tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15462559540412551822024-03-12T22:15:29.751-04:00Books @ BromerOwned and operated by Anne and David Bromer, who have been in the business of fine books for nearly half a century, Bromer Booksellers specializes in rare and beautiful books. This blog includes posts on interesting items in our stock, event updates and news in the rare book world, videos, and new catalogue releases.Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.comBlogger150125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-39499381157216630322021-03-08T12:12:00.002-05:002021-03-09T16:48:45.894-05:00Easter Island and its Books<p>Dear friends,</p><p>Every now and then I reminisce about the books and people David and I met on our 50-year odyssey as Bromer Booksellers. Below is the story of the remotest place we ever visited and the book collection we built to memorialize that trip.</p><p>Anne Bromer</p><p>March 2021</p><hr /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPGkCPyRS14tYEWv5cUhIypzsiVZUqifzn_b0Zyz5QsHbvciNA6FZPZNFSqtbdWNQ4MXjihLgfNc3JWN4a4UQNdJDhlmag8g95C-p1Q4q51tK7Oj9ossN3ubprphMqKNZEYXDhl8CP0Wo/s1868/small_NYT_panorama.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" data-original-height="681" data-original-width="1868" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPGkCPyRS14tYEWv5cUhIypzsiVZUqifzn_b0Zyz5QsHbvciNA6FZPZNFSqtbdWNQ4MXjihLgfNc3JWN4a4UQNdJDhlmag8g95C-p1Q4q51tK7Oj9ossN3ubprphMqKNZEYXDhl8CP0Wo/w523-h190/small_NYT_panorama.jpg" width="523" /></a></div><p>John Dos Passos called it the “Island of Enigmas,” the most isolated inhabited place in the world. Owned by Chile, it lies more than 2200 miles from the continent of South America and more than 1200 miles from its nearest, inhabited neighbor, tiny Pitcairn Island. The indigenous people call themselves and their 64-square-mile island Rapa Nui. Chileans call the island Isla de Pascua. The first European, a Dutch explorer named Jacob Roggeveen, set foot on the archipelago on Easter morning 1722, and named it Easter Island. It is composed of three dormant volcanic regions with ancient art exposed in a kind of outdoor museum.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXbb8__QiZ0ktNNdzeMK-xwt1ZhL_gqkUJwFXeXOuLBuLbXfpJGEcQtEBsEuIf4lFZPJHrJ5hHZxOVcwu_xdXiPSCQZ3tyYifXHHpqXnN5eKK_qr2jKosFtGD6QeV7q-khNGTas1dbIhs/s1000/small_easter-island-pics1.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="665" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXbb8__QiZ0ktNNdzeMK-xwt1ZhL_gqkUJwFXeXOuLBuLbXfpJGEcQtEBsEuIf4lFZPJHrJ5hHZxOVcwu_xdXiPSCQZ3tyYifXHHpqXnN5eKK_qr2jKosFtGD6QeV7q-khNGTas1dbIhs/s320/small_easter-island-pics1.jpg" /></a></div>The island’s gathering of enormous carved stone heads standing and scattered about makes it feel haunted. Beginning about 1000 CE the indigenous people began carving heads with torsos out of volcano rock. As a form of ancestral worship, these heads are called <i>moai</i>, and they weigh an average of 14 tons. Most are mounted in groups of various sizes on ceremonial <i>ahus</i>, or rock altars. All face towards the land, as the original Polynesian settlers thought of themselves as the center of the world. For five hundred years, approximately 1000 moai were carved from quarry rock at Rano Raruku in the center of the Island. How these megaliths were transported nearly twelve miles to the edges of the island is a puzzle that only recently has been deciphered. Oral history and modern experimentation appear to confirm that they were walked upright with ropes.<p></p><p>The focus on building monumental heads together with overpopulation depleted resources on the island. Plant and bird life were disrupted to feed the islanders. Fishing boats required too much of the lumber. A rat population found their favorite food in the seeds of the vast palm tree forests and devoured so many that the trees could no longer propagate. More trees were cut down to make way for land to farm. By the 16th century, Rapa Nui was deforested, and the social fabric of its people began to unravel. </p><p>Vicious wars were fought, and the monumental heads were toppled. At the height of its population, there were about 10,000 indigenous people, but with tribal battles and the introduction of disease and slavery brought by Europeans, the Rapa Nui people were nearly extinct by the 1870s. The native population reached its lowest count of 110 in 1878. </p><p>In 1888, Easter Island was annexed by Chile. The islanders were confined to Hanga Roa, its capital, and primarily were sheep farmers, although a large corporation owned all the sheep farms. Under the dictator Augusto Pinochet martial law was declared. Finally after his dictatorship ended in 1990, private property was restored and tourism began to bring the island prosperity. In 1995 UNESCO named Easter Island a World Heritage site. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKynHHYcloJ0GGH4wR1VwZcTPD-KCGVv0lobfbhHP-7_2PnvqPD2T06JIUt52lKRwJ00Gujw9Z_-MxPOggLY_0msYDWdpiQz_c_nEXnWvLKOk7re2j96-8N1XTrcqqD0lJvF9K6xrMxrw/s2048/easter-island-pics4.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1342" data-original-width="2048" height="263" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKynHHYcloJ0GGH4wR1VwZcTPD-KCGVv0lobfbhHP-7_2PnvqPD2T06JIUt52lKRwJ00Gujw9Z_-MxPOggLY_0msYDWdpiQz_c_nEXnWvLKOk7re2j96-8N1XTrcqqD0lJvF9K6xrMxrw/w400-h263/easter-island-pics4.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>On New Year’s Eve 1997, David and I arrived for a visit. Our flight took five hours from Santiago, Chile. The two-mile landing strip, built in case of an emergency for the U.S. Space Shuttle program, is so long that the LAN-Chile pilot didn’t need to apply the brakes. We stayed in a small, Rapa Nui-owned hotel and spent five days exploring the mysteries and lessons of the island. We were so intoxicated with all we saw that we wanted to mark the experience. As booksellers we paid tribute to the journey by building a collection of books. </p><p>Three titles by early explorers were key to the collection, two of which we were able to obtain in first editions, but we were unsuccessful in finding an original edition of the journal of the first European to sight the island.</p><p>Jacob Roggeveen (1659-1729) was 63 years old when he and his fleet landed on Rapa Nui, April 5, 1722. In a passage from his journal, Roggeveen saw that the island was already deforested and sandy: “We mistook the parched-up grass, and hay or other scorched and charred brushwood for a soil of arid nature….” The original Dutch edition of 1838 escaped us, but the English translation by Andrew Sharp in 1970 was included.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy1B_y3dNN2TAbduJBX1vti360rZXAwQhJ56BJ6dhrk4F4R04siLd20YRNVfOYtvAjkKmWtfzzvQKxoj_VUx-oxG-wehAHrQG-YqhaQnRgqrRq7AESHHrH2k7d9N0bhcKJB41l9NJA7Ck/s1280/cook.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="978" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy1B_y3dNN2TAbduJBX1vti360rZXAwQhJ56BJ6dhrk4F4R04siLd20YRNVfOYtvAjkKmWtfzzvQKxoj_VUx-oxG-wehAHrQG-YqhaQnRgqrRq7AESHHrH2k7d9N0bhcKJB41l9NJA7Ck/w245-h320/cook.jpg" width="245" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="CeraPRO-Regular" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-size: 13px; text-align: start;">An engraving of a woman from Easter Island, <br />after a drawing by William Hodges, who was<br />on Cook's second expedition to the South Pacific<br /><a href="https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/153992.html">Image source</a></span></td></tr></tbody></table>Captain James Cook (1728-1779) saw Easter Island from <i>HMS Resolution</i> in March 1774. In the second of his three-volume <i>Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World</i> there is a description of what he and his crew witnessed when approaching the island: “On the east side, near the sea, they met with three platforms of stone-work, or rather the ruins of them. On each had stood four of those large statues, but they were all fallen down…and all except one were broken by the fall, or in some measure defaced. Each statue had on its head a large cylindric stone of a red colour, wrought perfectly round.” <p></p><p>The third 18th-century Easter Island explorer, whose travels resulted in a set of three volumes, was Jean Francois de La Perouse (1741-1788). He was a French admiral, who commanded two frigates with the goal of completing Captain Cook’s explorations twelve years earlier. <i>Voyage de la Perouse Autour du Monde</i> was first published in 1791 and details a portion of a day on Easter Island in 1786 and the author’s colorful first encounters with its settlers. </p><p></p><blockquote>“I anchored quite close to the frigate, but the undertow was so strong that our anchors did not hold and we were forced to raise them and tack a couple of times to regain the anchorage. This setback in no way lessened the natives’ enthusiasm. They swam behind us up a league offshore, and climbed aboard with a cheerfulness and a feeling of security which gave me the most favourable opinion of their character. A more suspicious people might have feared, when we set sail, to see itself torn from its relatives and carried away far from home, but the thought of such perfidy did not even seem to occur to them. They went about in our midst, naked and with no weapons, a mere string around the waist with a bunch of herbs to hide their natural parts.” </blockquote><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXdeUPrjUs2Q3GFT_RdOmLA0fgMBSHCjzwgdUWmOzrGkz-inI7_rUDUlOGe0YpyDakTjhB1VeG3ltExjSibZ3PF800UWhWC6AreAXPGVRaarCUwh0aSNKBI2bIRmenoUH3yjuSogngDb4/s2048/easter-island-pics2.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1354" data-original-width="2048" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXdeUPrjUs2Q3GFT_RdOmLA0fgMBSHCjzwgdUWmOzrGkz-inI7_rUDUlOGe0YpyDakTjhB1VeG3ltExjSibZ3PF800UWhWC6AreAXPGVRaarCUwh0aSNKBI2bIRmenoUH3yjuSogngDb4/w400-h265/easter-island-pics2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>Of the approximately 80 books, pamphlets, and objects we collected, most offered a European or Chilean perspective. Included were some of the proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool. We would consider the late-19th-century texts and observations by members who had traveled to Easter Island as unevolved. J. Linton Palmer was interested in identifying wooden tablets and figurines. A.J. Mott postulated that people other than, as he termed, “savages” must have carved the “colossal stone images.” </p><p>There were additional books in the collection on explorations, including the voyage of Felipe González de Ahedo, who landed on Easter Island before Captain Cook, in November 1770, and claimed it for the Spanish crown. The English translation account of the expedition was published 128 years later in 1908. In 1915, Captain N.P. Benson’s log of a 900-mile voyage to Easter Island on the schooner <i>El Dorado</i> was printed. He wrote of the harrowing journey “…across a storm-tossed ocean in an open boat, twenty-two feet long, (this) does not fall into the life of every mariner.”</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6encpcaV9FDJvubWvfGMj_50sIOg53WSn03u_wVr9h_OcG6F9oINt4mOplJEgZAAmx7fBvs9QmBn8p-BTYvzPuzbCLqcSRVLDzkWSo3AE_-00g1MaLO7UCwC8ahI-Y0OlNCj0OcKx8eY/s629/aku-aku.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="629" data-original-width="428" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6encpcaV9FDJvubWvfGMj_50sIOg53WSn03u_wVr9h_OcG6F9oINt4mOplJEgZAAmx7fBvs9QmBn8p-BTYvzPuzbCLqcSRVLDzkWSo3AE_-00g1MaLO7UCwC8ahI-Y0OlNCj0OcKx8eY/s320/aku-aku.jpg" /></a></div>Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002) claimed until his dying day that South Americans were the first to discover Rapa Nui. In 1955, he led a two-year archaeological expedition to the island, which he recounted in <i>Aku-Aku</i>. That book and other volumes by Heyerdahl on the art and mystique of the island were part of the collection. Until very recently, Heyerdahl’s belief of indigenous South Americans being the first to settle the island was considered incorrect. The prevailing theory had been that Polynesians were the first settlers. Now, highly developed DNA analysis has reopened the question. As is true with many of the mysteries of Rapa Nui, new data has changed the science, and it now appears as if the discovery came from both the West and the East. <p></p><p>The collection included books and periodicals of archaeological expeditions and of secrets and mysteries of the religious rituals of the island. Tales from the past of cultural practices and viewed from an “Ethno-Psychological” viewpoint were set out in Werner Wolff’s 1948 book, <i>Island of Death</i>. Arkham House published <i>The Web of Easter Island</i> in 1948 by the science fiction writer, Donald Wandrei. Dedicated to H.P. Lovecraft, the horror story reinforced perceived terrors of Easter Island. Coupled with the myths and riddles were books about the art and language of the Rapa Nui people, many illustrated with photographs.</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8PZEVkG4HLnK0_qjzzF2160UyhonOuvVITcXsv_3xEz-L0FTkgqmKKXM5rinThrlAR5N3vO_fKcOKwDWu-KKcxq4ZY1Jtdw26s84s0AD9SHD57Obi5CyeVeh59YkYVdghPJUxw0LuJiA/s2048/easter-island-pics3.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1443" data-original-width="2048" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8PZEVkG4HLnK0_qjzzF2160UyhonOuvVITcXsv_3xEz-L0FTkgqmKKXM5rinThrlAR5N3vO_fKcOKwDWu-KKcxq4ZY1Jtdw26s84s0AD9SHD57Obi5CyeVeh59YkYVdghPJUxw0LuJiA/w400-h281/easter-island-pics3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>In 2006 the playwright Edward Albee went to Rapa Nui and wrote about it in a <i>New York Times</i> three-page color spread. He was 78 years old and had dreamed of the trip for fifty years. He wrote of the nature of life on the island with statues in situ where the ancient carvers left them, unfinished and as yet unborn. He spoke of moai raised on their pedestals as if living beings, while others remained face down where they were once toppled, now dead. The full cycle of life is an essential part of Rapa Nui.</p><p>Our trip to the island was a once-in-a-lifetime experience for David and me. In building a book collection, we were able to keep the adventure close. It was our way of remembering those five days of wonderment. As time and memory faded, so did the intensity of that moment. In 2012 we sold the collection en bloc to a colleague in Australia.</p><p></p>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-51152693951729374122019-06-28T10:47:00.000-04:002019-06-28T10:47:01.488-04:00Covarrubias, Kahlo, and Popular Pride<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8uAtE4cKx1NhiNdxynP-1lDMjER9dqxs0y9OpYu1T1vZ0vpa0W0Yy-6ez8LncyFNXBAU36oRcDxNWBDMU8-FNNYbCNZNeyADzvbLhi-LoaYBzwupk7vjIprWAcHFB2ikW-s4JIuKESkQ/s1600/29128_Covarrubias.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="935" data-original-width="932" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8uAtE4cKx1NhiNdxynP-1lDMjER9dqxs0y9OpYu1T1vZ0vpa0W0Yy-6ez8LncyFNXBAU36oRcDxNWBDMU8-FNNYbCNZNeyADzvbLhi-LoaYBzwupk7vjIprWAcHFB2ikW-s4JIuKESkQ/s320/29128_Covarrubias.jpg" width="318" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv9ioXzC_E9LVV_rU6dxYc1XrQxaYJOQe6cjJwfLAVo1dVbVT_i2PW9hyphenhyphenQkbImPdVgdWuTrE-yfLynZgm7bZ-KhZZoCPkSx1eFa6y8CEKXO5XBOBtyRlc4sjThc2BvtNYFTvt6PUTcvrY/s1600/29128_Covarrubias_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="660" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv9ioXzC_E9LVV_rU6dxYc1XrQxaYJOQe6cjJwfLAVo1dVbVT_i2PW9hyphenhyphenQkbImPdVgdWuTrE-yfLynZgm7bZ-KhZZoCPkSx1eFa6y8CEKXO5XBOBtyRlc4sjThc2BvtNYFTvt6PUTcvrY/s320/29128_Covarrubias_2.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-size: x-small;">Left: Cristina Kahlo, Miguel Covarrubias, Frida Kahlo, and Rosa Covarrubias; Right: Covarrubias and Nickolas Murray</span></div>
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On June 19<sup>th</sup>, Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts
concluded its exhibit “Frida Kahlo and Arte Popular”, a celebration-via-contextualization
of Kahlo’s work. Mexican decorative art, ceramics, textiles, and other artisan
materials surrounded Kahlo’s pieces, emphasizing the interplay between the two.
