire]: Chevington Press, 2006).Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2008-0022F
Art Spiegelman, Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young [squiggle][star]! 1st rev. ed. (New York: Pantheon Books, 2008). Rare Books (Ex) Oversize 2008-0492Q
Lynne Avadenka, Plum Colored Regret (Huntington Woods, Mich.: Land Marks Press, 2010). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2011-0060Q
Sarah Horowitz, Alpha Botanica ([Portland, Or.: Wiesedruck, 2007]) Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) 2014-0009S

Entertaining Knowledge here – Trump Trump Trumpery Trump

Charles Jameson Grant (active 1830-1852), The Penny Trumpeter!, September 20, 1832. Lithograph. Published by G.S.Tregear, 123 Cheapside. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process

The subject of C. J. Grant’s print is Henry Peter Brougham (1778-1868), satirized as a newsboy blowing a small trumpet to publicize his Penny Magazine. Lord Brougham was responsible for establishing the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge and through it, publishing numerous booklets and magazines with generic information for a mass audience. Complex histories or scientific theories were reduced to overly simplistic articles of little value except entertainment, a genre that became known as Trumpery.

The Penny Magazine appeared in March 1832 and by September, Grant was already satirizing its bland articles illustrated with black and white wood engravings printed from cheap stereoscopic plates. In his own work, Grant specialized in bright, hand colored lithographs, deliberately radical in their politics. Here he trumpets “Entertaining Knowledge here—Trump Trump Trumpery Trump—Just printed and published the Penny Magazine, All works not issued by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge are Illegal—Orders now taken for the forthcoming New Penny Cyclopaedia, Trump Trump.”

Grant’s Penny Trumpeter also appeared in one of his mock frontispieces for the magazine (the British Museum holds two versions of the broadsides), with multiple vignettes criticizing Brougham and his publication.

The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (London: Charles Knight, 1832-1845). Vol. 1, no. 1 (Mar. 31, 1832)-v. 14, no. 882 (Dec. 1845). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2006-0186Q

Richard Pound, editor, C.J. Grant’s Political Drama: A Radical Satirist Rediscovered (London: University College, 1998)

“Materials for the Penny Cyclopaedia to commence in 1833 & to end the Devil knows when…”

Mark Peters wrote about the history of the word Trumpery for Salon: http://www.salon.com/2016/03/05/trump_really_does_stand_for_b_s_trumpery_an_old_fashioned_word_thats_proving_useful_today/

Horizontorium, 3D views in 1832

John Jesse Barker after a design by William Mason (active 1822–1860), Horizontorium, 1832. Lithograph. Published by R. H. Hobson, 147 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA. Graphic Arts Collection GAX 2017- in process [photographed at an angle]

Before the advent of 3D glasses, print collectors enjoyed optical views like this one to experience the world in more dimension than the usual flat image. This print was to be laid on a flat table and each viewer meant to put their chin on the bottom center so as to see the building at an extreme angle. This is one version of anamorphosis, sometimes also designed to be viewed in a circular reflection.

Here are two other examples from the Graphic Arts Collection collection: https://graphicarts.princeton.edu/2015/03/25/anamorphic-images/ and https://blogs.princeton.edu/graphicarts/2008/02/anamorphic_self-portrait_by_ch.html .

Note the spot for your chin, if you want optimal 3D viewing.

The building seen here has been identified as the Gothic-style bank erected in 1808 after the designs of Benjamin Henry Latrobe at the southwest corner of Fourth and Chestnut streets in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Bank or Bank of Philadelphia (predecessor of the Philadelphia National Bank), was formed in 1803 and incorporated in 1804 as the unofficial bank of the commonwealth. Unfortunately the building was lost in 1836, not long after this print was made.

Researchers believe this print is the only recognized American “Horizontorium” and I have not been able to prove them wrong. The Library Company of Philadelphia, which also owns a copy of this print, suggests that the probable printer was Childs & Inman. For more information, try Nicholas B. Wainwright, History of the Philadelphia National Bank; a century and a half of Philadelphia banking, 1803-1953 (Philadelphia, 1953). HG2613.P5P7 and Nicholas B. Wainwright, Philadelphia in the romantic age of lithography: an illustrated history of early lithography in Philadelphia, with a descriptive list of Philadelphia scenes made by Philadelphia lithographers before 1866 (Philadelphia: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1958 (1970 printing)) Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize 2008-0429Q

