Recently in Prints, Drawings, Paintings Category

This winter, the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York City mounted an exhibition of a collaborative project between an artist and a writer. Watercolors by the Scottish painter, Callum Innes, were exhibited alongside excerpts from the short story that inspired them, water | colour, by the Irish writer Colm Tóibín.

According to their press release, the gallery introduced Innes and Tóibín in February 2010. A long-time admirer of Innes’s work, Tóibín spoke at length with Innes about the artist’s watercolors during their initial meeting. The conversation was continued at Innes’s studio in Edinburgh last summer. As their creative connections became apparent and their friendship grew, the gallery asked Tóibín to write an essay in response to Innes’s works on paper, a request that led to Tóibín’s short story water | colour. After reading Tóibín’s text, Innes created a new body of watercolors based on it.

Tóibín’s text tells the story of Nora, a middle-aged housewife struggling with the recent death of her husband and its effect on her family. Tóibín elegantly weaves a poignant tale of loss, depression and, ultimately, the promise of healing, placed against the backdrop of the unique colors of the Irish shoreline.

Not only did the gallery produce an exhibition catalogue with the text and reproductions of the watercolors, but they also published ten unique livres d’artistes, with the complete short story and five original watercolors by Innes. Each of the deluxe, hand-bound books is named after one of the characters in the story. Graphic Arts is fortunate to have acquired conor.

Colm Tóibín is currently the Leonard L. Milberg ‘53 Visiting Lecturer in English and Creative Writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts, Princeton University. If you are a fan, another original story by Tóibín can be found in the current issue of the Princeton University Library Chronicle 72, no.1 (autumn 2010).

Sean Kelly Gallery exhibit: http://www.skny.com/exhibitions/2010-12-16_callum-innes-colm-toibin/

The Satirist, or Monthly Meteor was founded and edited by George Manners (1778-1853). Beginning in October 1807, the monthly journal exposed the foolishness of contemporary politicians, opening with a folded frontispiece caricature. Manners sold the magazine in 1812 to the Scottish journalist William Jerdan (1782-1869), who ran it until 1814.

This print is signed by The Caricaturist General. Several others in The Satirist are designed by Sylvester Scrutiny. Neither artist can be identified. Many are etched by “de Wilde” e.g. Samuel De Wilde (1751-1832), a portrait painter and etcher who specialized in theatrical subjects.

Bony’s Visions or a Great Little Man’s Night Comforts was published in volume 9, p. 165 as an illustration to “The Vision of Buonaparte,” p.110-21, which claims to be the Emperor’s account of a dream the night after his son’s birth.

In it, we see Napoleon, wearing a night-shirt, leap from a canopied bed, terrified at the demons, goblins, and ghosts that surround him. He holds a dagger and calls, “Duroc, Savory, Roustan, aux armes aux armes.” Napoleon’s son is nursed by a demon, who says: “Dear Image of my darling Nap, / Suck milk of Hell instead of pap.”

Near the bed is a coffin marked with ‘N’ and a crown; on this are a rat and two birds; a stork and an owl. An imp with antlers, crouching on the bed-curtain, is about to knock off with a wand the crown surmounting Napoleon’s night-cap.

There is good reason the prints in The Satirist are rarely credited. George Manners and his writers were the targets of multiple lawsuits. The magazine was only two years old when Manners wrote Vindiciæ Satiricæ, or a Vindication of the Principles of the “Satirist,” (1809) documenting the action brought by Peter Finnerty.

Three years later, Thomas Gill wrote, Libels: a Statement of the Trial of an Indictment against George Manners, … 1st June, 1811, for Libels in The Satirist of the 1st May, 1809, and 1st September, 1810, on the Character of William Hallett, Esq., upon which Indictment the Defendant was Found Guilty….

In the third volume, Manners published a statement:
Notwithstanding the unparalleled opposition which we have experienced, and the multitude of hostile scoundrels whom we have encountered, our publication is daily increasing its circulation….