Arte popular grew out of the Mexican Revolution, embodying the authentic
Mexican self that thrived in modern society but never lost sight of heritage
and tradition. In turn, Kahlo took on the same themes in her artwork: magical
realism, vibrancy, and fluidity between the animate and inanimate and the
living and the dead. Kahlo brought “popular” art to its dual sense, taking
inspiration from the folk art of the people and giving it a global voice.</div>
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Kahlo was not the only artist of her period to adopt arte
popular as the substance of a greater platform. Miguel Covarrubias, a close
friend of Kahlo among her circle in Mexico City. Their relationship was
captured by Nickolas Murray, Kahlo’s longtime lover. Covarrubias featured
prominently as a caricaturist and illustrator, rising through a series of New
York connections to become a regular contributor to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The New Yorker</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vanity
Fair</i>. Like Kahlo, Covarrubias drew stylistic inspiration from the local
craftspeople he grew up with. The sweeping lines and pure colors in his work
mirrors the sensuosity and fantasy of arte popular, translated to suit, and
subvert, the imagery of societal powers of race and class. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU1AnhFa2o8XSORy0wRF0rUsdVg6WolctCopHkXjG6ttTSiAZeQsb8Zxk0Q0M9s50B3_xycdzbCOW9QifQ_rV1vd0fi8P_n26Llf1C8QeVPvv_4F0uHREAOckCykHh7PsJF7V0ssIwFYk/s1600/29128.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="528" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU1AnhFa2o8XSORy0wRF0rUsdVg6WolctCopHkXjG6ttTSiAZeQsb8Zxk0Q0M9s50B3_xycdzbCOW9QifQ_rV1vd0fi8P_n26Llf1C8QeVPvv_4F0uHREAOckCykHh7PsJF7V0ssIwFYk/s320/29128.jpg" width="211" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ9xQmRBwkJ1LjpPuKkpqKvVPDCxROxZfQ3kqeijX-xP31j5RL4ebFEgaPaB_PJt11fdo2Ur_3rCS8lJS0P1uTAO_RtaEikh_H4uj30aCwv5-gAKphEplUpOipiOfOR7G8EgMhjmPbZ0Y/s1600/29128_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="608" data-original-width="800" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ9xQmRBwkJ1LjpPuKkpqKvVPDCxROxZfQ3kqeijX-xP31j5RL4ebFEgaPaB_PJt11fdo2Ur_3rCS8lJS0P1uTAO_RtaEikh_H4uj30aCwv5-gAKphEplUpOipiOfOR7G8EgMhjmPbZ0Y/s320/29128_2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />For Covarrubias, the process of inspiration and execution
was a study in ethnography. In New York, through his friends Zora Neale
Hurston, Langston Hughes, and W. C. Handy (for whom he also illustrated books),
Covarrubias experienced the Harlem Renaissance, which he captured in caricatures
and drawings. Those that depicted jazz clubs were printed in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vanity Fair</i>, while others formed the
basis of his book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Negro Drawings</i>. When
Covarrubias traveled to San Francisco to create a mural for the 1939-1940
Golden Gate International Exposition, he painted six murals featuring grandiose
illustrated maps, respectively titled <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Fauna and Flora of the Pacific, Peoples, Art and Culture, Economy, Native
Dwellings, </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Native Means of Transportation</i>.
His honeymoon to Bali, paired with a later return trip as a Guggenheim Fellow,
resulted in the book, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Island of Bali</i>,
in which Covarrubias expounded on the local culture and customs through his
writing and illustrations, as well as the inclusion of his wife Rosa Rolanda’s
photographs. These honest encapsulations of foreign cultures preceded
Covarrubias’ perhaps most-loved work, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mexico
South: The Isthmus of Tehuantepec</i>. Throughout the book, Covarrubias
balances oral history, first hand analysis, biography, and documented history,
peppering the text with diagrams and illustrations, as well as colored plates
showing the world of the Isthmus through his characteristic style. In our copy,
Covarrubias added an additional drawing before the title page, in which with
graceful simplicity he exemplifies the local women: their manner of dress,
their hairstyles, their labors, and even their attitudes. This work brings to
fruition all of Covarrubias’ previous labors, honoring the folk art so
influential to him and Kahlo by giving it tangible, international face born out
of itself. The likes of Kahlo and Covarrubias brought Mexican arte popular into
the greater public purview, a democratization of art that never lost sight of
its roots.<o:p></o:p></div>
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References and Links:<o:p></o:p></div>
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The MFA’s summary of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Frida
Kahlo and Arte Popular</i>: <a href="https://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/frida-kahlo-and-arte-popular">https://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/frida-kahlo-and-arte-popular</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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A descriptive op-ed on the MFA exhibit, featured in the
Harvard Crimson: <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/3/5/mfa-frida-kahlo-exhibit/">https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2019/3/5/mfa-frida-kahlo-exhibit/</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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A collection of Nickolas Murray’s photographs of Kahlo,
Covarrubias, Diego Rivera, and others, up for sale by Sotheby’s: <a href="https://news.artnet.com/market/frida-kahlo-photographs-1506793">https://news.artnet.com/market/frida-kahlo-photographs-1506793</a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><o:p></o:p></b></div>
<br />Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-82226012792469833912019-06-12T11:25:00.001-04:002019-06-12T11:25:34.661-04:00Some Safe Harbor: WWII Logbooks from the South Pacific<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC2xrj-9UoaKn3b9BM1GHz7VWgQC2TuwVwumnYeBsc5CaRxaogVvsvIJ-yasmdycybnvJ1O-srDwRTIrQZJ5RbmoGZM7zW6ffgcBpOO4Dd9e-mVxDTIC-VG3V46D9AtOYl8pGNg4EAnkQ/s1600/21505.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="371" data-original-width="800" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC2xrj-9UoaKn3b9BM1GHz7VWgQC2TuwVwumnYeBsc5CaRxaogVvsvIJ-yasmdycybnvJ1O-srDwRTIrQZJ5RbmoGZM7zW6ffgcBpOO4Dd9e-mVxDTIC-VG3V46D9AtOYl8pGNg4EAnkQ/s400/21505.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />From 1941 to 1943, Lorain Roswell Snyder, Seaman First Class, traveled throughout the Pacific, winding his way north from the Galapagos Islands, towards the South Pacific, and up to Alaska aboard the U.S.S. Richmond (CL-9). In those years, Snyder, nicknamed “Doc”, recorded not only his activities and the adventures the Richmond encountered, but also cataloged the duties accorded to his role as a gunner’s mate, drew equipment, maps, tattoos, and flags in astonishing detail, and offered his own insights into wartime events like the bombing of Pearl Harbor (“War!!!/Oh my! Well here's what we've been waiting for ... Arizona and Oklahoma got it bad!”). He encapsulated this life at sea, with all the specifics of its vessels and the mercuriality of its personalities and its bureaucracy, in four log books, presented here.<br /><br />All commissioned naval vessels maintain log books, called deck logs, handwritten or typed by the officers on board. These are held as permanent records by the Navy, and eventually by the National Archives. The Archives’ collection spans the Revolutionary War, their earliest item being a photostatic copy of the log for the Continental Schooner WASP, through Vietnam. A certain number, listed by ship name, have been digitized, including the logs for the Richmond. Snyder’s name does not appear in the logs because he was not a commissioned officer, but the coordinates match - both Snyder’s and the official logs place the Richmond in the South Pacific in May 1942, for example, as well as being off the coast of Siberia for the Battle of the Komandorski Islands a year later.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQU0pmNqqnsPZwfqon1iczGMeXg9lR78mKAcAbeLrw7jjjo9bXiHU8fIAgoFCteWYpOZ0sUn7OK6QeyDHOtyNN2jgCsLWMhGdPbBsBqVNOJUylqGT0o0Yo6JK553Hy1MduT9NBJQXAEhQ/s1600/21505_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQU0pmNqqnsPZwfqon1iczGMeXg9lR78mKAcAbeLrw7jjjo9bXiHU8fIAgoFCteWYpOZ0sUn7OK6QeyDHOtyNN2jgCsLWMhGdPbBsBqVNOJUylqGT0o0Yo6JK553Hy1MduT9NBJQXAEhQ/s1600/21505_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="375" data-original-width="500" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQU0pmNqqnsPZwfqon1iczGMeXg9lR78mKAcAbeLrw7jjjo9bXiHU8fIAgoFCteWYpOZ0sUn7OK6QeyDHOtyNN2jgCsLWMhGdPbBsBqVNOJUylqGT0o0Yo6JK553Hy1MduT9NBJQXAEhQ/s320/21505_3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /><br />But the deck logs make no mention of the life of an enlisted man, or anyone else for that matter, other than the arrivals and departures of various seamen, and the occasional relegation of an insolent sailor to the brig. Snyder’s accounts, then, provide a unique and eclectic view, a log crafted for the sake of self-expression, accountability, and education. Two logs document Snyder’s on-board studies to become a gunner’s mate third-class and second-class. His assignments ranged from the proper use and storage of ammunition, the parts of various weapons (Snyder’s artistic acumen is on display in his depictions of a .45 caliber automatic pistol, a gun mount, a flare gun, and other equipment), storm warning signals, and mathematical equations. At the rear of these coursebooks, which function nearly as manuals, Snyder, with characteristic precision, indexed morse code, semaphore, alphabetical and numerical flags, pipe markings, and national symbols.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRBEwtND4SwZY91a63yo1zrXuWjKQp4S9edXJ2mQRfw16_E0Bbe7BHojVRu9aIk4ktL4_o1P8FhRnMhLVyspR92IRSb4bjQS0lqWLcox-ccIaXCnS6hOkksuAt_Hb_UnxjRwKj-C5GZE/s1600/21505_7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="698" data-original-width="800" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCRBEwtND4SwZY91a63yo1zrXuWjKQp4S9edXJ2mQRfw16_E0Bbe7BHojVRu9aIk4ktL4_o1P8FhRnMhLVyspR92IRSb4bjQS0lqWLcox-ccIaXCnS6hOkksuAt_Hb_UnxjRwKj-C5GZE/s320/21505_7.jpg" width="320" /></a>The technical knowledge of these logs imbues the other two with a backbone of seriousness, even as Snyder rolls his eyes at some men who “just can’t be satisfied with enough” while he is “just taking life easy”. These books, which function as daily diaries, were addressed at the outset to Snyder’s parents, a statement only preceded by the ship’s seal and an account of its destinations from 1939 to 1942. Albeit unintentional, these two introductory elements highlight the personality and enthusiasm of Snyder’s accounts, and of Snyder himself. He expressed wonder at aerial warfare, glib boredom or approval of daily duties, fear at the scattered battles that the U.S.S. Richmond comes across, and joy at familiar sights. Outside of these regular reports, Snyder also drew a map of the Pacific, tracking the Richmond’s course alongside major altercations between the Japanese and the Allies, and penned a humorous poem entitled “A Torrid Tale of the Tropics” about a hapless lover on Waikiki.</div>
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At the heart of Snyder’s logbooks lies a love of storytelling and a weather eye toward a safe port. Snyder’s final proclamation - “Home!” - promises pride and relief, satisfaction and adventure.</div>
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Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-32514143646923378202018-10-10T11:03:00.000-04:002018-10-11T10:33:03.804-04:00The Landscape of a Binding: Caro Weir Ely's Style, C.E.S. Wood's Ambition, and Their Friendship<a href="https://www.bromer.com/pages/books/28174/charles-erskine-scott-wood/poems-from-the-ranges" target="_blank">Charles Erskine Scott Wood. <i>Poems from the Ranges</i>. San Francisco: Grabhorn Press, 1929.</a><br />
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In 1920, the Book Club of California, then still a nascent
entity, having published its first letterpress volume in 1914, hosted an
exhibition of finely bound books crafted by Caroline “Caro” Weir Ely. Though
Ely never matched the prominence of her father, impressionist Julian Alden
Weir, or the stature of her grandfather, West Point professor and member of the
Hudson River School Robert Walter Weir, she found uniqueness and acclaim as a
bookbinder throughout the early twentieth century. As evidenced by the Book
Club of California’s exhibition, the literary community, as male-driven as it
was at the time, celebrated her skill and apparently appreciated her minimalist
style. One man in particular, Charles Erskine Scott Wood, found Ely’s work
worthy of continued patronage; at least four books were bound by Ely for Wood,
or with Wood in mind. These are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Vintage Festival</i> by Sarah Bard Field, printed in 1920 and bound by Ely on
behalf of Field as a gift from Field to Wood, her husband; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Julian Alden Weir: An Appreciation of his Life and Works</i>, printed
in 1921 and bound by Ely as a presentation copy to Wood; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Snow Bound, A Winter Idyl</i> by John G. Whittier, printed in 1911 and
bound by Ely sixteen years later as a gift from Wood to Field; and the present <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poems from the Ranges</i> by Wood, printed
by the Grabhorn Press in 1929 and bound by Ely for Wood.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidD6NPFl6C7S8CzubTZCEzWcY0KooOzmq_w9uVSGPva_yYRYioMUUScDsiWcx8_Pb_3GReHkzhpTy-bTVy6j7uNDJiAUg-cdnsAAbX80st9UFLAyiKNLMhFOH8D6BZO1Nq2O9fQyZDFkQ/s1600/28174.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="753" data-original-width="562" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidD6NPFl6C7S8CzubTZCEzWcY0KooOzmq_w9uVSGPva_yYRYioMUUScDsiWcx8_Pb_3GReHkzhpTy-bTVy6j7uNDJiAUg-cdnsAAbX80st9UFLAyiKNLMhFOH8D6BZO1Nq2O9fQyZDFkQ/s320/28174.jpg" width="238" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoP9B8-78fYiImE2Uk4-DmvChnMAWMbDu_2J-9LTqC6dh-xEXTTwnyI0SPiYWjSPahw2lFEtouJN6jffw8bisqNDhO4JlCFb9cQLg0Bf7t7EWl20ZeBLpBkRKq305r6dJ4oBTwCjQ9bKo/s1600/28174_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="727" data-original-width="713" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoP9B8-78fYiImE2Uk4-DmvChnMAWMbDu_2J-9LTqC6dh-xEXTTwnyI0SPiYWjSPahw2lFEtouJN6jffw8bisqNDhO4JlCFb9cQLg0Bf7t7EWl20ZeBLpBkRKq305r6dJ4oBTwCjQ9bKo/s320/28174_2.jpg" width="313" /></a></div>
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The relationship between Wood, a military man, lawyer, and
author, and Ely was not simply borne by a mutual appreciation of each other’s
crafts, nor was it the avuncular fondness of a man for the daughter of an
artist he admired and knew as a frequent associate (Julian Alden Weir painted a
portrait of Wood in 1901, and a letter from Wood to Weir is featured in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Julian Alden Weir: An Appreciation of his
Life and Works</i>). Rather, Wood and Ely seem to have known each other as
genuine friends. The inscription in the Ely-bound copy of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poems from the Ranges </i>reads: “To Caro Weir Ely, from her friend,
with love. Charles Erskine Scott Wood. The Cats – Los Gatos – Calif. 1929”. The
friendship between the elder Wood, who was in his twilight years and would die
in 1944 at the age of 91, and the much younger Weir, who was born in 1885 when
Wood was already in his thirties, certainly follows a pattern of relationships
that Weir held with younger artists and activists in his later life, including
Ansel Adams, John Steinbeck, and Robinson Jeffers. The difference, however, is
that Ely was not based in California or in the Western States at all, instead calling
Connecticut home and finding particular footing at Florence Griswold’s artist
colony in Old Lyme, where Ely herself eventually settled. What bound Ely and
Wood, as it did Adams and Steinbeck and other figures under Wood’s wing but
removed from the West, such as Childe Hassam, Margaret Sanger, and Eugene Debs,
was their continuous and intrinsic awe for place and landscape, their
fascination with the land and the impressions of humans upon it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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For Wood, this passion for nature and nature-dwellers emerged
in his transcription of the surrender of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce at the
end of the Nez Perce War in 1877. While much of his account concerns the
underhanded dealings of one of his fellow officers, Wood goes out of his way,
however briefly, to laud the interactions between the Native peoples and the
land. In one instance, he recounts hunting buffalo with two Native scouts while
the snowy Bear Paw Mountain looms ahead of them (Wood). Other flora and fauna
punctuate the story – the imposing pass into Clark Basin, the plains of the
Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers, coyotes, and horses tame and wild – in such a
way as to insist upon the largeness of the landscape and the consequential, or
perhaps continual, smallness of the men. When Chief Joseph emerges to deliver
his speech of surrender, then, with “quiet pride”, he seems the largest, the
most capable of standing against the forces of nature, of any of the figures
mentioned in the narrative (Wood). This attitude translated to Wood’s later
work as an attorney advocating for Native rights, in which he continually
insisted on the primacy of the Native peoples’ ownership, if such a term may be
used, of the lands from which they had been forcibly removed. Wood’s belief in
the inevitable hugeness of the landscape was also clear in his artwork, which
featured vastness of the frontier surrounding Portland, Oregon and other areas
of the American West rendered in watercolors. Wood’s portrayals are hardly
intimidating, however. Instead, his decision to cast the open sky, the thick
arms of the trees, the limitless coast in soft watercolors softens their size. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Likewise for Ely, nature was a constant, comforting
presence, a wild thing to strive <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">with</i>
rather than <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">against</i>, a thing to
admire and leave free. In her youth, Ely recalled, when she traveled with her
family from Branchville to Windham, Connecticut, she reveled in disembarking
the train “hot and dirty”, and with great joy “piled onto the waiting
carriages, breathing the fresh air and enjoying every moment of the four mile
drive over the plains” (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lest We Forget </i>quoted
in Dawson, chap. 2, f.16). A similar attitude colored her written and artistic
recollections of Weir Farm, now a National Historic Park. The farm sported
several gardens, and Ely and her sisters were very likely responsible for the
design and upkeep of the Secret Garden, which Ely praised for its endurance,
stating that it was “still full of the plants [she] put in” twenty years later (National
Park Service, 3). Her etchings and sketches cast the farm in a similar light,
drawing out the balance between nature’s whims and the boundaries and designs
of the humans who lived there. The sure lines of the farmhouse blend with those
of the brush, and the trees cast over the paths and fences insistent shadows.