A letter in St. Nicholas magazine, v. 6 (October 1879) p.844, suggests that “a good way to look at this picture is to take a piece of card-board, about three inches long, and bend the bottom of it, in the manner shown in this diagram. Two holes should be made in the card, and the one in the lower bent portion should be so placed that the point of sight can be seen through it. The hole in the upright portion should be 2 inches from the bottom, or the angle formed by the bent part. Through this upper hole the picture should be viewed, when all its peculiar perspective—or, rather, want of perspective—will disappear.” Read the entire piece in GoogleBooks: https://books.google.com/books?id=jqYzAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA844&dq=horizontorium+philadelphia&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjfksD87abRAhUBVCYKHZj-B4UQ6AEINDAF#v=onepage&q=horizontorium%20philadelphia&f=false

Posted in honor of John Berger, 1926-2017, author of Ways of Seeing (London: British Broadcasting Corporation; Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1972). Firestone N7420 .W28 1972

Jesse Jackson at the Ebenezer Baptist Church

Franklin McMahon (1921-2012), Reverend Jesse Jackson, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Ga. 1988. Graphite, charcoal, and acrylic paint on paper. Graphic Arts Collection GA 2015- in process

ATLANTA, March 6— “The Rev. Jesse Jackson came to Ebenezer Baptist Church today to preach from the pulpit that once belonged to Martin Luther King Jr. and to cloak his Presidential campaign in the glory of the movement that Dr. King led. It was a rich mix of God, politics and history, of civil rights movement veterans, political leaders and average churchgoers, all crammed into the narrow wooden pews of Ebenezer Baptist, two days before the Super Tuesday primaries across the South.

Mr. Jackson, whose relations with Atlanta’s black establishment have often been prickly, seemed to revel in the day. The former lieutenant to Dr. King now stood in his mentor’s church on the brink of a political triumph unimaginable a quarter century ago. It was, undeniably, a religious service, with a pastor noting at one point, ‘It’s not Martin, nor is it Jesse, who’s going to get you to Heaven.’ But after the choir sang ‘God Give Us Faith’ and ‘I’m So Glad I Got My Religion in Time,’ after the reading from the Book of Ezekiel and the communion service, the church moved on to the matters of the world. ‘Bloody Sunday’ Anniversary The Rev. Joseph L. Roberts, senior pastor at Ebenezer, brought the congregation to its feet as he introduced Mr. Jackson ‘as one who hopes to break a barrier that’s never been broken before, but ought to be broken, a barrier that has stood for too long, depriving our people of their rightful due.’

Then Mr. Jackson took his place at the simple white pulpit. He noted that it was the 23d anniversary of ‘Bloody Sunday,’ when civil rights demonstrators were beaten on a bridge in Selma, Ala., as they tried to march for the right to vote. He then paid tribute to John Lewis, now an Atlanta Congressman, who had led that march and been savagely beaten and on this Sunday morning was in a front pew. Mr. Jackson went on to present Super Tuesday as the outgrowth of the bloodletting on that Selma bridge. ‘Tuesday, 23 years later, we can transform the crucifixion,’ he said. ‘And on Tuesday roll the stone away, and on Wednesday morning have a resurrection: new hope, new life, new possibilities, new South, new America.’

‘I’m proud of the the New South,’ Mr. Jackson said. ‘No more governors standing in the school house door, no more dogs biting children.’ But, he continued, ‘It’s not enough to have kind governors and tame dogs. It’s not enough.’ He argued that ‘the fight for economic justice’ was the principle challenge before the South and the nation. It was a fight for the economic rights of garbagemen, Mr. Jackson noted, that drew Dr. King to Memphis, where he was assassinated in 1968. When Mr. Jackson had finished, the congregation sang him on his way with ‘I’m on the Battlefield for My Lord.’ And Mr. Roberts adlibbed, ‘And I promise not to serve him just ’till Super Tuesday but until I die.'”–Robin Toner, “Hosannas to God and Votes for Jackson,” Special to the New York Times, March 7, 1988.

This event was captured by Franklin McMahon, of whom the Times noted, “With sketch pads in hand, Mr. McMahon covered momentous events in the civil rights struggle, spacecraft launchings, national political conventions and the Vatican, turning out line drawings for major magazines and newspapers. Many were later colored by watercolor or acrylic paints, and most rendered scenes in a heightened, energetic style. ‘His goal,’ he said, ‘was to step beyond what he considered the limitations of photography to see around corners.’”–Douglas Martin, “Franklin McMahon, Who Drew the News, Dies at 90,” The New York Times, March 7, 2012.

Holdup

Emmett Williams (1925-2007) and Keith Godard (born 1942), Holdup (New York: Works Editions, 1980). Graphic Arts Collection 2016- in process

This is a book of famous thumbs.

Both printer Keith Godard and visual poet Emmett Williams had been collecting pictures of thumbs of friends and famous people for years and so, for their first collaboration, they combined their collections for a book of visual humor and visual poetry.

The two worked together at Godard’s studio and publishing house, Works Editions, only once again in 1983 producing A Little Night Book.