We have dragged from their filthy dens a horde of miscreants, who battened on the fruits of slander, who mangled and destroyed alike the characters of the guilty and the innocent, and who, the moment we exposed them to the public eye, have either shrunk into their original insignificance, or only been noticed like gibbet ted murderers, for the enormity of their crimes.

…We defy our enemies to point out a single instance where we have inflicted unmerited punishment, or bestowed unjust commendation. …Adieu for the present, dear Sir Richard, thou hast afforded us much amusement, but more melancholy reflections on the pride, vain glory, and hypocrisy of mankind: if we have waged war against thy vanity, folly, and—errors, remember, we were not the first to kindle the flame!

See also William Jerdan (1782-1869), The Autobiography of William Jerdan (London: A. Hall, Virtue & Co., 1852-53).Firestone Library 3802.4.31

The Satirist, or Monthly Meteor, 1807-1814. Graphic Arts Collection Cruik 1808 v.1-14. Gift of Richard Waln Meirs, Class of 1888.

When the British Whig Charles James Fox died in 1806, he left a rather large hole to be filled in the British government. In this print, Gillray shows members of the new Ministry of all the Talents (known as the Broad-bottoms) literally inside Fox’s enormous breeches, gorging on fish and loaves of bread. The ghost of Fox is shown at the bottom left, partially emerging from his grave, saying, “O save my Breeches, Heav’n.”

At the center of the scene is James Paull, who lost the 1806 Westminster election, sitting cross legged as the fulcrum in a political tug of war. On one side is the radical Sir Francis Burdett and his friends, while on the left are the Pittites pulling in the opposite direction.

Meanwhile, on the far top right Napoleon carefully watches these events with his spyglass, ready to take advantage of domestic unrest. He says: “Oh! by Gar! if I could but once put My Foot upon the leaver! - I’d give their Broad-bottoms a Shake with a Vengeance!!!”

At the very top, Gillray has inscribed the words: To that last Hope of the Country, - the New Opposition, this Representative of Charley’s Old Breeches in Danger, is Respectfully submitted. 9 January 1807.

Napoleon is in a tree on the right, dressed as a rat wearing a feathered bicorne hat. He says, “I am determined to Beat these brutes in spite of their Teeth” as his soldiers use pincers to pull the bears’ teeth (pull tusk). The French troops had trouble moving through the mud and swamps, arriving late to their positions. The caricature shows them advancing across the River Bug (the signpost reads Bug-Water), in which some are drowning. John Bull is seen as a bull on the hill to the left.

Attributed to Charles Williams (1797-1830), The Battle of Pul-Tusk, 1807. Hand colored etching. Graphic Arts British Caricature.

In 1924, antiquarian Leon Gelber joined with businessman Theodore Max Lilienthal (1893-1972) to establish the Gelber-Lilienthal Book Shop at 336 Sutter Street in San Francisco. As recalled by James Hart in Rare Book Stores in San Francisco Fifty Years Ago, “That shop…was given character by an ingenious false front of a manufactured appearance, a pseudo half-timbered building with a projecting shingled and slanting roof … A small hallway led to a lofty ceiling, in old-English style and great rows of shelves for rare books. …They were two attractive, charming, and witty men, quite without the pressure of salesmanship ….”

The partners also established a publishing company under the imprint Lantern Press. Many of their editions were printed at Grabhorn Press, beginning with Hildegard Flanner’s A Tree in Bloom and Other Verses (1924). Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) PS3511.L28 T7 1924.

It was the Grabhorn Brothers who first introduced them to the illustrator and printmaker Valenti Angelo (1897-1982). Angelo moved to San Francisco when he was nineteen-years-old and ten years later, began cutting and printing book plates. In 1927, Angelo illustrated For Whispers & Chants by Jake Zeitlin, printed by Grabhorn Press and published by Lantern Press (Graphic Arts GAX 2007-1271N).

Throughout his long career, Angelo illustrated roughly 250 books, of which Princeton owns fifty-four. Above is his woodcut of the Gelber-Lilienthal Shop.