It is no great extrapolation to suggest the same balance characterizes Ely’s
bindings. In each of the four examples cited here, Ely’s gilt work and tooling
highlights the natural textures of the leather. For <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Poems from the Ranges</i>, the minimalist exterior draws the eye to the
crackings in the morocco, and makes the brilliant floral paste-paper endpapers
all the more striking. It is as much a celebration of the feel of a book, and of
the materials that make it, as it is a showcase for Ely’s own creative
capabilities. <o:p></o:p></div>
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(28174)<o:p></o:p></div>
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References:<o:p></o:p></div>
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Dawson, Anne E. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rare
Light: J. Alden Weir in Windham, Connecticut, 1882-1919</i>. Middletown, CT:
Wesleyan University Press, 2016. Chapter 2, footnote 16.<o:p></o:p></div>
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National Park Service. “The Gardens”. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Weir Farm</i>. <a href="https://www.nps.gov/wefa/planyourvisit/upload/Garden-Site-Bulletin.pdf">https://www.nps.gov/wefa/planyourvisit/upload/Garden-Site-Bulletin.pdf</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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New England Historical Society. “High Thinking and Low
Living in Old Lyme”. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New England
Historical Society</i>. 2018. <a href="http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/high-thinking-low-living-old-lyme/">http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/high-thinking-low-living-old-lyme/</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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PBA Galleries Sale 464: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fine
Literature with Books in All Fields</i>. October 6, 2011. Lots 400, 402, and
403.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Weir, Julian Alden. “C.E.S. Wood”. Portrait. 1901. Portland
Art Museum Online Collections. <a href="http://portlandartmuseum.us/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=record;id=3542;type=101">http://portlandartmuseum.us/mwebcgi/mweb.exe?request=record;id=3542;type=101</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Wood, Charles Erskine Scott. “The Pursuit and Capture of
Chief Joseph”. Archives of the West, 1874-1877. 2001. <a href="https://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/six/joseph.htm">https://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/six/joseph.htm</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-63964914979136917842018-09-20T12:33:00.000-04:002018-09-20T13:07:17.052-04:00Announcing Bromer Gallery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 107%;">To
mark its fiftieth year as a leading specialist in rare and beautiful books,
Bromer Booksellers is pleased to announce the launch of Bromer Gallery, which
will open its first exhibition on November 1, 2018. Bromer
Gallery will operate in conjunction with the book shop, and will feature
original art, edition prints, and related material, executed by artists whose
work is centered upon the idea of the book as art. This new endeavor is a natural
extension of Bromer Booksellers’ long history as specialists in the art of the
book. <br />
<br />
The gallery’s inaugural exhibit, titled “Goldman and Lee: Shadow and Color”,
will feature Jane Goldman's watercolors and editioned
prints from her Audubon Series, together with the color woodcuts of Jim Lee.
The two artists are old friends who both
studied with Warrington Colescott and other members of the “Madison Mafia” at
the University of Wisconsin, Madison’s famed Print Department. <br />
<br />
A noted painter and printmaker, Jane Goldman will be exhibiting work from her
latest series, Audubon Suite. This series of hand-painted pigment and
silkscreen prints incorporates plates from Audubon’s iconic <i>Birds of America</i> into richly textured,
vibrant still-lifes that chart the changing seasons. According to Goldman, this
series “displays my abiding interest in creating a contemplative world of
objects bathed in light with shadow contrasts. The cast shadows unify objects
in the here and now with the 19<sup>th</sup> century Audubon image; past and
present seamlessly occupy the same timeless space.” Since 1987, Goldman has
been a partner in the Mixit Print Studio, a collaborative space in Somerville,
MA, for printmakers.<br />
<br />
Jim Lee, the Connecticut-based printmaker, book artist, and proprietor of Blue
Moon Press, will bring the lush landscapes of Ireland, New England, and
Maritime Canada to the Gallery. Lee works primarily with color reduction
woodcuts to capture the mood and subtle features of a particular area. As he is
also interested in the people who inhabit the locations he depicts, the woodcut
process allows him to weave references to their history and culture into his
work. Lee’s entire aesthetic arises from his draftsmanship, and in his bookwork
and prints he tries to use “the intersection of type and image as a
continuation of the act of drawing.” Lee teaches printmaking and book arts at
the University of Hartford.<br />
<br />
“Goldman and Lee: Shadow and Color” will be on exhibit at Bromer Gallery, 607
Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116, from November 1, 2018 until January 15,
2019. In conjunction with the gallery show, Bromer Booksellers will feature a
display of books with woodcuts from across our specialty areas. Visit
gallery.bromer.com for more information, and find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as @bromergallery.</span>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-4073008581625941992018-08-27T11:30:00.000-04:002018-08-27T11:30:05.991-04:00Simons, Dwiggins, and the Modern Letter<div style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">If the modern typographic revolution can be said to have been born in London, the it ought to also be said that it came of age in Germany. The turn of the twentieth century saw the arrival of Edward Johnston to the Royal College of Art and to the calligraphic craft. Johnston explored the use of broad-edged pens for his lettering, renewing the dried-up nineteenth-century penmanship practices with flourishes and individual creativity, and considering the letters themselves, not just their collective referents, worthy of beauty. His teachings influenced the likes of Eric Gill and Percy Smith, but found their greatest hold on the young German, Anna Simons. The simple fact of Simons' attendance at the Royal College of Art was notable, since she matriculated at a time when women were not admitted to Prussian Arts and Crafts schools, and Simons improved upon her standing by becoming one of Johnston's star students.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">After completing her training, from 1905 to 1910 Simons taught at Dusseldorf's </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">Royal School of Arts and Crafts, thereby teaching at an institution that in turn had refused to instruct her. During that period she brought exhibitions of English book arts to Weimar, Berlin, and Hamburg, and translated several works on lettering, including Johnston's own <i>Writing and Illuminating and Lettering</i> into German. Yet equal in influence to Simons' determined dissemination of new principles of letter design were her own artistic contributions to the Bremer Presse. Over the course of her career, Simons produced some 1400 titles and initials for the Presse, each one epitomizing new design for a new post-Great War Europe. Doffing the strictures of traditional order and industrial simplicity and conformity, Simons' designs, like Johnstons', presented letters and art themselves, pushing the optics of what they could be and where they could sit on the page. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-GnTkifRvMtHeGsHDHn2CD_pXI8V17Cu4vsLKWkFHhJAx-p2EVWJrNIESyzqECiB6vwPGzPkaCNLvbN1XSmGnQB28ywM7K9dm0UwdBacMAb965YXwhaHY4xjn5d_2lZY4_es_NbI9HLk/s1600/E54E02DF-0CF5-49AB-8D2D-279A3416CDA2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-GnTkifRvMtHeGsHDHn2CD_pXI8V17Cu4vsLKWkFHhJAx-p2EVWJrNIESyzqECiB6vwPGzPkaCNLvbN1XSmGnQB28ywM7K9dm0UwdBacMAb965YXwhaHY4xjn5d_2lZY4_es_NbI9HLk/s1600/E54E02DF-0CF5-49AB-8D2D-279A3416CDA2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="913" data-original-width="1600" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-GnTkifRvMtHeGsHDHn2CD_pXI8V17Cu4vsLKWkFHhJAx-p2EVWJrNIESyzqECiB6vwPGzPkaCNLvbN1XSmGnQB28ywM7K9dm0UwdBacMAb965YXwhaHY4xjn5d_2lZY4_es_NbI9HLk/s320/E54E02DF-0CF5-49AB-8D2D-279A3416CDA2.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">While Simons engaged the German art world in Johnston’s new concepts of lettering and herself applied them to the tangible design of books and their pages, W. A. Dwiggins was doing much the same in the United States. The connection between Simons and Dwiggins is more explicitly laid out in the inscription inside the front cover of our copy of </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Titel und Initialen fur die Bremer Presse</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Simons’ portfolio of titles and initials employed in the first eight-odd years of her efforts for the press: “Presented by the publishers to WAD, and given by him to Edward A. Karr”. Whereas Dwiggins was primarily a type- and book-designer, Karr, a teacher at the Museum of Fine Arts School and fellow Boston artist, was more concerned with penmanship and lettering, closer to the craft of Johnston. But this second relationship ought not to obscure the first, that Dwiggins was given Simons’ portfolio by its publishers, in a clear acknowledgment of the stylistic similarities and vision of the two artists. Both are responsible for ushering bookmaking in their respective countries to meet the style and technology of the twentieth century; Simons’ influence is heavily felt in the Weiner Werkstatte corpus and in the subsequent rise of Art Deco themes, and Dwiggins’ himself designed the typefaces for the clean layout offered by the new Linotype machine.</span></div>
Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-21866226020849520062018-08-06T11:00:00.000-04:002018-08-06T11:00:15.333-04:00Geoffroy Tory: Common Language, Privileged Text<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In speaking of Geoffroy Tory, one most often does so in reference to his </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Champfleury</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, which established a distinctly French artistic style while it simultaneously declaimed the use and order of the French language in sound and shape. The volume ensconced Tory as a father of French book production, and in particular of French book arts. He invoked deliberate, simple design in his typography and ornamentation, and demanded the same refinement from the language itself. In a later translation of Lucian, Tory announced to the reader that “l’eficace de l’art D’oratorie est de pouvoir faire ample description non seullement d’une gra[n]de chose, Mais aussi bien de une petite [the impact of the art of oratory is to create a rich description not only of a great thing, but also of a small thing]” (Lucian 1533, 2).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tory’s insistence that the simple beauty of the vernacular mirror the clean composition of the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mise en page</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> climaxed in his 1529 </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Champfleury</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (subsequent attempts at creating and recreating Tory’s designs are summarized here: http://luc.devroye.org/fonts-32678.html), but was previously demonstrated in the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Horae </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of 1524 and the later 1527 edition of the same. In the </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Horae</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Tory revolutionized French printing, trading the traditional dark closeness of gothic text for open typography and imagery. William M. Ivins, Jr. referred to it as a “blond book”, in which Roman type and uncluttered woodcuts were harmonious and inviting, rather than cluttered and somber (Ivins, Jr., 84). The 1524 edition was a testament to this new affinity for clean design, bearing sixteen full-page borders and thirteen large woodcuts, the borders being repeated throughout on every page. The 1527 edition pushed the principle still further, incorporating twelve woodcuts and four-piece borders on every page in twenty-six distinct combinations. Most notably, Tory selected a type truly neither Gothic nor Roman, but resembling something like Bastarda script used in France and the Low Countries throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This confluence of progressive design and nostalgic type argued that the printed book could match, and even surpass, the contemplation, care, and beauty of the manuscript.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">The profundity of Tory’s contribution to the emerging book trade, the newness of what he had conceived and executed, was met with favor in his own time, as evidenced by the book privileges granted to him through the royal court. The French book-privilege system was one the first - certainly the first of its cohesion and systematization - and most effective in early sixteenth century. Unlike Italy, where the book trade thrived but regulation was stymied by conflicts between ununified states, or Britain, where governmental control was clear but the trade was still nascent, the reach and control of the French government was such that it could suitably oversee intellectual property rights. Privileges were not in any way mandatory and it remained the responsibility of the printer, and in select cases the author, to submit a petition for one. Privileges could be granted by the royal chancery, the sovereign courts including Parlement, provincial parlements and officers, and various academic and ecclesiastical institutions. The chancery acted at the whim of the king himself, and thus was both the most prized of privileges and also the slowest, since it required the king to be in residence. Of the parameters considered when granting a privilege, arguably the most important was the “criterion of newness”, as phrased by Elizabeth Armstrong (Armstrong, 92-99). A book had to be a unique contributor to the existing canon or corpus, being a completely new work, a new translation, or containing a substantial addition or improvement to an existing text. It was especially uncommon for religious works to receive privileges. Although a known almost twenty-four percent of all books published under privilege in France through 1526 fall under the classification of religion, none were for editions of the Bible, and prior to Tory only Antoine Vérard received on for his 1508 </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Les Heures Nostre Dame</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"> (Armstrong, 165). Herein one finds acknowledgement of Tory’s genius; both the 1524 and 1527 editions have been granted privileges. The former was awarded a chancery privilege, with the particular mention of his “certaine histoires & vignettes [certain pictures and vignettes]” and his ability to bridge those “a L’antique [of antique style]” and those “a la Moderne [of modern style]” (</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Les heures</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"> 1524, 1v). The latter likewise received a chancery privilege, with the same nods to his art compounded by praise for his knack for “divulguer, acroistre, et decorer la la[n]gue Latine et francoise [revealing, improving, and ornamenting the Latin and French languages]” in both form and function (</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;">Les heures</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline;"> 1527, 1v). The first was granted for a period of six years and the second for a period of ten, the overlap suggesting that the two works were considered distinct enough, and each on its own “new” enough, to earn the right of exclusivity. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: 36pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tory’s contributions to the French language, in the ways it was spoken and written, in its abstract and physical forms, in itself and its bibliographic context, provided the nation with a contemporary visage and style unmatched elsewhere. He imbued French books with their “Frenchness”, carving out a distinct national space in an international market coming out of its infancy.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">(18327)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">References:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Armstrong, Elizabeth. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Before Copyright: The French Book-Privilege System 1498-1526</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">. Cambridge, 1990.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Horae in laudem beatissime semper Virginis Marie</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">. Paris, 1524 [privilege granted in 1524, imprint states 1525].</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Hore in laudem beatissime Virginis Marie</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">. Paris, 1527.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Ivins, Jr., William M. “Geoffroy Tory.” </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;"> 15.4 (1920), 79-86.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">Lucian of Samosata. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">La mouche de Lucian, et La maniere de parler et de se taire</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap; white-space: pre;">. Paris, 1533.</span></div>
<br />Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-61129695231865135212018-07-09T11:00:00.000-04:002018-07-11T11:24:21.855-04:00Unfolding Early Education and the Practice of Play<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Fröbel-Album. Emmy Boldt</i> (cover title) and <i>Weaving</i> (cover title)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNOHPrk-m3Ae7GNoFXxMBE0aZIS8VhrB4F2c4YjXnAnCuE81hwOcb8gOnZBTzUVIxmUjq3oM6cosxlDEs3GemtqYqnXFkilgebvKX2cvYuC8_yWBeEA1KhXF15j5yJY4TWxvkKheqx2QA/s1600/DCB74205-B49F-4CC7-8795-0B915080FE3B.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNOHPrk-m3Ae7GNoFXxMBE0aZIS8VhrB4F2c4YjXnAnCuE81hwOcb8gOnZBTzUVIxmUjq3oM6cosxlDEs3GemtqYqnXFkilgebvKX2cvYuC8_yWBeEA1KhXF15j5yJY4TWxvkKheqx2QA/s320/DCB74205-B49F-4CC7-8795-0B915080FE3B.JPG" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix5F0CcPjfPjm9rRj4nPJTA4KG_QZ5HytXq6JHsHwWC4wp7Yo-BrE09Ny0DxFaIgri_GrvR8uT02AXW3ePdRd_tN2W3tLPHeTRkUMgHZh9OtAU_xQAyYr71jPdH0tMgV8i__8qNvPY6Gc/s1600/97CD8B43-D49B-40C3-9CFC-71EB02D35BDC.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1173" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix5F0CcPjfPjm9rRj4nPJTA4KG_QZ5HytXq6JHsHwWC4wp7Yo-BrE09Ny0DxFaIgri_GrvR8uT02AXW3ePdRd_tN2W3tLPHeTRkUMgHZh9OtAU_xQAyYr71jPdH0tMgV8i__8qNvPY6Gc/s320/97CD8B43-D49B-40C3-9CFC-71EB02D35BDC.JPG" width="234" /></a></div>
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In the early nineteenth century, Friedrich Fröbel proposed
the radical notion that education, and early education in particular, was a
creative process, and that before setting foot in a customary schoolroom,
children ought to be grounded in self-expression and playfulness. The reality
of the proposition was the establishment of the kindergarten system and Fröbel’s
“gifts” and “occupations”. His gifts consisted of physical implements, such as
wood blocks and yarn, which students could manipulate and mutate. His occupations
required slightly more craftsmanship, involving the cutting, folding, and
pricking of paper and advancing through a series of skills including embroidery
and weaving. Both the gifts and the occupations offered avenues for play in
tandem with tasks to be mastered, wherein students received the rewards of
their own creativity.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieLYCYCI4dGtCX9rixMYY8IKouk0yZitsh3zeJABiqY_U6uSIZ6_XioHNKxoaz2A4Tu5PHMO8u0JvQqTaerToKxHatSX_u-sf771T9iG2wlnvBoTk3bzuMvInJF7p4rvwUeNYnem3leCE/s1600/27B372CF-F4B5-43A0-8170-165CBF1FA717.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieLYCYCI4dGtCX9rixMYY8IKouk0yZitsh3zeJABiqY_U6uSIZ6_XioHNKxoaz2A4Tu5PHMO8u0JvQqTaerToKxHatSX_u-sf771T9iG2wlnvBoTk3bzuMvInJF7p4rvwUeNYnem3leCE/s320/27B372CF-F4B5-43A0-8170-165CBF1FA717.JPG" width="240" /></a>Fröbel viewed the various paper techniques as the foundation
of the other occupations. In his own autobiographical reflections, he asked of
himself “‘What did you do as a boy? What happened to you to satisfy that need
of yours for something to do and to express? By what, at the same period of
your life, was this need most fully met, or what did you then most desire for
this purpose?’” (<i>Autobiography</i> 75).