“Emmett Williams, an American poet whose transposition of words into visual art and performances made him one of the founding artists of Fluxus, a performance-oriented avant-garde art movement of the 1960s, died on Feb. 14 in Berlin. He was 81 and had lived in Berlin for many years. . . . In 1966 Mr. Williams took a job as editor in chief of The Something Else Press, a publishing house in New York City founded by Dick Higgins, another pioneer of Fluxus. By 1967 Mr. Williams had edited The Anthology of Concrete Poetry and written Sweethearts, two of his most widely recognized works. “When I have exhibitions, I do not say I am a Fluxus artist, I say it is my work,” Mr. Williams said . . . “And that makes me very comfortable. And it’s nice to outlive descriptive titles like that.” –Roja Heydarpour, “Emmett Williams, 81, Fluxus-Movement Poet, Dies” The New York Times March 1, 2007.

For more of Keith Godard see: http://www.studio-works.com/
For more of Emmett Williams see: http://www.emmett-williams.com/start.html

The Pioneers of Photography

The Princeton University Library is extremely fortunate to receive donations from an international family of friends and supporters throughout the year and in particular during the winter holidays. One such offering arrived today from Patrick Montgomery and The History of Photography Archive, where they have created a very clever deck of cards featuring the men and women who established photography as an art form. It will be a good addition to our small but growing collection of playing cards.

It must have been great fun deciding who was going to be a king or a queen or a joker in this deck. They seem to have made all the right choices, given the extent of their archive. Here is a short piece on Montgomery: http://shelterislandreporter.timesreview.com/2014/05/19/a-past-preserved-on-coecles-harbor/, and a look at their website: http://www.photohistorytimeline.com/

See also: Mercedes Grundy, An image of Jamaica : examining photographs by Valentine & Sons at the World’s Columbian Exposition, text by Mercedes Grundy; photo selection by Patrick Montgomery (Shelter Island, N.Y.: Archive Farms, 2011). Marquand Library (SAPH) Oversize TR33.J26 G78 2011q

The Admirable Crichton

J. M. Barrie (1860-1937), The Admirable Crichton with illustrations by Hugh Thomson (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1914). First edition. Copy 75 of 500 signed by Thomson. Graphic Arts Collection GAX2016- in process

Princeton owns three dozen volumes illustrated by the Ulster artist Hugh Thomson (1860-1920) with texts from Shakespeare, Sheridan, Goldsmith, and many others. We now add Admiral Crichton, a comic play written by J. M. Barrie (1860-1937), first performed in 1902.

Thomson was a favorite illustrator of the London public and of James Barrie, having illustrated Quality Street the year before. Art critics had a different opinion. A review in the December 1914 issue of Burlington Magazine begins:

Mr. Hugh Thomson’s illustrations to “The Admirable Crichton” are utterly unsympathetic and half-hearted. They have neither originality nor charm, and Mr. Thomson is apparently under the impression that the scenery in a South Sea island is precisely the same as that of Surrey. It is a great pity, as Sir J. M. Barrie’s incomparable play would make an ideal Christmas book in the hands of a capable illustrator. However, Mr. Thomson has many admirers who will be interested to know that the originals of the illustrations are to be obtained of Messrs. Ernest Brown and Phillips, Leicester Galleries, Leicester Square.

The largest collection of Thomson’s drawings can be seen in his hometown at the Coleraine Museum in Northern Ireland http://www.niarchive.org/coleraine/

Barrie’s play went on to be performed over many years, with two productions captured on film including the 1957 version below.

La vie parisienne

La Vie parisienne par Marcelin ([Paris: s.n.], 1863-1915). Editor 1863-87: Marcelin. Letterpress and lithographs. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) in process

The French satirist Émile-Marcelin-Isidore Planat (1825-1887) also published under the names Émile Marcelin and simply Marcelin. His birth date is often listed incorrectly as 1830, which may have been his own doing.

Marcelin found work in the 1840s at L’Illustration: journal universel (1845-48, Oversize AP20 .F736q) and the 1850s with Le Journal Pour Rire, later retitled Journal Amusant (1848-1855, GAX 2011-0030E). By the 1860s, he was ready to be his own boss and raised the funds to print a weekly newspaper called La vie parisienne (The Parisian Life), highlighting the pleasures and arts of Paris in image and text.

When Marcelin died in 1887, the journal continued under a new editor but it was not the same and by the 20th century, the title no longer retained any of Marcelin’s original style. The Graphic Arts Collection is fortunate to have acquired the full, original run of La vie parisienne, bound in 30 volumes.

See also Marcelin’s artistic predecessor Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), Scènes de la vie parisienne (Paris: Mme. Charles-Béchet, 1834-[v.1, 1835]). Rare Books (Ex) 3232.382

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