See more: Valenti Angelo: Author, Illustrator, Printer (San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1976). Rare Books (Ex) Oversize Z8036.483 .V34qr

See also: Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962), Theodore Max Lilienthal ([San Francisco: F. B. Lilienthal, Grabhorn Press], 1953).

Special thanks to Alastair Johnston of Poltroon Press for his help researching this post. http://www.poltroonpress.com/about.html

Beatrice Coron, Central Park Story, 1994. Pochoir print and stencil. Graphic Arts GA 2007.02453 and 02452. Gift of Beatrice Coron.

left: Beatrice Coron, Last Leaf of Central Park, 1990s. Stencil for pochoir print. Graphic Arts GA 2007.02453. Gift of Beatrice Coron.

right: Beatrice Coron, Lust, 1990s. Pochoir print. Graphic Arts FA 2007.02455. Gift of Beatrice Coron.

Over ten years ago, Graphic Arts was the fortunate recipient of a gift of art from the French paper architect Beatrice Coron, who has been living in New York City since 1984. Those who have ridden the subways in New York will recognize her black paper work from the poster “All Around Town” featured in the cars of the E, F, and 6 trains.

Her website http://www.beatricecoron.com offers additional images as well as a personal statement, which begins: “My work tells stories. I invent situations, cities and worlds. These compositions include memories, associations of words, ideas, observations and thoughts that unfold in improbable juxtapositions. These invented worlds have their own logic and patterns. Images are conveyed through words, whether automatic writing or premeditated scenes. My creative inspiration comes from a text, a poem, the news or from a philosophical concept that can be reduced to a mere title. I research collective memories and myths, questioning the notions of identity and belonging. For each theme, I explore various narratives: one story leads to the next, and the creation process weaves different layers of our relations to the world.”

Beatrice Coron will teach a class in paper cutting at the Center for Book Arts on March 26-27, 2011. For information, see: http://www.centerforbookarts.org/

In 1926, Esherick cut twenty-four vignette woodcuts for a volume of poetry by A.E. Coppard, designed and printed by Elmer Adler at the Pynson Printers in an edition of 500 copies. Esherick presented Adler with this signed copy of his Centaur Book Shop print, which was given to the graphic arts department when Adler formed it in 1940.

The colorful story of the Centaur Book Shop is being written by our colleague Lynne Farrington, Curator of Printed Books, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of Pennsylvania, hopefully to be published soon.

Princeton holds twelve volumes published by Mason, including:
Walt Whitman (1819-1892), Song of the Broad-Axe, 1924. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) PS3222 .S63 1924q
D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930), Reflections on the Death of a Porcupine and Other Essays, 1925. Rare Books (Ex) 3822.27.375
A.E. Coppard (1878-1957), Yokohama Garland and Other Poems, 1926. Graphic Arts Oversize 2007-0691Q
Song of Solomon, 1927. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) BS1483 .E7 1927q
James House Jr., Fifty drawings, 1930. Rare Books (Ex) NC1429 .H78
Anthology of the younger poets, edited by Oliver Wells, 1932. Firestone 3588.964
Stanley Burnshaw (1906-2005), André Spire and His Poetry, 1933. Firestone Library (F) 3292.84.611
Sherwood Anderson (1876-1941), No Swank, 1934. Firestone Library (F) 3607.25.3675
Peyton Houston, Descent into the dust, 1936 Rare Books (Ex) PS3515.O7924 D4 1936
Tony sees the World, photographs by Arthur Neustadt; verses by Agnes Crozier [i.e. Grozier] Herbertson, 1936. Cotsen Children’s Library (CTSN) 84315
Stanley Burnshaw, Iron Land, 1936 Annex A 3658.06.349
James Daly (1901-1936), One Season Shattered, 1936. RECAP 3704.827.368

“Professionally, Ahern worked on numerous projects that combined planning and architecture …. Ahern also worked as an artist, producing thousands of drawings of buildings and places around the world during his lifetime, many of which were published as popular lithographs.”