Fröbel’s personal answer, the creation of forms out of paper, fulfilled his and
his students’ need to derive “precise, clear, and many-sided results due to
[their] own creative power” (<i>Autobiography</i>
76). This activity concretely connected the student to Nature, such that the
student could mirror Nature’s creative powers and in so doing find a greater
sense of belonging, enterprise, and wisdom. The folding of paper also offered a
tangible basis for abstract mathematical and logical concepts. A child would make
“progressive experiments which teach it by experience” (<i>Reminiscences</i> 71). Such experimentation was, in Fröbel’s words, the
means by which “unconsciousness is raised to consciousness” (<i>Reminiscences </i>73). His gifts and
occupations worked to prompt the child to the nature of work and introduced
them through playful and practical means to the abstract notions of the
gathering and employment of knowledge.</div>
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During his lifetime, Fröbel’s ideas progressed throughout
Germany and the Netherlands, gathering the support of several royal proponents,
such as the Baroness Bertha Marie von Marenholtz-Bülow and the Duke of Meiningen.
Unfortunately, just before his death the Prussian government banned Fröbel’s
practices, citing them as “atheistic and demagogic”. Though the ban was more
the result of a confusion of names – Fröbel’s nephew had published an unwelcome
pamphlet on the education of women – the damage deterred the growth of
kindergarten education in Europe for fifteen years. Fröbel’s legacy instead
grew in the United States, where his former pupil, Margarethe Schurz, founded in
1856 the first American kindergarten and later inspired the educational
reformers Elizabeth Peabody and Lucy Wheelock. Fröbel occupations became
particularly popular in the Midwest, as exhibited by the two volumes pictured.
Students would compile albums of their work as a means to track their
competencies and display their creativity. Whereas the “Weaving” album shows a
single skill improved over time, the “Fröbel-Album” evinces a steady
progression through a variety of tasks completed with increasing skill. <br />
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These and other albums like them, in their invitation to
create something out of nothing and to repurpose common materials new fashions,
served as an inspiration for later abstract artistic movements. The Bauhaus
school took particular cues from Fröbel; Walter Gropius designed the <i>Friedrich Fröbel Haus</i> in his honor (the
building was never completed, but building plans can be viewed <a href="http://www.froebelweb.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=71:admin&catid=46:froebelorte&Itemid=58" target="_blank">here</a>).
Frank Lloyd Wright also noted Fröbel as a key influence, stating that his early
interactions building and rebuilding with a set of Fröbel gifts taught him the
basic elements of geometry and structure (Alofsin 359). Fröbel has made more
indirect impressions elsewhere in the creation and perpetuation of toys and
educational materials that encourage expression through manipulation, such as
LEGO blocks and Montessori sensorial materials.<o:p></o:p></div>
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(28032); (28055)<o:p></o:p></div>
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References:<o:p></o:p></div>
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Alofsin, Anthony. <i>Frank
Lloyd Wright – The Lost Years, 1910-1922: A Study of Influence</i>. (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1993).<o:p></o:p></div>
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Fröbel, Friedrich. <i>Autobiography
of Friedrich Froebel</i>. Translated by Emilie Michaelis and H. Keatley Moore.
(London: Swan Sonnenchein, 1908).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">Marenholtz-B</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">ü</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , sans-serif; line-height: 115%;">low,
Baroness B. von. <i>Reminiscences of
Friedrich Froebel</i>. Translated by Mary Mann. (Boston: Lee and Shepard,
1889).</span>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-24639544690416759512018-06-11T12:00:00.000-04:002018-06-11T12:00:04.415-04:00The World On Display<br />
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<i>Polyorama Panoptique</i>. (c. 1830).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitttouM6haUmoBGtL-g89ysaIYa8HMgvR3UwvZtHSpVMmKeYdHwOZ7LKizAAXfzlAGvC3FJXT3tflWsh2w-zA-PaUtW51jZgd0ekcT8GussbNP0bXD8dsDXguQluH6qGIj3yOxyPF3SOo/s1600/2FBFAB47-DBEC-4D38-A125-1ADC289E9BB4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1415" data-original-width="1600" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitttouM6haUmoBGtL-g89ysaIYa8HMgvR3UwvZtHSpVMmKeYdHwOZ7LKizAAXfzlAGvC3FJXT3tflWsh2w-zA-PaUtW51jZgd0ekcT8GussbNP0bXD8dsDXguQluH6qGIj3yOxyPF3SOo/s320/2FBFAB47-DBEC-4D38-A125-1ADC289E9BB4.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Polyorama
Panoptique</i> is not so much an optical toy as an illusory experience. With
the wooden box in one hand and the wooden lens in the other, the viewer may
find stretched out before him or her the streets of London with the familiar Westminster
Abbey in the background or the noble arch of the Champs Elys<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin;">é</span>es.
Slides encapsulate these scenes; each one bears a short cloth tab for easy
extraction, a label at the back of the frame to identify the illustration, and
many have careful cutouts or points edging chandeliers, skylines, and candles.
By adjusting the concertina or the doors at the top and back of the box, and
thus allowing different amounts of light to illuminate the scene, streetlamps
may glow, windows may shine, and day may turn to night. Forty-two such images
accompany this particular <i>Panoptique</i>.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBEfO1k4pYjgXuJ_1aXryNg0QMkbSZubY30jARNxq1YDzQQpmAt0JKK61-SIQeBRczMCKKDypkf_DDVTOS8sQ1Avro0xICePw8DfMkojcShUl1Vo9JucmmGx-_RPPnpP57zUZVir93hEY/s1600/1C2AA592-EBF3-4D71-81C0-B7453A128307.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBEfO1k4pYjgXuJ_1aXryNg0QMkbSZubY30jARNxq1YDzQQpmAt0JKK61-SIQeBRczMCKKDypkf_DDVTOS8sQ1Avro0xICePw8DfMkojcShUl1Vo9JucmmGx-_RPPnpP57zUZVir93hEY/s320/1C2AA592-EBF3-4D71-81C0-B7453A128307.JPG" width="240" /></a>The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Panoptique</i> was
at its popular height from the 1820s through the 1850s, paralleling the success
of its full-size inspiration, the Dioramas created by Louis Daguerre and
Charles-Marie Bouton. The Diorama, as opposed to the also-popular Panorama, was
a dynamic theatrical experience that required movement of both the scenery and
the audience. A custom theater was built in Paris, and later in Regent’s Park
in London, that provided two adjacent stages, in front of which the audience
would pivot on a turntable. Each stage displayed layers of paintings on linen,
made transparent in selected areas and arranged along a deep tunnel. Through
skylights, screens, shutters, and colored blinds, sunlight then transformed
each image, subtly or dramatically. Thus the audience’s gaze was manipulated
not only through the inclusion of multiple images, but also through the
transformation of the images themselves. Like the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Panoptique</i>’s slides, the Dioramas presented familiar scenes and
landscapes: the Holyrood Chapel, Mon St. Godard, and the Harbour of Brest,
among others. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4efLQpZGIxK4tJY4AgHPPv8R74hVgAySYjG8e0g515oezP4bVAgXi7nxq6Hm4uY4IAlrgtHYVuXLHaEzfRGRVWzcqPVkecA3a_ibo11dV4WXvkVawZnnXbkpRCqTv_e-SEzMIijSBh18/s1600/27801_4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="617" data-original-width="800" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4efLQpZGIxK4tJY4AgHPPv8R74hVgAySYjG8e0g515oezP4bVAgXi7nxq6Hm4uY4IAlrgtHYVuXLHaEzfRGRVWzcqPVkecA3a_ibo11dV4WXvkVawZnnXbkpRCqTv_e-SEzMIijSBh18/s320/27801_4.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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This hyperrealism of highly recognizable natural and manmade
features, and implicating the audience in those scenes through compulsory
participation, bestows upon the images a sense of the fantastic. The “normal” –
the train plying its way through the land, the cabs and horses circling each
other in front of state houses, the men and women milling about the large fora
of major cities – becomes abnormal, a thing to be wondered at and interacted
with on a new plane. Yet the interaction is stunted; there is an artificial but
impenetrable distance between the viewer and the object, one that does not
exist in real life. This distance, this insistence at holding the viewer at arm’s
length while the world changes, is the true source of the Diorama and the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Panoptique</i>’s power. They are so profound
because they render the touchable untouchable and the real unreal, and all of
it highly ephemeral (the Diorama performance lasted at most fifteen minutes,
and the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Panoptique</i>’s slides may be
changed at will). The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Panoptique</i>
makes this sensation mobile and places ownership of the experience literally
into the hands of the viewer. But this shrinkage and consequential
responsibility comes with an increased sense of fantasy and dissociation. The
viewer may hold the world in his or her pocket, may turn on or off the lights,
but despite their best efforts will never reach the place they see. The key
elements, that is, the fixedness of scope and scene and the temporality of the
images, dictate the extent of the interaction, and ultimately set the viewer at
enough of a remove that his or her activity is inevitably futile. This futility
generates fantasy, the sense that if the world cannot be totally embraced and
understood, that it cannot be real. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Panoptique</i>
in this way moves beyond a simple mechanism of entertainment; it reveals to the
viewer their incapability and allows them to wonder at it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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(27801)</div>
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<br />Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-3957829617957392472018-06-04T12:00:00.000-04:002018-06-04T12:00:10.384-04:00Tradition By Hand: A Book of Russian Folk Art<br />
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Denshin, Alexei. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vyatskaya
glinyanaya igrushka v risunkakh: raskraska risunkov ruchnaya, yachnymi
kraskami, tochno skopirovannymi s podlinnikov.</i> Moscow, 1917.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgY5Kwsr7Mu2Qd_79gttdUniG-1ZljK43FONGQNXJKTe1FmGkJbeQud5czCKrH3-3dUzoEWyL-TxdSwE73oNtN_418_OFNoYCoV4YjaQtj9bMhKSF8VLifUfcLB2ZbsPzPhP06Mlw0kjM/s1600/2C77E8FA-4BAA-4DB2-948A-68EC86C6D6B6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1574" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgY5Kwsr7Mu2Qd_79gttdUniG-1ZljK43FONGQNXJKTe1FmGkJbeQud5czCKrH3-3dUzoEWyL-TxdSwE73oNtN_418_OFNoYCoV4YjaQtj9bMhKSF8VLifUfcLB2ZbsPzPhP06Mlw0kjM/s320/2C77E8FA-4BAA-4DB2-948A-68EC86C6D6B6.JPG" width="314" /></a></div>
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Folk art, and artistic style itself, bends over time to the
weight of cultural change, its authenticity eroding until a new style rises up
to take its place. It takes deep traditional roots and regional resilience for
a method to withstand such pressures; such is the case with Russian Dymkovo
toys. The small figurines were first explicitly mentioned in 1811, but were
noted as key parts of a celebration to commemorate a battle some four hundred
years prior. Made from clay and river sand and whitewashed with chalk diluted
in milk, the toys take on grotesque, almost amoebic shapes. The limbs of men
and women extend only vaguely out from their ill-defined torsos, and the legs
of cows, deer, and rams are often only half-realized curves protruding from
their bodies. All are decorated in geometric patterns in bright colors – a duck
may be covered in green dots, a ram’s horns may be a brilliant orange, a woman’s
skirt checked in blue and yellow. To this is sometimes added gold leaf, giving
the rustic figures a strange richness. They depict not only real creatures, but
also fanciful ones, such as horses with two heads or winged beasts.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghOGcNxow7lpLK_3bmdd15JWbpWqxGX5bBxkuGlSCJJPAw0GmngWryvCaLMJn_Ds3XH-HFXIsTDYAYXRHJPMR9xxmf9xZ1oXZDkv1JvM5z7BerSbUyk09URoRw4DgDJ8M7UlK4EDoG9Ao/s1600/635DCA69-8521-4DA5-A974-AC0168195A84.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1535" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghOGcNxow7lpLK_3bmdd15JWbpWqxGX5bBxkuGlSCJJPAw0GmngWryvCaLMJn_Ds3XH-HFXIsTDYAYXRHJPMR9xxmf9xZ1oXZDkv1JvM5z7BerSbUyk09URoRw4DgDJ8M7UlK4EDoG9Ao/s320/635DCA69-8521-4DA5-A974-AC0168195A84.JPG" width="306" /></a></div>
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The 1811 mention of the Dymkovo toys occurs in the writing
of Major General Khitrovo, who had been sent into exile to the region of Vytaka.
There, at the village of Khlynov, he learned of the legend of the Khlynovo
massacre, an event unconfirmed but seared into the collective memory of the
town. Each year the villagers gathered to commemorate the bloodshed, and here
Khitrovo noted that brightly colored and gilded clay dolls were sold to honor
the widows left after the battle. The gathering, called <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Svistoplyaska</i>, functioned not only as a remembrance of the past,
but also as a festival to celebrate spring fertility. The festival required
participants to whistle in the new season with pennywhistles, and this ritual
was performed by women. Women also were the only ones who created the Dymkovo
toys, thus asserting themselves as the heralds of springtime and the bearers of
renewal and continuity in the land and among the people.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd-B-BneLV4gAdMwbDcicKMJokhsJ5WIq4hSxOxAJT2RbrJz4DxdYlrPP7fnQg1-ShnQW4gFc8ZYYwnhNUleU11NRpo1LrOU5ykQBXNgCV0ZHPTTC9fv4RrgxTkHxiltqACap22gzEzHY/s1600/17F2D935-41D5-46A3-8D42-C92B1CDBA92F.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="930" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd-B-BneLV4gAdMwbDcicKMJokhsJ5WIq4hSxOxAJT2RbrJz4DxdYlrPP7fnQg1-ShnQW4gFc8ZYYwnhNUleU11NRpo1LrOU5ykQBXNgCV0ZHPTTC9fv4RrgxTkHxiltqACap22gzEzHY/s320/17F2D935-41D5-46A3-8D42-C92B1CDBA92F.JPG" width="186" /></a>As time passed, the toys became more sophisticated. Ladies
might bear parasols or wear bonnets, men might sport top hats and cloaks, after
the fashions of city-dwellers. Toys might display multiple figures – a woman
riding a horse, or a couple holding hands – and separate toys might be arranged
into tableaux. However, by the beginning of the twentieth century,
mass-manufactured porcelain and plaster figurines were threatening the
traditional handmade crafts. The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Svistoplyaska
</i>festival still existed, although now known as the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Svistunya</i>, but had been reduced to a children’s party. However, in the
Soviet era, the old ways were revived; in 1939, masters of the Dymkovo craft
were commissioned to create a panneau for that year’s agricultural exhibition.
Now, students may travel to the Vytaka (or Kirov) region, where the Kirov
Artist Union closely monitors the use of traditional methods to create the
toys. Though the field is still small, it trudges onward in the hands of eager
young artists who learn the old ways from village women.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoPHa9ZIc2o6h5AYJ1j8-Oc5TKYI98d99xqDwtICe_atmA0Rhlgb1wzXKc4ohgO22MigCMXwIMwQ83I0PkIqSd8u3cIPtj6VSldqGrjyIZl2dAbpwv6eZC5Vm86Xq4si5na9EYltr2inc/s1600/79AF06A4-3DBC-4434-98C4-C3AA03EC93B0.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1183" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoPHa9ZIc2o6h5AYJ1j8-Oc5TKYI98d99xqDwtICe_atmA0Rhlgb1wzXKc4ohgO22MigCMXwIMwQ83I0PkIqSd8u3cIPtj6VSldqGrjyIZl2dAbpwv6eZC5Vm86Xq4si5na9EYltr2inc/s320/79AF06A4-3DBC-4434-98C4-C3AA03EC93B0.JPG" width="236" /></a>The revival of the tradition of the Dymkovo toys relied not just
on the few old women who exhibited their handiwork at the agricultural
exhibition; it also owes its success in part to Alexei Denshin (1893-1948), a
Moscow artist fascinated with the craft. Denshin published a series of
monographs on the toys, and in his later career taught at the Vytaka Art
College. His interest in the tradition began early on, as exemplified in this
1917 volume of hand-colored drawings that reproduced original figurines. In
them, Denshin well-represents the abstractness of the toys, and his colors
glint off the pages as they would off the originals. The volume has a stated
limitation of three hundred copies, but the amount of work required to produce
it – the drawings are hand-done and glued to each page, the introductory text
has been lithographed in sepia from Denshin’s own calligraphy, the book itself
is carefully stab-bound with string – suggests that the actual number published
is not so high. It retains its original board slipcase, which had hand-done ornamentation
in red and black. The volume itself is a work of art, a book of careful
construction and whimsical artistic style, but its significance lies in its
testament as a man’s consideration of a woman’s art, its recognition of the
resiliency of cultural custom, and its celebration of the rural arts that speak
to the soul of the Russian countryside.<br />
<br />
(27602)</div>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-40049641390671884692018-05-16T14:20:00.001-04:002018-05-18T15:06:57.857-04:00Finding Something Never Lost: A "Ghost" Edition of Ovid<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4SS_SDeesHu4BhP5qa-CSjcl1ZEoOFqUeczeHZSjtFDwdxeYNUMmtVZN8x4W8uv3LMu8X1wL8AFt8vtOXyX5Ppukuae9P9kVHmTHZFk0VZRtb0JNYsZukf8dOEbI7ojcKvYU9tD_CJ80/s1600/IMG_2768.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4SS_SDeesHu4BhP5qa-CSjcl1ZEoOFqUeczeHZSjtFDwdxeYNUMmtVZN8x4W8uv3LMu8X1wL8AFt8vtOXyX5Ppukuae9P9kVHmTHZFk0VZRtb0JNYsZukf8dOEbI7ojcKvYU9tD_CJ80/s400/IMG_2768.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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Typically, references to “ghost” editions indicate the
absence of a physical book. The volume appears in letters, auction catalogs,
library checklists, or the footnotes of other works, but its tangible existence
still eludes the bibliographer. This edition, however, is the reverse; we have
the book in hand, with a clear colophon and a shred of provenance, and yet it
has left no trace in the abstract bibliographic record. I undertook research on
the volume, in the hopes of illuminating some as-yet feature that would
contextualize it more solidly, but the “ghost” edition is, in fact, a ghost.
