FoggyGates -A Bookish Blog

Judging a Book by Its Cover at the American Folk Art Museum-

2010-06-23T08:53:00.008-04:00

NOTICED ON THE INTERWEBS-

- Who Says You Can Judge a Book By Its Cover? : Well... we do. Take a pile of 1950s pulp paperbacks and a pair of sharp scissors, and it's very surprising what secrets are revealed... see more!

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ALMANAC-

June 23, 1961: The American Folk Art Museum is founded, with galleries in a rented townhouse at 49 West 53rd Street. The Museum opened to the public on December 11, 2001. "The 30,000-square-foot structure, designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects LLP, is clad in sixty-three panels of lightly textured tombasil, a white bronze alloy. The eight-level, 85-foot tall structure is capped by a skylight above a grand interior stair connecting the third and the fourth floors, with dramatic cut-throughs at each floor to allow natural light to filter into the galleries and through to the lower levels. As a result, dramatic interior spaces are animated by a wash of light, enhancing the experience of the visitor."

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ON OUR SHELVES-

“Encyclopedia of American Folk Art”

Edited by Gerard C. Wertkin.

Published in New York by Routledge in 2004.

“This is the first comprehensive, scholarly study of a most fascinating aspect of American history and culture. Generously illustrated with both black and white and full-color photos, this A-Z encyclopedia covers every aspect of American folk art, encompassing not only painting, but also sculpture, basketry, ceramics, quilts, furniture, toys, beadwork, and more, including both famous and lesser-known genres. Containing more than 600 articles, this unique reference considers individual artists, schools, artistic, ethnic, and religious traditions, and heroes who have inspired folk art. An incomparable resource for general readers, students, and specialists, it will become essential for anyone researching American art, culture, and social history.”

$225.00

Henry Tanner, Rockwell Kent & Al Hirschfeld-

2010-06-21T06:41:00.007-04:00

ALMANAC-

June 21, 1859: Henry Ossawa Tanner, the first African American painter to gain international acclaim, was born. "In 1879 Tanner enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. The young artist proved to be one of Thomas Eakins’s favorite students; two decades after Tanner left the Academy Eakins painted his portrait, making him one of a handful of students to be so honored. At the Academy Tanner befriended artists with whom he would keep in contact throughout the rest of his life, most notable of these being Robert Henri, one of the founders of the Ashcan School. Tanner is often regarded as a realist painter. While his early works, such as "The Banjo Lesson" were concerned with everyday life as an African American, Tanner's later paintings focused mainly on the religious subjects for which he is now best known. Tanner's body of work is not limited to one specific approach to painting. His works vary from meticulous attention to detail in some paintings to loose, expressive brushstrokes in others. Often both methods are employed simultaneously. The combination of these two techniques makes for a masterful balance of skillful precision and powerful expression. Tanner was also interested in the effects that color could have in a painting.

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June 21, 1882: Rockwell Kent, American artist & illustrator, was born. "Kent lived much of his early life in and around New York City, and moved in his mid-40s to an Adirondack farmstead that he called Asgaard where he lived and painted until his death. Kent studied with the influential painters and theorists of his day, including Arthur Wesley Dow, William Merritt Chase, Robert Henri, and Abbott Thayer. Approached in 1926 by publisher R. R. Donnelley to produce an illustrated edition of Richard Henry Dana, Jr.'s Two Years Before the Mast, Kent suggested Moby-Dick instead. Published in 1930 by the Lakeside Press of Chicago, the three-volume limited edition filled with Kent's haunting black-and-white pen/brush and ink drawings sold out immediately; Random House produced a trade edition which was also immensely popular. Less well known are Kent's talents as a jazz age humorist. As the gifted pen-and-ink draftsman "Hogarth, Jr.", Kent created a wealth of whimsical and irreverent drawings published by Vanity Fair, New York Tribune, Harper's Weekly, and the original Life. He brought his Hogarth, Jr. style to a series of richly colored reverse paintings on glass which he completed in 1918 and exhibited at Wanamaker's Department Store. (Two of these glass paintings are in the collection of the Columbus Museum of Art, part of the bequest of modernist collector Ferdinand Howald.) Further decorative work ensued intermittently: in 1939, Vernon Kilns reproduced three series of designs drawn by Kent (Moby Dick, Salamina, Our America) on its sets of contemporary china dinnerware.

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June 21, 1903: Al Hirschfeld, American cartoonist, was born. "During Hirschfeld's nearly eight-decade career, he gained fame by illustrating the entire casts of various Broadway plays, which would appear to accompany reviews in The New York Times. Though this was Hirschfeld's best known field of interest he also would draw politicians, TV stars, and celebrities of all stripes from Cole Porter, the Nordstrom Sisters to the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation; Hirschfeld also caricatured hard rockers Aerosmith for the cover of their 1977 album Draw the Line. He expanded his audience by contributing to Patrick F. McManus' humor column in Outdoor Life magazine for a number of years. Hirschfeld started young and continued drawing to the end of his life, thus chronicling nearly all the major entertainment figures of the 20th Century. Hirschfeld drew some of the original movie posters for Charlie Chaplin's films, as well as The Wizard of Oz."