Graphic Arts holds twenty-five lithographs by Ahern, dating from 1977 to 1993; including The Lawn of the University of Virginia, 1977; Sproul Plaza, The University of California at Berkeley, 1978; Congress Hall, Independence Hall, Old City Hall & Philosophical Hall, 1980; Duke University, Durham, N.C., 1980; Washington & Lee University, Lexington, Virginia, 1980; Congress Hall, Independence Hall, Old City Hall & Philosophical Hall, 1980; Harvard Yard in Autumn, 1981; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1981; and others.

Robert Seymour (1798-1836), Four New Ways of Paying Old Debts, 1829. Hand colored etching. Graphic Arts British Caricature

The Corinthian says “I’ll call and pay.” The regular bad one says, “‘Vy I did pay!!!” An unfortunate says, “I can’t pay!” And the Lawyer Shark says, “I shan’t pay!!!!”

The British humorist and illustrator, Robert Seymour led a cheerless life. Described as high-strung, Seymour suffered a nervous breakdown shortly after completing this caricature. He returned to work but six years later, committed suicide after he felt he had been humiliated while working on Pickwick Papers with Charles Dickens.

Be careful what you throw away after the holidays, it might be a great work of art. Here are some we have kept.

Glenn O. Coleman (1887-1932), The Season’s Greetings, 1933. Lithograph. Graphic Arts GA 2007.01009.

Mabel Dwight (1876-1955), Greetings from the House of Weyhe, 1928. Lithograph. Graphic Arts GA 2007.01212. Interior of Weyhe gallery in New York City with its director Carl Zigrosser.

Wanda Gag (1893-1946), Greetings from the House of Weyhe, 1927. Lithograph. Graphic Arts GA 2007.01313.

Lynd Ward (1905-1985), Greetings for the New Year from May McNeer and Lynd Ward, 1948. Woodcut. Graphic Arts GA 2007.02671.

Drawn to commemorate the opening of the British Parliament on 23 January 1787.

Such assemblies you, might swear,
Meet when butchers bait a bear;
Such a noise, and such haranguing,
When a brother thief is hanging:

Such a rout and such a rabble
Run to hear Jack-pudden gabble:
Such a crowd their ordure throws
On a far less villains nose.———

Let them with their gosling’s quills,
Scribble senseless heads of bills,
We may while they strain their throats,
Wipe our a———s with their votes.——— 23 January 1787

Alphonse Pélicier, Dernières paroles de Louis XVI and Dernières paroles de Marie-Antoinette, 1830? Engravings. Graphic Arts GA 2010. in process

Each of these silhouettes was created by the French engraver Pélicier, from texts written by Louis XVI (1754-1793) and his wife Marie-Antoinette (1755-1793). The King’s words come from his will, written on Christmas Day, 1792. Marie-Antoinette is drawn from a letter to her sister-in-law, dated October 6, 1793.

Remember that an engraved plate must be laterally reversed, cutting the letters right to left, so that when it is printed the text can be read left to right. The only thing I know about Pélicier is that a number of early nineteenth-century maps credit him for the lettering: La Lettre gravee par A[lphon]se Pélicier.

Valentin Popov, 21 Original Etchings based on Ivan Turgenev’s The Torrents of Spring (San Rafael: Gordian Press, 2009). Gift of Dr. Gunther Haller and Lyhn Haller.

The Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev (1818-1883) wrote The Torrents of Spring in 1872. Over one hundred years later, the Ukrainian artist Valentin Popov created twenty-one etchings to bring this novel back to life. The story is a romantic tale of Dimitri Sanin, a young Russian who falls in love with a seductive woman named Gemma while traveling in Europe.

Popov’s website tells us that the project was “originally begun in 1983 with a grant from the Academy of Fine Art of the USSR. The etchings took approximately three years to complete and in 1988 received the Academy’s Silver medal.”