What I accomplished instead was some strenuous exercise of my bibliographic
toolkit for early modern books, a comforting return to my academic roots in
Classical literature, and a few more drops of information on the volume itself.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The book contains two of Ovid’s later works, the Heroides
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ibis</i>, each with accompanying
commentary. Alongside the Heroides, as usual for such renderings of the period,
appear Angelo Sabino’s letters, in which he posed as Ovid’s poetic friend
Sabinus. The volume is consistently formatted as a folio in sixes, except for the
final gathering of four. The pagination is sloppy, both in structure and
typography. Of 94 folios, only the first forty-two are foliated, and of those,
the foliation statement is: 1-22, 24 [23], 23 [24], 25-36, [37], 38, [39-40], 41,
43 [42]. The printer prefers “Y” to “V”, and sticks with an uppercase set until
page thirty-one, at which point he starts to mix upper and lower cases. New
chapters in both the main text and in the surrounding commentary begin with
wood-block initials, except for the start of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ibis</i>, which is missing its decorated “T”. The running headers are
entirely in uppercase until near the end of Hermione’s letter to Orestes, at
which point they follow normal capitalization rules for proper nouns. The text
is in an anonymous sort of Roman type, with the title in Gothic. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjV2IvsyehfZaZMMvG0_R-Jq7sIYbIpQvhO0QdmdsqgdIqH9RiZk-JRCsE8Q2UoQpkMMaoyj9i5hxJG4Eu46WHxG8FEuvFivDm98SEKuMGoEvIUaA4PxhSspqv4atqOOr-t1ZODXc51EQ/s1600/IMG_2763.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjV2IvsyehfZaZMMvG0_R-Jq7sIYbIpQvhO0QdmdsqgdIqH9RiZk-JRCsE8Q2UoQpkMMaoyj9i5hxJG4Eu46WHxG8FEuvFivDm98SEKuMGoEvIUaA4PxhSspqv4atqOOr-t1ZODXc51EQ/s320/IMG_2763.JPG" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwAK3zcReY-BraUHfaP4MDReQaakcEzra3_pINd39JUo_kY1IaPKs4M92irq_PhQ1BHJLTpwcsLZttdN_K6jjFDT5gF2YLH1643nGKM6bl9X1EG8OIb4oAkBRSUmi5CQMYYfl-KDLJmNg/s1600/IMG_2761.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwAK3zcReY-BraUHfaP4MDReQaakcEzra3_pINd39JUo_kY1IaPKs4M92irq_PhQ1BHJLTpwcsLZttdN_K6jjFDT5gF2YLH1643nGKM6bl9X1EG8OIb4oAkBRSUmi5CQMYYfl-KDLJmNg/s320/IMG_2761.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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Overall, the book appears to represent the work of a
somewhat adept printer, who had little taste for frills and less for
consistency. The colophon attributes the edition to “Caligulam Bacielerium
Civem Bononiensem”, or Caligola Bazalieri of Bologna, thanks to VIAF authority
records. Bazalieri was active form 1490 to 1512, and thus this volume, printed
in 1501, marks the midpoint of his career. Bazalieri’s brother, Bazaliero
Bazalieri, was also a printer, and the two adopted similar styles. We have
suggested that Caligola Bazalieri’s version of the Heroides mirrors an earlier
edition printed by his brother, but since Caligola was also an author and
translator, the attribution is murky. Seventeen of Bazalieri’s supposed
forty-two editions are known only through bibliographies, making the possession
of one at all, and especially one unrecorded, particularly rare. Bazalieri’s
significance to the history of the book comes not from the Classical or religious
literature that comprises most of his body of work, but from his printing of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Buovo di Antonia</i>, a medieval romance originating
in the British Isles. Bazalieri’s 1497 edition of the text is believed to be
the source of the edition printed a short time later by Elye Bokher, which was
the first non-religious book to be printed in Yiddish (Rosenzweig, 29).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieMINgoGAuJ5ilcHfJEAU3_OxaVKHkGPGPYUJmpXXucUk-wdUWzEcDxKRTmV3V0gHT4KIQ9bQplI5YZADE9EUytZ2x-O7m-BbMSswvDKZozQFJNHQMQArRgTFmb8ucpGTfTA5y53w7ALs/s1600/IMG_2762.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieMINgoGAuJ5ilcHfJEAU3_OxaVKHkGPGPYUJmpXXucUk-wdUWzEcDxKRTmV3V0gHT4KIQ9bQplI5YZADE9EUytZ2x-O7m-BbMSswvDKZozQFJNHQMQArRgTFmb8ucpGTfTA5y53w7ALs/s320/IMG_2762.JPG" width="240" /></a>The book’s other foothold is in its provenance. A penciled library
inscription attributes the volume to the library of the Durazzo family,
particularly the avid collector Giacomo Filippo Durazzo III, and indicates that
it was bound by Carlo Zehe. These two statements make sense together; Zehe was
Durazzo’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">legatore di fiducia</i>, or
trusted personal bookbinder, and his name is scattered throughout Alberto
Petrucciani’s catalog of Durazzo’s collection of incunabula (Petrucciani 1984,
301). Durazzo amassed a vast collection of books and other natural and cultural
curiosities, which he eventually housed in a private villa called “Cornigliano”
and displayed as a sort of museum. In keeping with the fashion of the time,
Durazzo at one point asked for all his incunabula to be washed of marginalia
(Jensen, 153). Thus, while the 1501 imprint on this particular volume has
probably kept it just barely out of a catalog, it also saved the black and
brown hand-written annotations that fall on many of its pages. Though the book
is bound in a style not uncommon to Zehe – quarter red morocco with red morocco
tips and light red paper over boards and gilt work to the spine – there are no clear
marks of provenance. There are some shelf marks on the endpapers, but otherwise
the volume is anonymous and attributing it to the Durazzo library is largely
speculation. The book remains a tangible ghost.<o:p></o:p></div>
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References:</div>
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Jensen, Kristian. <i>Revolution and the Antiquarian Book: Reshaping the Past, 1780-1815</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.</div>
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Petrucciani, Alberto. "Bibliofili e Librai nel Settecento: La Formazione della Biblioteca Durazzo (1776-1783)." <i>Atti della Societa Ligure di Storia Patria </i>24 (98) Fasc. 1. Genoa, 1984.</div>
<br />
<br />
-----. "Gli Incunaboli della Biblioteca Durazzo." <i>Atti della Societa Ligure di Storia Patria </i>28 (102) Fasc. 2. Genoa, 1988.<br />
<br />
Rosenzweig, Claudia. <i><u>Buovo d'Antona</u> by Elye Bokher. A Yiddish Romance: A Critical Edition with Commentary</i>. BRILL, 2015.Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-74211541740857276982018-05-09T11:10:00.000-04:002018-05-09T11:10:42.987-04:00The Great Omar and the Modern Renaissance of Jeweled Bookbinding<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1cupQAwz1LyXQL4YFMk3ipTFz1vYbeZK_2r6D3QhHvu91C8mRx9cjB_q61dLy2TmjsTs7BimsFDl5ZXWAlZwsKOIEXXmGUAQWzhzc6jcmRRFfTOvoP33fKGBUWbOg43EnJShWpZplsyM/s1600/GreatOmar_Color.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="616" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1cupQAwz1LyXQL4YFMk3ipTFz1vYbeZK_2r6D3QhHvu91C8mRx9cjB_q61dLy2TmjsTs7BimsFDl5ZXWAlZwsKOIEXXmGUAQWzhzc6jcmRRFfTOvoP33fKGBUWbOg43EnJShWpZplsyM/s400/GreatOmar_Color.png" width="368" /></a></div>
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Last week, Anne Bromer gave a thorough and informative lecture before the Ticknor Society on the twentieth-century resurgence of the art of jeweled bookbinding and the twisted saga of The Great Omar. Below is an abridged version of the talk, so that those who were absent can appreciate the story and those who attended can further explore its details.<br />
<br />
The Sangorski-bound <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rubaiyat
of Omar Khayyam</i>, otherwise known at The Great Omar, is the greatest, and
possibly only, book to be bound thrice in the same sumptuous manner over an
eighty-year period. The first iteration, the true Great Omar, was crafted by
the co-founder of Sangorski and Sutcliffe, Francis Sangorski, at the commission
of John Stonehouse, the manager of the antiquarian bookseller Sotheran’s, to
celebrate the coronation of George V in 1911. It featured 1,051 gems arranged
to highlight the upper cover’s three peacocks, the lower cover’s model Persian <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">oud</i>, and the serpent of Eden, skull, and
poppy on its interior covers. After a series of setback preventing the book’s
direct sale and its shipment to the United States, it finally began its voyage
on the ill-fated <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Titanic</i>. The Great
Omar, in its oak casket, was buried on the ocean floor. The second Great Omar
met an equally tragic fate. Remade by Stanley Bray according to Sangorski’s
original drawings, this instantiation was ruined by the German Blitz of London
in 1941, its metal and leather melting the heat from the bombs. In 1989, Bray,
at the age of 82, completed the third Great Omar, using the stones that
remained from the second. Though this third binding cannot compare in precision
or brilliance to its predecessors, it nevertheless marks the mastery of its
original designer, the dedication of its reproducer, and the incomparable and
consistent artistry of the Sangorski and Sutcliffe firm.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQV14LMGw_mlol_1dhV8-hGC_HC0ifuviyw8ep3EHNZmxJCAJAkiWyHMNsaYsmCrwW661OS_hX55jnnnAPUG-JOJT-jSC4PMVd8kNYeF1FfPwJ_hn6NR0qU2YUbUbkgVLg9HPP0rUoJZ0/s1600/LindauGospels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="371" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQV14LMGw_mlol_1dhV8-hGC_HC0ifuviyw8ep3EHNZmxJCAJAkiWyHMNsaYsmCrwW661OS_hX55jnnnAPUG-JOJT-jSC4PMVd8kNYeF1FfPwJ_hn6NR0qU2YUbUbkgVLg9HPP0rUoJZ0/s320/LindauGospels.jpg" width="247" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Lindau Gospels, now held at the Morgan Library</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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As much as The Great Omar was itself a masterwork, it was
also a revival piece. At the founding of Sangorski and Sutcliffe and the
inspiration for The Great Omar, jeweled bookbinding had been out of fashion,
and thus long out of the artistic realm of bookbinding, for about three hundred
years. The style had been popular throughout the medieval period as a symbol of
wealth and status. Jewels also adorned the bindings of religious texts, like
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lindau Gospels</i>, as a way of
foreshadowing the riches of God’s kingdom and hailing His blessings on earth.
Many of these bindings were destroying during the iconoclasm of the Protestant
Reformation and the dissolution of the monasteries. This eschewal of the
connection between luxury and religion, compounded with the shift in taste from
jewels to velvet, embroidery, pearls, and silk bindings, the art of jeweled
bookbinding fell by the wayside.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Whereas medieval jeweled bindings frequently used large gems
in simple geometric layouts, Sangorski and Sutcliffe’s designs relied on their
deliberate integration of the stones into an intricate motif. Their rival, the
firm of Robert Rivière and Son, challenged Sangorski and Sutcliffe in this
modern style subtle thematics. Rivière and Son’s master calligrapher and
miniaturist was Alberto Sangorski, Francis Sangorski’s brother. Two of Alberto
Sangorski’s pieces, Keat’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Belle Dame
Sans Merci</i> (21406) and Poe’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Annabel
Lee and Other Poems </i>(21734), dazzle the eye with carefully set gemstones
surrounding and embellishing the authors’ initials. Their interiors are no less
splendid, featuring calligraphy, miniatures, and illustrations all completed by
Sangorski’s hand. They, like The Great Omar, are incredible bindings on
incredible books.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiueq7BJdBiGZeYV5a5DhI5t0UKKbdvpTKvH_A-GGxK-NHCI0Pgiofp3-Lgz1qjtQFHOqRWy6oABpjn3e_CWqcprclY9keSMIBdub9Xwaq19bkSDPC9nX0pQe48HSuIFixYTmaPb4mfKTs/s1600/IMG_2669.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1254" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiueq7BJdBiGZeYV5a5DhI5t0UKKbdvpTKvH_A-GGxK-NHCI0Pgiofp3-Lgz1qjtQFHOqRWy6oABpjn3e_CWqcprclY9keSMIBdub9Xwaq19bkSDPC9nX0pQe48HSuIFixYTmaPb4mfKTs/s320/IMG_2669.JPG" width="250" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwHLegu5JsipAd9kLR7WVvr0Bxdq4mv6IiJOHJlunFcN6T7BSn1oYHtpxbXeAQguEyzd-Mo9YRKrQKAnTHih1emyj_OP-r-EalnBXdjEdBR00Dbi_wk5kdePbZLa_ztWop-I0UX287gZ4/s1600/IMG_2670.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwHLegu5JsipAd9kLR7WVvr0Bxdq4mv6IiJOHJlunFcN6T7BSn1oYHtpxbXeAQguEyzd-Mo9YRKrQKAnTHih1emyj_OP-r-EalnBXdjEdBR00Dbi_wk5kdePbZLa_ztWop-I0UX287gZ4/s320/IMG_2670.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLwchZG-e88x2hjHrHtbt92aZTM8GSb1jm_D0clWbBP9w6lKnC4dr1zBMyzSjF9EMNZnI_lPwTNizwYqax0_b-4MMD5clkojzjWY7vXKlAxXNQ1cNN6pjfguu5mrcfgQHPxWMZ9D7Q2qk/s1600/IMG_2671.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1075" data-original-width="1600" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLwchZG-e88x2hjHrHtbt92aZTM8GSb1jm_D0clWbBP9w6lKnC4dr1zBMyzSjF9EMNZnI_lPwTNizwYqax0_b-4MMD5clkojzjWY7vXKlAxXNQ1cNN6pjfguu5mrcfgQHPxWMZ9D7Q2qk/s320/IMG_2671.JPG" width="320" /></a>The art of jeweled bookbinding continues today, albeit in
small pockets of the bookbinding world. Shepherd’s Bookbindery recently
recreated the first Sangorski and Sutcliffe jeweled binding, a copy printed on
vellum of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Epithalamion & Amoretti.</i>
Other examples pop up in miniatures, which are perhaps less costly but
certainly more intimate and needful of surer hands than “full-size” volumes. An
excellent example is Derek Hood’s binding on the miniature <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shall I Die? Shall I Fly?</i> written by Shakespeare and published by
Anne and David Bromer. Following the tradition begun by Sangorski and
Sutcliffe, it artfully incorporates twenty garnets into a larger motif of
cubist question marks, complementing the indecision of the text. The art of jeweled bookbinding, far from lost, is primed for a second revival.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-3104037184015496662018-04-30T10:43:00.000-04:002018-05-01T14:31:31.972-04:00Androgynous Overlays Celebrate (or Undermine) the Politics of Saxony<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe4-mbWk0GPPgGkVaEo6xj1WBBGiowl71hNmVgd-1Mquvf2Pm3urHwYrrmVfaglL0euaW1GWOvGXW9S_9l0CHvjVRxgTUgja_Y1OuSrr8shG7a_C_nXAIYaWO4SgAaGEp__jzkhBp_GgI/s1600/IMG_2678.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1302" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe4-mbWk0GPPgGkVaEo6xj1WBBGiowl71hNmVgd-1Mquvf2Pm3urHwYrrmVfaglL0euaW1GWOvGXW9S_9l0CHvjVRxgTUgja_Y1OuSrr8shG7a_C_nXAIYaWO4SgAaGEp__jzkhBp_GgI/s320/IMG_2678.JPG" width="260" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Clockwise from top left: Traditional Saxon garb, traveling outfit, woman's thick cape, Lutheran priest's outfit, gardener's hat and gloves, woman's hood, apron, and fan, and (center) the Holy Roman Emperor</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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In the mid-seventeenth century, Europe saw a boom in
popularity of mica overlays for miniature portraits. The items functioned in
similar fashion to paper dolls. A base image, often painted in oil and usually
fixed in some sort of metal support, was furnished with a set of outfits
painted on transparent surfaces. These were referred to as “talcs” because they
were formed out of sheer sheets of the eponymous mineral or its kin, mica. The
overlays primarily provided entertainment, but they could also subtly celebrate
rulers, offer religious influence, and perpetuate new fashions.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRJZQSWPpV7s5iIVj6q_UtJsnTdu0osDsObrC4zNVi3GDpn0uVUxchK6zcYjonFPTxNi8EL22tohpivNtkt8p3g6LLSPZfWB3wPF019-zIB3vunU37zrRJS6vUDYBBY2WNxS36sUkLqoQ/s1600/IMG_2680.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1495" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRJZQSWPpV7s5iIVj6q_UtJsnTdu0osDsObrC4zNVi3GDpn0uVUxchK6zcYjonFPTxNi8EL22tohpivNtkt8p3g6LLSPZfWB3wPF019-zIB3vunU37zrRJS6vUDYBBY2WNxS36sUkLqoQ/s320/IMG_2680.JPG" width="299" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmlAdc-OQKyIiUVs7JzLxxyvcQI056IvtPB-DOd_-y0Ax3f2kWFlwT1ymNw07RfbtFJ_ghqdBoyiEmRUQgW_UZHiNXaH6rondcjmlCLLnQ0wzI4Q8ZwCQJq4Q_GNGRLP8KW0FdQbEbjrc/s1600/IMG_2681.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1399" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmlAdc-OQKyIiUVs7JzLxxyvcQI056IvtPB-DOd_-y0Ax3f2kWFlwT1ymNw07RfbtFJ_ghqdBoyiEmRUQgW_UZHiNXaH6rondcjmlCLLnQ0wzI4Q8ZwCQJq4Q_GNGRLP8KW0FdQbEbjrc/s320/IMG_2681.JPG" width="279" /></a></div>
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This set of overlays comes packaged in a false coin, in this
case a 1628 thaler from Saxony. Throughout the Holy Roman Empire, the thaler
was the standard against which various states’ currencies were valued. They
held to the same general layout across state lines: both sides bear text about
their edges, embracing distinctive state imagery. Here, one side states “SA.