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Queen Victoria Danced to Offenbach Under Rosa's Skies-

2010-06-20T07:10:00.009-04:00

NOTICED ON THE INTERWEBS-

- Pulling Museum Mile Uptown: "After more than a decade pursuing what some saw as an impossible quest Elsie McCabe Thompson is preparing to open the Museum for African Art’s new $95 million home on upper Fifth Avenue next spring. “Maybe I’m just contrary,” she said during an interview this month, “but the more people tell me it can’t be done, the more I want to prove that it can.”... read more-

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ALMANAC-

June 20, 1615: Salvator Rosa, Italian Baroque painter and etcher, was born. "Salvator Rosa (1615 – March 15, 1673) was an Italian Baroque painter, poet and printmaker, active in Naples, Rome and Florence. Rosa was indisputably a leader in the tendency towards the romantic and picturesque. In general, in landscapes he avoided the idyllic and pastoral calm countrysides of Claude Lorraine and Paul Brill, and created brooding, melancholic fantasies, awash in ruins and brigands. In a time when artists where often highly constrained by patrons, Rosa had a plucky streak of independence, which celebrated the special role of the artist. He wrote- Our wealth must consist in things of the spirit, and in contenting ourselves with sipping, while others gorge themselves in prosperity. He refused to paint on commission or to agree on a price beforehand, and he chose his own subjects."

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June 20, 1819: Jacques Offenbach, composer & musician, was born. "A German-born French composer and cellist of the Romantic era, Offenbach was one of the originators of the operetta form and one of the most influential composers of popular music in Europe in the 19th century. Offenbach's numerous operettas, such as Orpheus in the Underworld, and La belle Hélène, were extremely popular in both France and the English-speaking world during the 1850s and 1860s. They combined political and cultural satire with witty grand opera parodies. His popularity in France went down during the 1870s after the Second Empire, and he fled France, but during the last years of his life, his popularity rebounded, and several of his operettas are still performed. While his name remains associated most closely with the French operetta and the Second Empire, it is Offenbach's one fully operatic masterpiece, The Tales of Hoffmann (Les Contes d'Hoffmann), composed at the end of his career, that has become the most familiar of Offenbach's works in major opera houses."

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June 20, 1837: Victoria is crowned Queen of England. "Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was the Queen regnant of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837, and the first Empress of India of the British Raj from 1 May 1876, until her death. Her reign as the Queen lasted 63 years and 7 months, longer than that of any other British monarch before or since, and her reign is the longest of any female monarch in history. The time of her reign is known as the Victorian era, a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military progress within the United Kingdom."

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ON OUR SHELVES-

“Exposed. The Victorian Nude”

Edited by Alison Smith.

Published by Watson-Guptill Publications in 2002.

“This sumptuous and sensual volume focuses primarily on painting, though it does include drawings, sculpture, and early forms of photography and silent film stills. [Alison] Smith, whose Victorian Nude: Sexuality, Morality, and Art provided a broad cultural context of the topic, showcases work by John Singer Sargent, Frederic Leighton, John Everett Millais, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and others.... The unlikely juxtaposition of Victorian mores with nude imagery provides an alternate sensibility to Victorian England, both enlightening the mind and pleasing the eye. Three richly illustrated essays by Smith, Martin Myrone, and Michael Hyatt frame the work.”

$25.00

Thomas Sully Was Born to be a Roycrofter-

2010-06-19T16:06:00.009-04:00

ALMANAC-

June 19, 1783: Thomas Sully, American portrait painter, was born. "Sully became a professional painter at age 18 in 1801. He studied face-painting under Gilbert Stuart in Boston for three weeks and in 1809 he traveled to London for nine months of study under Benjamin West. Sully's 1824 portraits of John Quincy Adams, who became President within the year, and then the Marquis de Lafayette appear to have brought him to the forefront of his day. Many famous Americans of the day had their portraits painted by him. In 1837–1838 he was in London to paint Queen Victoria at the request of Philadelphia's St. George's Society. His daughter Blanche assisted him as the Queen's "stand-in", modeling the Queen's costume when she was not available. Sully's own index indicates that he produced 2631 paintings from 1801, most of which are currently in the United States. His style resembles that of Thomas Lawrence. Though best known as a portrait painter, Sully also made historical pieces and landscapes."

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June 19, 1856: Elbert Hubbard, founder of the Roycrofters, editor, publisher and author, was born. "Hubbard founded Roycroft, an Arts and Crafts movement community in East Aurora, New York in 1895. This grew from his private press, the Roycroft Press, which was inspired by William Morris's Kelmscott Press. Although called the "Roycroft Press" by latter-day collectors and print historians, the organization called itself "The Roycrofters" and "The Roycroft Shops". Hubbard edited and published two magazines, The Philistine and The Fra. The Philistine was bound in brown butcher paper and full of satire and whimsy. (Hubbard himself quipped that the cover was butcher paper because: "There is meat inside." The Roycrofters produced handsome, if sometimes eccentric, books printed on handmade paper, and operated a fine bindery, a furniture shop, and shops producing modeled leather and hammered copper goods. They were a leading producer of Mission Style products."