Each hard-ground etching includes additions of dry point, aquatint, and/or burnishing. They are overprinted with a combination of transparent yellow and white inks. Each edition, designed by Stephen Black of San Rafael, is presented in a clamshell box covered in Japanese silk with a copper plate affixed in a debossed area on the cover.

Les Gourmands, ca. 1815. Hand colored etching. Paris, Chez A. Noel; rue St. Jacques, no 16, au Pont des Arts. Graphic Arts French caricature.

The Paris publishing firm Noël Frères (active 1815-1830) is described by Dorothy George as “deeply obscure French publishers of caricatures.” This print is not listed in any of the other large caricature collections.

In 1808, Rowlandson began a series of prints for Rudolph Ackermann comparing figures from the Napoleonic Wars to those in the Book of Revolutions. The first was titled: The Corsican Tiger at Bay and the second: The Beast as Described in the Revelations; both completed in July. The Political Butcher followed in September, then Napoleon the Little in a Rage with his Great French Eagle, and finally in 1809, The Rising Sun.

In this print, a Spanish patriot is seen attacking a tiger with seven crowned heads. The first head is Napoleon, whose neck has been cut, causing him to vomit flames. Spain says “True patriotism shall thus subdue the monstrous beast and quell the rage of war!” The other heads are named Austria, Naples, Holland, Denmark, Prussia, and Russia. As crowns begin to fall, a woman, representing Hope, gathers them up in her apron.

Note the 666 on the tiger. If you write out the alphabet and give each letter a number: a=1, b=2, c=3, etc., then count the numbers for the name Napolean Bounaparte (perhaps the spelling is changed for that reason), you get 666. In this way, Napoleon become the biblical beast.

The Graphic Arts collection is extremely fortunate to have received a donation of 187 original drawings by William Steig (1907-2003) from the Steig Family estate. These include cartoons for the New Yorker, drawings for his children’s and adult books, and some work that has never been published.

In his obituary, the New York Times noted that William Steig “graduated from high school when he was 15, and studied for two years at City College in New York, three years at the National Academy of Design and five days at Yale.” Art critic Sarah Boxer went on to note that “in the mid-1930’s, Mr. Steig began making ”symbolic drawings,” pen-and-ink works expressing states of mind. Like the poems of E. E. Cummings, they were subconscious excursions rendered on paper. When these drawings came out, nobody had seen anything quite like them.”

Steig sold his first drawing to the New Yorker in 1930 and has contributed more than 1600 cartoons to the magazine. His work joins drawings by other great New Yorker cartoonist in our collection, such as Henry Martin, Whitney Darrow Jr., George Booth, and many others. Our library also holds twenty-two books of his wonderful drawings, including Grown-Ups Get To Do All the Driving, Rejected Lovers, Agony in the Kindergarten, and of course, Shrek!

We are sincerely grateful to Ms. Jeanne Steig and the administrators of the estate for their generosity and assistance in making the donation possible. Please note that Ms. Steig is also a marvelous artist. See an interview at: http://fnewsmagazine.com/wp/2009/11/interview-with-jeanne-steig/

The British artist William Marshall Craig (ca. 1765- ca. 1834) painted miniature portraits of the royalty and the aristocracy of late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century London. In this recently acquired sketchbook, we see nine wash drawings and forty-one hand-colored etchings, including “Pleasures of the Imagination” (above). The original poem (published 1743) is by Mark Akenside, but this drawing is oddly accompanied by three lines attributed to George Crabbe.

An illustration to The Tempest, (Act I scene ii), showing Prospero and Miranda (below) is the only drawing fully colored. The album was apparently compiled about a century after Craig’s death. Both the style and the bookplate, which is that of Sir Algernon Tudor-Craig (1873-1943), suggest that it was put together in about 1910-20. According to Christopher Edwards, Tudor-Craig was a herald and an authority on eighteenth-century Chinese armorial porcelain, but he also compiled a catalogue of the library of the Freemasons’ Hall in London.

Craig is best remembered for his course of lectures on drawing, painting, and engraving delivered and then published in 1821 (Firestone ND1130.C9).