ROM. PARCHIM. ET . ELECT. 16. 78” around the heraldic shield of the Electorate
of Saxony under the Holy Roman Empire. The heraldry belongs in particular to
John George I (or Johann Georg I), the Elector of Saxony from 1611-1656. John
George I himself appears on the opposite side of the coin, distinguishable by
his cropped hair and goatee, surrounded by “IOHAN. GEORG. D. G. DUX SAX. IUL
CLIV. ET MONT.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjbmUJxLY7CmU_Z-QQSaeMbI2dcht09oAvqnOjDoHFxqhT540YJIeVweje4SIS7zCnKwOZr_S5_9M2gkq8C99QJrxy-lP9WJucA77Zbr18VCMuXdD8WXDpsNQ0V2bI2MBJTyZGQbkwMaE/s1600/IMG_2679.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjbmUJxLY7CmU_Z-QQSaeMbI2dcht09oAvqnOjDoHFxqhT540YJIeVweje4SIS7zCnKwOZr_S5_9M2gkq8C99QJrxy-lP9WJucA77Zbr18VCMuXdD8WXDpsNQ0V2bI2MBJTyZGQbkwMaE/s1600/IMG_2679.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1055" data-original-width="1600" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjbmUJxLY7CmU_Z-QQSaeMbI2dcht09oAvqnOjDoHFxqhT540YJIeVweje4SIS7zCnKwOZr_S5_9M2gkq8C99QJrxy-lP9WJucA77Zbr18VCMuXdD8WXDpsNQ0V2bI2MBJTyZGQbkwMaE/s320/IMG_2679.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Both interiors are painted. On one side are two figures, a
woman in a blue dress and broad-brimmed hat and a man in an orange tunic. On
the other side is the base figure, a woman in a dress of mid-century style,
with a tight bodice, wide hips and sleeves, and an off-the-shoulder collar. The
woman may be dressed in one of seven outfits, in both men’s and women’s guises.
One overlay places the woman in the styling of the Holy Roman Emperor, with
laurel wreath, scepter, and fur cape. It is possible that this overlay
specifically represents the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III, who reigned from
1637 to 1657, but the defining facial hair was also characteristic of his
successors Ferdinand IV and Leopold I. Another overlay depicts the garb of a
Lutheran cleric, complete with a white amice, likely a point of national pride
since the Protestant Reformation began within the borders of Saxony at
Wittenberg. Other overlays dress the woman in a luxurious fur cape, a hood
and apron, and the dress of a gardener, with thick gloves and flowers.
The androgynous wardrobe reflects the rising vogue of the same practice in
courtly circles. Court masques were beginning to feature women performing male
characters (the “travesty role”), and fashionable women’s riding garb featured
masculine cuts. The overlays stretch this androgyny to include monarchs and
religious leadership, an amusing, but potentially subversive, move. There is
plenty to explore in these overlays, and they are perhaps more politically dense than their physical fragility suggests.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-71497373624026394792018-04-19T11:00:00.000-04:002018-04-25T16:03:57.454-04:00A Sample of the British Revival of Stained Glass<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://www.bromer.com/pages/books/21144/church-windows-a-series-of-designs-original-or-selected-from-ancient-examples" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Church Windows: A Series of Designs, Original or Selected from Ancient Examples</a><br />
By Sebastian Evans.
Birmingham, England, Chance Brothers Co., 1862.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn6MAUrQNJu3IOUIhP9Sb3mtNzpqqPxTqvFL8FHBtlHR79DuWMbUM7J1xHTDxxjAg9AZvkMxTXGxTesOaSpkc2rDwKPcbBpWBitm6iIwyHhdGxgLqUHq22L3zpNsK06jqKgmvSQgQiSzY/s1600/IMG_2637.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1144" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn6MAUrQNJu3IOUIhP9Sb3mtNzpqqPxTqvFL8FHBtlHR79DuWMbUM7J1xHTDxxjAg9AZvkMxTXGxTesOaSpkc2rDwKPcbBpWBitm6iIwyHhdGxgLqUHq22L3zpNsK06jqKgmvSQgQiSzY/s320/IMG_2637.JPG" width="228" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmJkwoOU2Yv3g-IpU4Ge5QkHaINHSkk7wWCNtDrU8_ogT-iz5i10xZuCeaNzM-QIBirLWaGzGU8RfBDtcHxRKBbqgIucOEVLvrP2WGGYnkMNUoL69_Y0fGoxDnoykv_jtwf6jDSgTgrjQ/s1600/IMG_2636.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1111" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmJkwoOU2Yv3g-IpU4Ge5QkHaINHSkk7wWCNtDrU8_ogT-iz5i10xZuCeaNzM-QIBirLWaGzGU8RfBDtcHxRKBbqgIucOEVLvrP2WGGYnkMNUoL69_Y0fGoxDnoykv_jtwf6jDSgTgrjQ/s320/IMG_2636.JPG" width="222" /></a></div>
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The great period of English stained glass manufacturing
occurred approximately from 1100 until 1500, at which point Henry VIII’s
Dissolution of the Monasteries and general displeasure with the Catholic
Church, along with the rising iconoclasm of Puritans, obliterated the industry.
For the next three hundred years, the few “stained glass” windows that were
produced consisted simply of plain painted glass. However, around 1811 Britain
experienced a revival of the ancient method, leading to an enormous boom of
commercial stained glass in the 1830s. Inspired by the surviving medieval
windows at locations like the Canterbury Cathedral and York Minster, both
private artists and designers for mass production used new technologies and
techniques to remaster the art’s precision and romance.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9SIfKQsnWbdtcX0Q2AgqO3NQTLc16bze8UfM94iL_rf88nRJDsGWnKY_ueKblAIzAY3WMZuUpbtv6o7nHro7NNIhO3HbVxJNYTWN1lSBasopHRvs50LAAWnIEZ_3I3qAhcg_PgskMy68/s1600/IMG_2635.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9SIfKQsnWbdtcX0Q2AgqO3NQTLc16bze8UfM94iL_rf88nRJDsGWnKY_ueKblAIzAY3WMZuUpbtv6o7nHro7NNIhO3HbVxJNYTWN1lSBasopHRvs50LAAWnIEZ_3I3qAhcg_PgskMy68/s320/IMG_2635.JPG" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaTE0DR2HzmUKaacOnEMM0F3b_DpWPQkaFF-Q_UgSWnrGqUP0KQ1y07vi1iwDD_4k-I2pcvQP4V3jPS-98WEja17cztHcIyzMrttU7-_lJ6_x6fyYvdAM2ilPrh-iFtxxaoutGuChFzik/s1600/IMG_2639.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaTE0DR2HzmUKaacOnEMM0F3b_DpWPQkaFF-Q_UgSWnrGqUP0KQ1y07vi1iwDD_4k-I2pcvQP4V3jPS-98WEja17cztHcIyzMrttU7-_lJ6_x6fyYvdAM2ilPrh-iFtxxaoutGuChFzik/s320/IMG_2639.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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<i><a href="https://www.bromer.com/pages/books/21144/church-windows-a-series-of-designs-original-or-selected-from-ancient-examples" target="_blank">Church Windows</a></i> is
a sample book from the height of this era and was published by one of the
leading glass manufacturers of the time, Chance Brothers Company. Chance
Brothers was particularly known for its technological advances, which included
Fresnel lenses and rotating optics for lighthouses, the development of
rolled-plate glass, and the successful production of very long pieces of window
glass. The latter of these contributions won the firm a contract to glaze the
Crystal Palace during its construction for the Great Exhibition of 1851.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpKKYfHOtd9Xw_T_bns1B1UGuCbJkFVD7_749eUui-K-vTCcgUgnnIduSI5wt5oF4tmoDQaM2KsC74ksR0OXlwWSQgP0ftV3-rq2o2UL_9p6ctnOYqgIANe5dIHSlrcC9DfqBq0VtON1I/s1600/IMG_2640.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpKKYfHOtd9Xw_T_bns1B1UGuCbJkFVD7_749eUui-K-vTCcgUgnnIduSI5wt5oF4tmoDQaM2KsC74ksR0OXlwWSQgP0ftV3-rq2o2UL_9p6ctnOYqgIANe5dIHSlrcC9DfqBq0VtON1I/s320/IMG_2640.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
This sample book offers a unique perspective on the
company’s stylistic endeavors, led by Sebastian Evans. Evans was a man of many
talents. From 1855 to 1857, he acted as the secretary of the Indian Reform
Association, and was the first man in England to receive news of the Indian
Rebellion of 1857. From there, he became the manager for the art department at
Chance Brothers. After ten years and many windows, he became editor of the <i>Birmingham Daily Gazette</i>. In 1870 he
pursued a legal career, and after being called to the bar in 1873, split his
time between his practice and the articles and stories he contributed to <i>The Observer </i>and <i>Macmillan’s</i> and <i>Longman’s</i>
magazines.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi68MbI5D22xNzaQO2nIH2FBqrDiUBAVEQ5Gyh8G_yI9RA11qZpvARAdjvL1EO_XvVbxR1DoHJ2zV8tP66poByIab1ZK4BqD-JSADSjZVwz9K2CDM7_yb1HwAJa-pdosk-2ZCoWTCpXseM/s1600/IMG_2634.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1131" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi68MbI5D22xNzaQO2nIH2FBqrDiUBAVEQ5Gyh8G_yI9RA11qZpvARAdjvL1EO_XvVbxR1DoHJ2zV8tP66poByIab1ZK4BqD-JSADSjZVwz9K2CDM7_yb1HwAJa-pdosk-2ZCoWTCpXseM/s320/IMG_2634.JPG" width="226" /></a></div>
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Evans mingled with the literati of the mid- to late-Victorian
period, and became a close friend of Edward Burne-Jones. His window designs
evoke the same senses of nostalgia and fantasy as Burne-Jones’s illustrations.
The flowers, vines, and crosses that adorn his windows and his affinity for
ornate patterns evoke the medieval and classical luxury and mythology of other
Victorian artists like William Morris and Dante Rossetti. Each design is
colored with a sample palette, and in his introduction to the book Evans
welcomes “modifications” of both form and color “to suit particular cases.” The
first twenty designs are devoted to small patterns—quarries and borders—which,
in the final handful of plates, are contextualized in complete windows
reproduced in small scale. In this manner, <i>Church
Windows</i> pleasingly and skillfully guides its reader through the creation of
a full window, from its smallest details to its overall design.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">(21144)</span>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-35307474911290542362018-04-11T11:09:00.000-04:002018-04-11T11:09:42.754-04:00Children Take on Bauhaus<br />
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Das
Buch vom Zirkus</i>, by Hans-Friedrich Geist. Halle, 1930.</div>
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One of the greatest influences of the Bauhaus artists extended not from their own
designs, but through the ambitions of their students. Among these,
Hans-Friedrich Geist was particularly ardent, devoting his life to teaching
art to children and encouraging their intrinsic creativity. He was especially entranced with the works of Paul Klee and Josef Albers, and sat as a guest student in their masterclasses. A teacher from the
age of twenty-one, he taught in Altenburg, Meuselwitz, Halle, and Lübeck. He
quickly established himself as one of the most prominent and progressive art
educators in the Weimar Republic, eventually becoming the artistic director of
the Overbeck Society. His contributions were acknowledged in a 2006
exhibition hosted by Meisterhaus Schlemmer in Dessau, Germany (appropriately in
a very Bauhaus building), which displayed works Geist’s students created
during his tenures in Meuselwitz and Halle.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiapWAawefzV6WWDS4jg21-ld5b9CRZ9SWEMcyrRJOXQizP7D74IWCOAGNyJ8zkdmCxfnSCi9Yc9m87h8uvCIXrUTPodEfeR6YA2wHb9EsUugfZio1P-bUG3CS-33BVDesxJFOjOOmJoDU/s1600/IMG_2576.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiapWAawefzV6WWDS4jg21-ld5b9CRZ9SWEMcyrRJOXQizP7D74IWCOAGNyJ8zkdmCxfnSCi9Yc9m87h8uvCIXrUTPodEfeR6YA2wHb9EsUugfZio1P-bUG3CS-33BVDesxJFOjOOmJoDU/s320/IMG_2576.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
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Our recent acquisition of a publication of children’s
illustrations hails from this era of Geist’s career. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Das Buch vom Zirkus</i> features twenty-eight full-page original
linocuts created by Geist’s twelve- to fourteen-year-old students at the art
academy in Halle. Each illustration presents a scene from the circus, including
a lion circling its trainer, clowns playacting for the audience, and trapeze
artists swinging from the ceiling.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgslwRU9tut_tq2R_8FoNow41bixvA7byt8fwy44R6H10s3ct4MgyHGE1bZBp6vVpRoEWPwwI1SBh_uSpImscbyGLwB6ASpSvNOiCIqjrJ4K6iBUAmi82bc2Jiqhl_W5wySs7xldVd7-0A/s1600/IMG_2577.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgslwRU9tut_tq2R_8FoNow41bixvA7byt8fwy44R6H10s3ct4MgyHGE1bZBp6vVpRoEWPwwI1SBh_uSpImscbyGLwB6ASpSvNOiCIqjrJ4K6iBUAmi82bc2Jiqhl_W5wySs7xldVd7-0A/s320/IMG_2577.JPG" width="320" /></a>The circus was a popular theme among the Bauhaus artists.
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy particularly espoused the motif as an extension of the
theater, as a means of intertwining contrasting relationships, such as the
tragicomic or the trivial-monumental, to critique societal needs and “[eliminate]
the subjective.” Xanti Sandinsky’s pantomimes exemplified Moholy-Nagy’s perception
of the circus, pitting tamers against beasts and setting singing and dancing women
against colorful backdrops. While <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Das
Buch vom Zirkus </i>is not nearly so refined in its approach, it is a stunning
example of Bauhaus early education and the importance of production and
publication to the movement.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Reference: Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo. “Theater, Circus, Variety” in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Theater of the Bauhaus</i>. Translated by
Arthur S. Wensinger. 1924.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-1502054852724943532016-03-30T15:53:00.003-04:002016-05-09T20:07:49.122-04:00Announcing a new miniature publication from Bromer Booksellers and Heavenly Monkey<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUDgGl7aCarVfuVo6iXJNlLUJBfBCTJ0VEhm_lE73cZE5CeHZ0tZOgIcRqn4XhAHRhBhL8Xvl1fWDvLK18z2N_XZwz4sJCsHjAA8P6zG-qWEoIcI48wf3Cst1FCCB960jZvHxROVurX28/s1600/26676_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUDgGl7aCarVfuVo6iXJNlLUJBfBCTJ0VEhm_lE73cZE5CeHZ0tZOgIcRqn4XhAHRhBhL8Xvl1fWDvLK18z2N_XZwz4sJCsHjAA8P6zG-qWEoIcI48wf3Cst1FCCB960jZvHxROVurX28/s320/26676_2.jpg" width="251" /></a></div>
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Bromer Booksellers and <a href="http://www.heavenlymonkey.com/" target="_blank">Heavenly Monkey</a> are pleased to announce the publication of <i>XI LXIVMOS: Memoirs of a Bibliomidget</i>, a descriptive bibliography of the <a href="http://www.bromer.com/publications.php" target="_blank">eleven miniature books</a> published by Anne & David Bromer between 1977 and 1985, along with brief stories of the pleasures, coincidences, and difficulties behind the creation of each of the eleven books.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ6xoeiy366jJH6J00EAexepKXxJllKmZQdZLVfjm37VIIvdsGQpCvkkqurlT3Imum3CGmB2wEHl5uiY72vacfP633mU1gZTQUXaQfpKCEU2q9LxKkxUdvukLTf76PQDXkIwNbwpENzfc/s1600/flourish1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ6xoeiy366jJH6J00EAexepKXxJllKmZQdZLVfjm37VIIvdsGQpCvkkqurlT3Imum3CGmB2wEHl5uiY72vacfP633mU1gZTQUXaQfpKCEU2q9LxKkxUdvukLTf76PQDXkIwNbwpENzfc/s1600/flourish1.jpg" /></a></div>
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Set in 8-point Centaur and Arrighi types and printed on dampened paper, the miniature comprises 72 pages and measures 2 3/4 by 2 1/4 inches. Both editions were designed and printed at Heavenly Monkey and bound by <a href="http://www.sarahcreighton.com/" target="_blank">Sarah Creighton</a>. The decorations and vine patterns were designed by Seattle artist <a href="http://www.francescalohmann.com/" target="_blank">Francesca Lohmann</a>.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFDQGsUqIPa42YEUls6Z1ny7HpkloUyouW-FEQPmMVKTmK3kkbvhgFOnu_AFiugV5aMbkb8Lfxayzf9KrN4K2Y7snzmPjqYED2aYXRZpdfJwoqm7i-pm60KGEhKQfJgMlxkXHMd7Q4g_I/s1600/26677.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFDQGsUqIPa42YEUls6Z1ny7HpkloUyouW-FEQPmMVKTmK3kkbvhgFOnu_AFiugV5aMbkb8Lfxayzf9KrN4K2Y7snzmPjqYED2aYXRZpdfJwoqm7i-pm60KGEhKQfJgMlxkXHMd7Q4g_I/s200/26677.jpg" width="173" /></a></div>
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The regular edition of 85 copies (1-85) is printed on Somerset Book paper and bound in a printed vine-patterned paper over boards. Seventy of these copies are available from Bromer Booksellers priced at $150 and can be purchased through our <a href="http://www.bromer.com/pages/books/26677/anne-c-bromer/xi-lxivmos-memoirs-of-a-bibliomidget" target="_blank">website</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQVQm1fLILzmXQAi5nHLtZRq7Gt1D2auI921oOxBo0XUimDhJbY2owsro4-Aa4039OPR54C_okawQO3Dsm-evD570xzMzPBtngBP1Y8qIwlNEj1zuaGIck1BajuNdNhsE9rZ_Uso4VmlM/s1600/26676.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQVQm1fLILzmXQAi5nHLtZRq7Gt1D2auI921oOxBo0XUimDhJbY2owsro4-Aa4039OPR54C_okawQO3Dsm-evD570xzMzPBtngBP1Y8qIwlNEj1zuaGIck1BajuNdNhsE9rZ_Uso4VmlM/s200/26676.jpg" width="183" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPlbyF_nFQf8RiWSz1IhymTE4zdfUPQ7ynjKDLIdGv0y7s8C0kr2m-gWbe6-In-iQ5bkMJzDQGnn_kz8HFDy6wOadfOuf7z6IzOhhsXLYGq49c1icp0epISkDxR7K0lvT5DD8O1JRkfHg/s1600/26676_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPlbyF_nFQf8RiWSz1IhymTE4zdfUPQ7ynjKDLIdGv0y7s8C0kr2m-gWbe6-In-iQ5bkMJzDQGnn_kz8HFDy6wOadfOuf7z6IzOhhsXLYGq49c1icp0epISkDxR7K0lvT5DD8O1JRkfHg/s200/26676_3.jpg" width="155" /></a></div>
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The deluxe edition of 35 copies (I-XXXV) is printed on F.J. Head handmade paper. Each copy includes sample leaves from four Bromer miniatures. The title page features original calligraphy by Francesca Lohmann. Bound in full leather with a vine pattern stamped in gilt. Issued in a silk-covered drop-back box. This edition is sold out.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpiKPDK-ZDZxOIGfVpVJurQHq842ZmQcSbhWpSWfcL2q4x1Tam1_X9xwfEGoa-9jq1XDs5M0yhgEH8cjEmiAQu_Ry72TKWsB9FgdMSZjTReYmZXMgL9w7UczfNFalzUTa3dR36XIxV8_E/s1600/flourish2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpiKPDK-ZDZxOIGfVpVJurQHq842ZmQcSbhWpSWfcL2q4x1Tam1_X9xwfEGoa-9jq1XDs5M0yhgEH8cjEmiAQu_Ry72TKWsB9FgdMSZjTReYmZXMgL9w7UczfNFalzUTa3dR36XIxV8_E/s1600/flourish2.jpg" /></a></div>
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Jointly published by Heavenly Monkey, the private press of Rollin Milroy of Vancouver, Canada, and Bromer Booksellers of Boston, Massachusetts, For further information, contact us at <a href="http://www.bromer.com/contact.php">bromer.com</a> or call 617-247-2818.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_SCbcxl_6BsxcZMCenKl8QSZqwEjpgJ27NVA0_ONLxwv7ro9qDrIAlDeWIvigzf9pRknAOfxuWWY14xSShyphenhyphenlEBQVnljl4PXGomBWuh0s7cFh86CApciX4ctG2GUPPJ_s37hJE8b7P8j4/s1600/Stack1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_SCbcxl_6BsxcZMCenKl8QSZqwEjpgJ27NVA0_ONLxwv7ro9qDrIAlDeWIvigzf9pRknAOfxuWWY14xSShyphenhyphenlEBQVnljl4PXGomBWuh0s7cFh86CApciX4ctG2GUPPJ_s37hJE8b7P8j4/s320/Stack1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Read more about the book's production process on the <a href="http://heavenlymonkeybooks.blogspot.com/search/label/XI%20LXIVmos" target="_blank">Heavenly Monkey blog</a>.</div>
<br />Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-22125502837194518612015-11-03T14:06:00.000-05:002015-11-03T14:06:50.589-05:00Bromer Donation Makes Big Impression<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6nya6prhNDxoxand5N6GUIAJEVxQx-325mYXBfnL_duTkKfZtSazxUdsSwvVEHFwGsvXum_5PrVTxLpTiUIEj92tpG87VL44K54GqFAGwRUopoTGtwCu-XpqOD77VDQ4WOradqEoR2Uw/s1600/2014-11-19+19.58.42.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6nya6prhNDxoxand5N6GUIAJEVxQx-325mYXBfnL_duTkKfZtSazxUdsSwvVEHFwGsvXum_5PrVTxLpTiUIEj92tpG87VL44K54GqFAGwRUopoTGtwCu-XpqOD77VDQ4WOradqEoR2Uw/s400/2014-11-19+19.58.42.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mary Flannery, David and Anne Bromer, and Kit Jenkins</td></tr>
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As part of their ongoing philanthropic mission relating to art and the printed word, Anne and David Bromer have donated a working letterpress printshop to Lynn, Massachusetts-based <a href="http://www.rawartworks.org/" target="_blank">RAW Art Works</a>. In the first year since its unveiling, the printshop has welcomed nearly 335 students.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi79aVBkfvvse5VLytphshtbdyqAp5aZQN4asIBBVXuueIcalZPXehc4UP5SDFhTmjiMi-nEGpBEeqT0ibm1oGlpX8HmbSEcHdXO2vS8LigJNXKL7HCqKieJFNM3qTz4ULIvbmsgf5ulDU/s1600/TODAY+girl+at+RAD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi79aVBkfvvse5VLytphshtbdyqAp5aZQN4asIBBVXuueIcalZPXehc4UP5SDFhTmjiMi-nEGpBEeqT0ibm1oGlpX8HmbSEcHdXO2vS8LigJNXKL7HCqKieJFNM3qTz4ULIvbmsgf5ulDU/s320/TODAY+girl+at+RAD.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A young printmaker in the RAD Printshop</td></tr>
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Now in its 28th year, RAW Art Works provides an environment where underserved youth from the area are encouraged to learn and grow through art and creativity. With a staff of art therapists and professional artists, the programs challenge their students “to change negative patterns while giving unrelenting support to reach what may seem unattainable.” For 25 years, RAW focused its attention on expression through combining language and the visual arts; in 1999, they introduced the medium of film and now annually screen films at the Peabody Essex Museum, as well as other film festivals regionally, nationally, and even internationally.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOGbqXZ3SYvBDxh3oqsh4XzY3wzC5xMOIhJJS-W0S-CMMq6GQvvWYDKo5rwk3gNKq-ZM5sXzScKh6eZKXibukpkpiIGwQnSzhyj7WjJDavynoO6kbY_BZBABV_qs4YDKsV8c40nIb1udY/s1600/20141119_192749.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOGbqXZ3SYvBDxh3oqsh4XzY3wzC5xMOIhJJS-W0S-CMMq6GQvvWYDKo5rwk3gNKq-ZM5sXzScKh6eZKXibukpkpiIGwQnSzhyj7WjJDavynoO6kbY_BZBABV_qs4YDKsV8c40nIb1udY/s320/20141119_192749.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The opening reception unveiling the printshop</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3ARTVSj7WQFoQk5grQM45x3tnNjZEPj08ppdLMaASaAAuqFIE_-OTnWicaZ-jQjF2K87Hck4LbmEOKEcoSmQ02rnn9zlN5NYoFlwugkbAuAjxsvPjvzrzBry5-Cr4YU_8uSqXIEcvZBI/s1600/Anne+David+and+John.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3ARTVSj7WQFoQk5grQM45x3tnNjZEPj08ppdLMaASaAAuqFIE_-OTnWicaZ-jQjF2K87Hck4LbmEOKEcoSmQ02rnn9zlN5NYoFlwugkbAuAjxsvPjvzrzBry5-Cr4YU_8uSqXIEcvZBI/s320/Anne+David+and+John.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anne and David, with John Kristensen, who co-created the printshop, at <br />
one of the two Vandercook presses</td></tr>
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Long-time supporters of the RAW mission, the Bromers felt that a letterpress printshop made sense to the organization’s already-established programs in the visual arts and film. According to Anne, they saw it as “the third leg of a tripod,” as a form of communication, self-expression, and a means of finding one’s self in the arts. Given their background as booksellers specializing in finely printed books, the letterpress angle had perfect synergy. “We decided we wanted to give kids access to the world of letterpress and to the book arts, a world that has given us so much joy and satisfaction in our lives.”<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdFO0SBdhnsOxwdPj6jhTmji6EX3UmanCnyyetBuhLV2PRStiP9fGDqJHffcG0IQLW7uebLBeQSImAS-RSKog5nGHQ8FvZliVPzyo8m0nKt6LiBauTsPSbwnjpvVQ_hlgPLgody8Zw7v8/s1600/20141119_192529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdFO0SBdhnsOxwdPj6jhTmji6EX3UmanCnyyetBuhLV2PRStiP9fGDqJHffcG0IQLW7uebLBeQSImAS-RSKog5nGHQ8FvZliVPzyo8m0nKt6LiBauTsPSbwnjpvVQ_hlgPLgody8Zw7v8/s320/20141119_192529.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">David and John Kristensen print a broadside</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8BjXWZHr8q0Q4fzkQyHg1VSCMkCqdMrwP0_FELHj18KS-r3fIe1fQmDrjoVnQrggG5a9zZRxXSKR5TWdu4pGNIEiPIMP_pJuuB01NwzK_pbc-dmXHwx-enLD4BkWDB9i3TPPKOJpgpRs/s1600/20141119_192650.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8BjXWZHr8q0Q4fzkQyHg1VSCMkCqdMrwP0_FELHj18KS-r3fIe1fQmDrjoVnQrggG5a9zZRxXSKR5TWdu4pGNIEiPIMP_pJuuB01NwzK_pbc-dmXHwx-enLD4BkWDB9i3TPPKOJpgpRs/s320/20141119_192650.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">David proudly showing off his finished broadside,<br />
with printshop co-creator and teaching artist Eli Epstein</td></tr>
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It is the Bromers’ hope that the printshop, which has had a very positive impact on the RAW community, will become the anchor for an expansion into other areas of the book arts. Anne envisions “RAW kids making paper. I can see a book bindery. We can’t predict now what will come in the future, but I know it’s going to grow!” David agrees, adding that “very few kids have the experience that RAW’s kids now do. This new world has been opened for them.”<br />
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Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-75695286025937416322015-08-13T11:11:00.001-04:002015-08-13T12:18:17.649-04:00Printing in the Footsteps of Giants<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
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Printing in the Footsteps of Giants</div>
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by Philip C. Salmon</div>
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Last October, I traveled to Rochester, New York, for the
official unveiling of the newly-restored <a href="https://kelmscottchaucer.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/morriss-albion-press-for-sale/" target="_blank">Kelmscott-Goudy Albion printing press</a> at the Rochester Institute of Technology. My presence
there was meaningful on a variety of levels, the most apparent was the <a href="http://www.finebooksmagazine.com/press/2013/12/bromer-booksellers-purchases-historic-printing-press-for-rit.phtml" target="_blank">role I played</a> in securing this historic press for RIT. </div>
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But on a more personal level, I felt as if a circle had been
completed in my own career as a bookseller. My involvement in the acquisition
of the very press on which William Morris printed the great <a href="http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/the-kelmscott-chaucer" target="_blank">Kelmscott Chaucer</a> brought me back to 1996, when I was working as a cataloger for a
bookseller in New Hampshire and had the good fortune to assist in the
preparation of the catalogue of <a href="http://themorrisian.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-morrisian-interview-series-2-john-j.html" target="_blank">Jack Walsdorf’s</a> third Morris collection. It was from this small beginning that
my interest in the world of fine press printing and book arts took shape. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigMd5H8Bm2XWLOUgt4r_f3pRNQ6Bs8rR4h-9zuQQoXRutIOizfvdnn_gRyWIfw2s3iuit6zr5gbAcLuRQBvrVDUZWB7sPwwxnqNz7r0tlpEfUeqzyALYk-7x4RWzqNRbpVcQC5TW1xczM/s1600/1400450_10205531316545224_8542307752664609049_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigMd5H8Bm2XWLOUgt4r_f3pRNQ6Bs8rR4h-9zuQQoXRutIOizfvdnn_gRyWIfw2s3iuit6zr5gbAcLuRQBvrVDUZWB7sPwwxnqNz7r0tlpEfUeqzyALYk-7x4RWzqNRbpVcQC5TW1xczM/s320/1400450_10205531316545224_8542307752664609049_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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On this mild October evening, Steve Galbraith, curator of
the <a href="http://library.rit.edu/cary/" target="_blank">Cary Graphic Arts Collection</a> at RIT, recounted the thrill ride of the
auction rooms and the challenges of getting the 3000-pound press to Rochester
from New York City. He was followed by associate curator Amelia <span style="color: black;">Hugill-Fontanel, who spoke about the process of restoring
the press. After the initial presentation, the audience was invited to the
print room in the Cary Pressroom and we were given the opportunity to pull a
commemorative broadside featuring woodcuts of Morris and Goudy by <a href="http://www.studioleedavis.com/contact-me.html" target="_blank">Steven Lee-Davis</a>. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMIvx_aZji3tR5a9_OFdLNwlisp6bwZWV7w2ALDQld3VzGU-JUGqxc2LQ1V3vNVABH57k90_srQssNAcWj_GsdAyRycLGn2uMI5gpGTnrEvW_rWgPgkXI2aSz0q7jJ4NtptZlLyzQ53AY/s1600/IMG_20141009_180847741.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMIvx_aZji3tR5a9_OFdLNwlisp6bwZWV7w2ALDQld3VzGU-JUGqxc2LQ1V3vNVABH57k90_srQssNAcWj_GsdAyRycLGn2uMI5gpGTnrEvW_rWgPgkXI2aSz0q7jJ4NtptZlLyzQ53AY/s320/IMG_20141009_180847741.jpg" width="180" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc4sNWyK2oTyid0uLsoAYfAlpEytueDReG6i3CrCjqRTXgHiJTSwUsWXWtQmXcnwB381v1G2kehR532SmdirrOdI-ygEhGZeo4MuGg20Je9zBpe5kZ8XT8d0ipnqGzmrhUn3a376YpVKk/s1600/20141018_214117.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc4sNWyK2oTyid0uLsoAYfAlpEytueDReG6i3CrCjqRTXgHiJTSwUsWXWtQmXcnwB381v1G2kehR532SmdirrOdI-ygEhGZeo4MuGg20Je9zBpe5kZ8XT8d0ipnqGzmrhUn3a376YpVKk/s320/20141018_214117.jpg" width="251" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: black;">I was able to print a couple of
broadsides for myself, and in the process of pulling the bar on the old Albion,
I became a momentary part of this great press’s ongoing history. </span></div>
Phil Salmonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15062642460668241107noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-8182324575702215952015-07-29T12:50:00.001-04:002015-07-29T12:50:47.211-04:00Visit us at the Library History Seminar XIII Showcase<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0MZbyLoVWMsR6ZpRMHDpXYAJXb0ZSdjTBU2tqTKQRtHezs8UIe7q7XoJ0WaSjzeRlgMecmPvGWJXjKsTbJG5KtWjR-aKXyNNgPoPY97fjg1YLAa5dHH72ENo5URt23JtFvwjg71jaXXY/s1600/libhist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0MZbyLoVWMsR6ZpRMHDpXYAJXb0ZSdjTBU2tqTKQRtHezs8UIe7q7XoJ0WaSjzeRlgMecmPvGWJXjKsTbJG5KtWjR-aKXyNNgPoPY97fjg1YLAa5dHH72ENo5URt23JtFvwjg71jaXXY/s400/libhist.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Bromer Booksellers will be exhibiting in the vendor showcase at the <a href="http://slis.simmons.edu/blogs/lhs13/" target="_blank">Library History Seminar XIII</a>, taking place this year on August 1st at <a href="http://www.simmons.edu/" target="_blank">Simmons College</a> in Boston. Registration is required to attend the seminar presentations, but the showcase is free and open to the public, so we hope you will visit our booth in the College Center of the Main College Building (300 The Fenway, Boston) between 2:30 and 5:30pm.<br />
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Along with a varied selection of books about books and printing history, we will be bringing a fine group of fine presswork from across New England, a small, but choice selection of work by W.A. Dwiggins, several new books on paper, and, of course, miniature books. <br />