The title page of that book recognizes him as “painter to his Royal Highness the Duke of York” and so, it is interesting that his introduction reflects on patronage, in particular. He writes, “Patronage is the proper nutriment of arts, but it should be patronage founded on solid common sense, and on feelings refined by contemplation; or, like deleterious food, it will excite bad habits, and unwholesome usages, in those who receive it.

…An artist may labour for years, and without ceasing to produce works of real excellence; but it is all in vain, unless he find persons qualified to appreciate his powers; and, on the other hand, when youthful talent begins to show its dawnings, the well-informed patron may greatly assist to guide and direct its course, till it arrive at meridian splendour.”

In May 1803, Britain declared war against France and Napoleon I (who was known as ‘Boney’) prepared to invade Britain. The Napoleonic Wars lasted twelve years. In the beginning, the British were bold and laughed at the thought of a French flotilla trying to cross the channel. Williams transformed the French gunboats into coffins, with skulls on every mask. The French troops all wear shrouds, sailing to their certain death.

In the background are two British ships, from which comes the dialogue: “I say Messmate if we dont bear up quickly there will be nothing left for us to do,” and the reply, “Rigt [sic] Tom, & I take them there things at the mast head to be Boney’s Crest, a Skull without Brains.”

For more information, see A. M. Broadley, Napoleon in Caricature (London 1911). Graphic Arts Reference collection (GARF) DC203.4 .B8
Catherine Clerc, La caricature contre Napoleon (Paris 1985) Firestone DC203.4 .C57 1985

In 1662, the print makers of the Cabinet du Roi were organized to create an engraved record of the celebrations held by Louis XIV. Five years later, the charge was expanded to include an engraved record of every painting and sculpture owned by the King, along with his gardens, buildings, and the interior decoration of the residences.

The most spectacular work of the time was that of Charles Le Brun (1619-1690) who was Louis XIV’s principal painter and leader of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. Among his many projects was the decoration of the Galerie des Glaces (Hall of Mirrors), Le Grand Escalier (Grand Stairway), and other rooms, vaults, and niches at Versailles.

Beginning in 1723, the artist Jean-Baptiste Massé (1687-1767) undertook the project of copying the ceiling decoration of the Hall of Mirrors and accompanying rooms at Versailles, for the purpose of making a series of reproductive engravings. Massé was given special permission to build scaffolding in the apartments and spent over eight years at the ceiling carefully copying Le Brun’s designs. A number of engravers worked over twenty years to prepare and then, print the series of plates.

Completed in 1752, La grande galerie de Versailles et les deux salons qui l’accompagnent was published with 56 massive engravings on 52 plates. Two prints from this set are reproduced here. In the central oval on the print above, we see Louis XIV on his throne, Minerva on the left, and an allegorical figure of Eloquence (according to François Charpentier) kneeling on the right. The caption might be translated Protection Accorded the Fine Arts.

In The Reformation of Justice, 1667 (below), the central scene includes Louis XIV holding a book and scepter with Justice on the left, judges on the right, and La Chicane below his feet. For an extended reading of these and the other scenes in the Hall of Mirrors, see http://www.galeriedesglaces-versailles.fr/html/11/collection/galerie.html

See also:
Charles Le Brun (1619-1690), Recueil de divers desseins de fontaines et de frises maritimes, inventez …([Paris, 1693?]) Marquand Library (SAX): Rare Books Oversize NA9400 .L49f

Tapisseries du roy: ou sont representez les quatre elemens et les quatre saisons : avec les devises qui les accompagnent et leur explication (Paris: Chez Sebastien Mabre-Cramoisy … , 1679) Marquand Library (SAX): Rare Books Oversize NK3000 .L46f

Charles Le Brun (1619-1690), Grand escalier du chateau de Versailles, dit Escalier des ambassadeurs (Paris: L. Surugue, [1725]) Marquand Library (SAX): Rare Books Oversize NA1046 .L49e