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For more information about the seminar, the topic of which is Libraries: Traditions & Innovations, and to register, you can visit their website <a href="http://bit.ly/libraryhistoryseminar13" target="_blank">here</a>, and we look forward to seeing you at the showcase!Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-65101009293242775822015-07-28T11:24:00.001-04:002015-07-28T11:24:34.328-04:00Announcing our new website!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlKoA0WczBBXE_wz1fjx08_j6Qy931RUFZ1C51Ch-zuYYGiwY6sR-ngtMSfFh8D3eKJW_LsH5z2mFw6hNUpFvGDhLu9JNlen3JSJI58yM65j5_taTuat9RtO5CjDH37f5pgwRz9dtzFMw/s1600/website.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="351" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlKoA0WczBBXE_wz1fjx08_j6Qy931RUFZ1C51Ch-zuYYGiwY6sR-ngtMSfFh8D3eKJW_LsH5z2mFw6hNUpFvGDhLu9JNlen3JSJI58yM65j5_taTuat9RtO5CjDH37f5pgwRz9dtzFMw/s400/website.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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We have been hard at work collaborating with the fine folks at <a href="https://www.bibliopolis.com/" target="_blank">Bibliopolis</a> to upgrade our website, <a href="http://www.bromer.com/">bromer.com</a>. The new site launched today for your book-viewing pleasure and has a responsive design so that you can browse on any device. Going forward, we will be adding new and interesting content, so please keep checking back! Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-9738764903974189802014-11-17T15:50:00.000-05:002015-08-07T15:55:31.018-04:00Jack Whirler's Alphabet<div style="text-align: center;">
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<em><a href="http://www.bromer.com/pages/books/25660/jack-whirlers-alphabet-or-the-st-pauls-primer-adorned-with-cuts-by-the-newberys">Jack Whirler's Alphabet; or, The St. Paul's Primer</a>. Adorned with Cuts by the Newberys</em>, is a celebration of the engaging eighteenth-century children's books produced by three generations of the Newbery firm. <a href="https://www.princeton.edu/cotsen/" target="_blank">Cotsen Children's Library</a> at Princeton University holds the world's largest collection of Newbery children's books, and they published this handsome book showcasing their collection in honor of their benefactor and namesake, Lloyd E. Cotsen, on the occasion of his 85th birthday.</div>
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Designed by <a href="http://argetsingerbooks.com/" target="_blank">Mark Argetsinger</a>, this amusing alphabet book is illustrated throughout with two Newbery blocks for each letter. Text on the facing pages explains the source of each woodcut and provides witty and informative commentary. The book was printed letterpress in black and red and handbound at the <a href="http://rlpress.blogspot.com/2014/02/recent-commission.html" target="_blank">Press of Robert LoMascolo</a> in Union Springs, New York in an edition of 200 copies.<br />
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The book is for sale for $85 and is being distributed exclusively by Bromer Booksellers.<br />
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For more information and to purchase <em>Jack Whirler's Alphabet</em>, <a href="http://www.bromer.com/pages/books/25660/jack-whirlers-alphabet-or-the-st-pauls-primer-adorned-with-cuts-by-the-newberys">click here</a>.<br />
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Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-58047241369949241972014-11-11T15:47:00.000-05:002015-08-07T15:56:10.297-04:00Annual Reception for the Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.bromer.com/shop/bromer/events.html" target="_blank">Bromer Booksellers</a> cordially invites you to our annual reception on the eve of the <a href="http://bostonbookfair.com/" target="_blank">Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair</a>, Thursday, November 13th from noon to 5pm. Please join us on the second floor of 607 Boylston Street for light refreshments, book conversation, and collegiality.</div>
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Visitors to our shop the week of the book fair will be the first to browse our recent acquisitions. Highlighting this new material are rarely seen items from the English illustrators David Jones and Eric Gill. These books, manuscripts, correspondence, and ephemera have not appeared on the market for generations.<br />
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We look forward to seeing you on the 13th!<br />
<br />Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-15822164662395371832014-09-19T14:58:00.000-04:002015-08-07T15:59:54.825-04:00Celebrating Beatrice Warde<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8339/8201964995_cb6a89c7a9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8339/8201964995_cb6a89c7a9.jpg" width="241" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/eyemagazine/8201964995/" target="_blank">Via</a></td></tr>
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After a short hiatus, we're back on the occasion of typographical scholar Beatrice Warde's birthday. Born on September 20th, 1900, Warde lived during a renaissance in American and British graphic design and was a woman who made a name for herself in the then predominately male world of typography.<br />
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Warde had an interest in calligraphy and letterforms from a young age, and she was able to nurture and expand this interest after she became assistant librarian at the American Type Founders Company in 1921. Her position allowed her to spend time researching typefaces and printing history, a pursuit which led to the publication of <a href="http://www.garamond.culture.fr/en/page/the_article_by_beatrice_warde" target="_blank">"The Garamond Types, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Sources Considered,"</a> an article Warde wrote and published in <i>The Fleuron</i> under the pseudonym Paul Beaujon in 1926. This article cemented Warde's influence as a scholar of typography by tracing the origins of Garamond types and finding that certain types initially attributed to Garamond were, in fact, cut by Jean Jannon.<br />
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The previous year, Warde had married typographer Frederic Warde, and the couple had moved to London, where Warde worked at <i>The Fleuron</i> under the editorship of Stanley Morison. When her pseudonymous article appeared, Warde, as Paul Beaujon, was offered the post of editor of the <i>Monotype Recorder</i>, an important source of publicity for the Langston Monotype Corporation. She accepted the position, revealing herself to be a woman and earning a place as one of the few women working in the field of typography at the time. A few years later, Warde was promoted to the post of publicity manager and remained there until her retirement in 1960.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/P/P08/P08118_10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/images/work/P/P08/P08118_10.jpg" height="200" width="140" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gill-beatrice-warde-p08118" target="_blank">Via</a></td></tr>
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While at Monotype Corporation, Warde worked with many famous type designers, including Stanley Morison, who was the typographic adviser, and Eric Gill, whose Gill Sans and Perpetua types were produced by Monotype. It was through the confluence of these two men's influence that Warde's perhaps most far-reaching contribution was born.<br />
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Warde's "This is a Printing Office" broadside, designed to showcase Gill's Perpetua titling capitals, was published in 1932. It was one of many broadsides Monotype produced, at Morison's suggestion, to display their type designs. However, this particular broadside carried a singular message, that the printed word is essential in the preservation of a free society. Here are her words in their entirety:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/e9/2b/6d/e92b6da50e9430e5a13e1b76a9754fa4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/e9/2b/6d/e92b6da50e9430e5a13e1b76a9754fa4.jpg" height="320" width="237" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.pinterest.com/pin/256071928783317041/" target="_blank">Via</a></td></tr>
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This is a</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Printing Office</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Crossroads of Civilization</div>
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Refuge of all the arts</div>
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against the ravages of time</div>
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Armoury of fearless truth</div>
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against whispering rumour</div>
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Incessant trumpet of trade</div>
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From this place words may fly abroad</div>
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Not to perish on waves of sound</div>
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Not to vary with the writer's hand</div>
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But fixed in time having been verified in proof</div>
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Friend, you stand on sacred ground</div>
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This is a Printing Office </div>
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The broadside resonated with many, so much so that the words were cast in bronze and now stand at the entrance to the United States Government Printing Office. They were also translated into many languages and grace the walls of printing shops around the world.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/This_is_a_Printing_Office.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/This_is_a_Printing_Office.jpg" height="320" width="242" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Warde" target="_blank">Via</a></td></tr>
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Warde continued to advocate for and teach young type designers about the benefits of the classical forms of typography until her death in 1969. In particular, she espoused type design that disappeared behind the ideas it was conveying, stating in her essay <a href="http://gmunch.home.pipeline.com/typo-L/misc/ward.htm" target="_blank">"The Crystal Goblet"</a> that "Type well used is invisible as type." This coincides with her characterization of the printing office as the "crossroads of civilization." Printing and typography were meant to be utilitarian, the means to bring brilliance from the mind to the world. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzSdcXXPs511yyc-A1YeJVcGbNyUiRFy-mUf6I6Io4iXAbsc0wIS55BsrcScNhLo_kueB9jeO7FIV5KnIdy70h1hJ2xlhNStHSq3TcSlrkkiIej9d9p-3UZ7FVCgGYnTjuIOIUc9aX9OI/s1600/25536.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzSdcXXPs511yyc-A1YeJVcGbNyUiRFy-mUf6I6Io4iXAbsc0wIS55BsrcScNhLo_kueB9jeO7FIV5KnIdy70h1hJ2xlhNStHSq3TcSlrkkiIej9d9p-3UZ7FVCgGYnTjuIOIUc9aX9OI/s320/25536.jpg" width="264" /></a></div>
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Around 1978, Monotype reissued Warde's <a href="http://www.bromer.com/pages/books/25536/beatrice-warde/broadside-this-is-a-printing-office" target="_blank">iconic broadside</a> in a way that better exemplifies its meaning and impact in the world. The broadside presents Warde's powerful message in Latin and sixteen other Western languages, from English and Icelandic to Turkish and Croatian. It measures approximately 24 3/4 by 19 3/4 inches and is printed in seventeen different types. It is a fitting tribute to Beatrice Warde, who dedicated her life to the transmission of ideas through typography.<br />
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For more on Beatrice Warde, see below:<br />
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<a href="http://libweb2.princeton.edu/rbsc2/ga/unseenhands/printers/warde.html" target="_blank">Princeton University Library Graphic Arts Collection's Unseen Hands exhibit</a><br />
<a href="http://www.nenne.com/typography/bw1.html" target="_blank">Typography Online</a><br />
<a href="http://untcomdes.blogspot.com/2010/06/crystal-goblet-by-beatrice-warde.html" target="_blank">University of North Texas College of Visual Arts and Design Communication Design Blog</a><br />
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For more on Monotype's reissued broadside, visit our <a href="http://www.bromer.com/pages/books/25536/beatrice-warde/broadside-this-is-a-printing-office" target="_blank">website</a>.Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-13635534904786640912014-07-28T16:22:00.001-04:002014-07-30T14:16:40.416-04:00Miniature Book Society Conclave in Boston, August 15-17The <a href="http://mbs.org/index.html">Miniature Book Society</a> is an organization interested in all aspects of miniature books, or books measuring three inches or less, including the design, production, and distribution of these tiny treasures. Every year, members of the Society meet around the world for a conclave, during which they take part in bibliophilic activities with special focus on books in small formats.<br />
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This year's <a href="http://mbs.org/conclave.html">conclave</a> will be held in Boston from August 15-17th, and we are very excited to welcome Society members to our fine literary city. Activities will include a tour of the <a href="http://bostonathenaeum.org/">Boston Athenaeum</a>, a presentation by a miniature book binder from the <a href="https://www.nbss.edu/">North Bennet Street School</a>, and visits to the <a href="http://www.americanantiquarian.org/">American Antiquarian Society</a> and Clark University's <a href="http://www.clarku.edu/research/goddard/">Goddard Library</a> in Worcester, which holds the miniature book that <a href="http://www.telegram.com/article/20140720/NEWS/307209920/1116">went to the moon</a>.<br />
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On Friday afternoon, August 15th, from 2 to 5pm, we will be hosting a reception for conclave registrants, where our entire selection of miniature books, over 500 volumes, will be on display and for sale. We will also have a table at the <a href="http://mbs.org/conclave.html">conclave book fair</a>, which will be at the Taj Hotel on Sunday, August 17th. The book fair is open to registrants from 9-11am and <b>open to the public from 11am-4pm</b>.<br />
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If you would like to see a preview of what you can expect at the book fair, you can visit the Brookline Public Library, which currently has miniature books on display. The <a href="http://www.brooklinelibrary.org/programs/exhibits/ex-140805-miniature-book_society">exhibit</a> offers a glimpse into the history of miniature books and is a <a href="http://mbs.org/exhibit.html">traveling display</a> provided by the Miniature Book Society. It is definitely worth a visit.<br />
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If you are unable to attend the book fair or see the exhibit, you can view the video below, which was produced by the Weston Media Center and follows local collector Melinda Brown as she talks about her own miniature books and then visits our shop to discuss the variety of miniature books we have for sale.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" mozallowfullscreen="" src="//player.vimeo.com/video/100998159" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="500"></iframe> </div>
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<a href="http://vimeo.com/100998159">Little Books Big World with Melinda Brown</a> from <a href="www.westonmedia.org">Weston Media Center Inc.</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.</div>
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If you are interested in miniature books and have questions or would like to talk about starting your own collection, developing or selling a current collection, please <a href="http://www.bromer.com/shop/bromer/contact.html">contact us</a> or come by our shop in Copley Square.</div>
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<br /></div>Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1546255954041255182.post-89115620723274197512014-06-19T13:37:00.000-04:002015-08-07T16:03:07.100-04:00E-catalogue 40: Recent Acquisitions for Early Summer<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Welcome to our <a href="http://www.bromer.com/searchResults.php?category_id=228&action=catalog&browseLetter=A&orderBy=author" target="_blank">40th e-catalogue</a>, comprised of a varied, interesting selection of recent acquisitions priced under $2,000. When putting this selection together, we aimed to include books that covered all of our specialty areas, which in a couple of cases, are combined. For instance, we are offering a copy of Thoreau's <i><a href="http://www.bromer.com/pages/books/25455/henry-david-thoreau/yankee-in-canada-with-anti-slavery-and-reform-papers">A Yankee in Canada</a></i> -- one of 1,546 copies of the first edition -- that features a very handsome full morocco binding by Stern & Dess.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Q9QcN-z8uMv5Cq3DTrWVAw8QvSgUg3bv8N6KxQN3fePsASyrSjb-Cdip1JmMQFyZwgtuqBjpG7lFQtwzD8cImcTTaQxmQCQrfWYLXBldG8vZlc9TZRotUVYDcxC981gf0oFN8rOa3zE/s1600/25495.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8Q9QcN-z8uMv5Cq3DTrWVAw8QvSgUg3bv8N6KxQN3fePsASyrSjb-Cdip1JmMQFyZwgtuqBjpG7lFQtwzD8cImcTTaQxmQCQrfWYLXBldG8vZlc9TZRotUVYDcxC981gf0oFN8rOa3zE/s1600/25495.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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This grouping also reflects some of our present buying focus: included here are several movables, one of which is by contemporary French artist <a href="http://www.bromer.com/pages/books/25515/power-pop">Philippe Huger</a>. Press books, as always, are well represented and include two illuminated Roycroft Press books and a fine set of the <a href="http://www.bromer.com/pages/books/25308/william-blake/the-writings-of-william-blake-edited-in-three-volumes-by-geoffrey-keynes">Nonesuch Blake</a> with good provenance and wearing unrecorded dust wrappers.<br />
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We hope you enjoy our offering and wish all of our customers a fine, relaxing summer.</div>
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Meredithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16612136702532279595noreply@blogger.com0