"Hubbard's second wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, was a graduate of the New Thought-oriented Emerson College of Oratory in Boston and a noted suffragist. The Roycroft Shops became a site for meetings and conventions of radicals, freethinkers, reformers, and suffragists. Hubbard became a popular lecturer, and his homespun philosophy evolved from a loose William Morris-inspired socialism to an ardent defense of free enterprise and American know-how. In 1912, the famed passenger liner the Titanic was sunk after hitting an iceberg. Hubbard subsequently wrote of the disaster, singling out the story of Ida Straus, who as a woman was supposed to be placed on a lifeboat in precedence to the men, but she refused to board the boat: "Not I—I will not leave my husband. All these years we've traveled together, and shall we part now? No, our fate is one." Hubbard then added his own stirring commentary:

"Mr. and Mrs. Straus, I envy you that legacy of love and loyalty left to your children and grandchildren. The calm courage that was yours all your long and useful career was your possession in death. You knew how to do three great things—you knew how to live, how to love and how to die. One thing is sure, there are just two respectable ways to die. One is of old age, and the other is by accident. All disease is indecent. Suicide is atrocious. But to pass out as did Mr. and Mrs. Isador Straus is glorious. Few have such a privilege. Happy lovers, both. In life they were never separated and in death they are not divided."

"On May 1, 1915, little more than three years after the sinking of the Titanic, the Hubbards boarded Lusitania in New York City. On May 7, while at sea, it was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine. In a letter to Elbert Hubbard II dated 12 March 1916, Ernest C. Cowper, a survivor of this event, wrote:

I can not say specifically where your father and Mrs. Hubbard were when the torpedoes hit, but I can tell you just what happened after that. They emerged from their room, which was on the port side of the vessel, and came on to the boat-deck. Neither appeared perturbed in the least. Your father and Mrs. Hubbard linked arms—the fashion in which they always walked the deck—and stood apparently wondering what to do. I passed him with a baby which I was taking to a lifeboat when he said, 'Well, Jack, they have got us. They are a damn sight worse than I ever thought they were.' They did not move very far away from where they originally stood. As I moved to the other side of the ship, in preparation for a jump when the right moment came, I called to him, 'What are you going to do?' and he just shook his head, while Mrs. Hubbard smiled and said, 'There does not seem to be anything to do.' The expression seemed to produce action on the part of your father, for then he did one of the most dramatic things I ever saw done. He simply turned with Mrs. Hubbard and entered a room on the top deck, the door of which was open, and closed it behind him. It was apparent that his idea was that they should die together, and not risk being parted on going into the water.

"The Roycroft Shops, run by Hubbard's son, Elbert Hubbard II, operated until 1938. Owing to his prolific publications, Hubbard was a renowned figure in his day. Contributors to a 360-page book published by Roycrofters and entitled In Memoriam: Elbert and Alice Hubbard included such luminaries as meat-packing magnate J. Ogden Armour, business theorist and Babson College founder Roger Babson, botanist and horticulturalist Luther Burbank, seed-company founder W. Atlee Burpee, ketchup magnate Henry J. Heinz, National Park Service founder Franklin Knight Lane, success writer Orison Swett Marden, inventor of the modern comic strip Richard F. Outcault, poet James Whitcomb Riley, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Elihu Root, evangelist Billy Sunday, political leader Booker T. Washington, and poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox."

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“A Catalog of the Roycrofters, featuring Metalwork and Lighting Fixtures”

Edited by Peter A. Copeland.

Published by Turn of the Century Editions in 1989.

“This catalog includes handcrafted lamps, leaded glass lighting fixtures, and other metal objects produced by the Roycrofters at the beginning of the last century. Featured are some of the earliest Roycroft forms designed by Dard Hunter and Karl Kipp. The influence of the Wiener Werkstatte can be seen in the clean geometric lines. The book is a compilation of material from The Fra, original trade catalogs, and contemporary photographs of pieces in private collections. Collectors will find this catalog reprint a valuable reference. The book also contains an Introduction by Ray Groll”.

$15.00

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“Catalog of Roycroft Furniture and other things”

A facsimile reprint of the 1906 Roycroft Furniture catalog, issued by Turn of the Century Editions in 1981.

“Roycroft furniture was not manufactured in large quantities. Nevertheless, it contributed significantly towards the growth of Arts and Crafts design in America. Furniture and other artifacts made by the Roycrofters at their community in East Aurora, New York, are easily identified by the incised orb and cross and/or “Roycroft” name. The 1906 catalog reprinted here depicts a substantial portion of the furniture designs produced under the forceful direction of Elbert Hubbard. The catalog also features some copper and wrought iron accessories.”

$15.00

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James Montgomery Flagg Wants YOU To Find Your Comfort Zone

2010-06-18T11:15:00.000-04:00

NOTICED ON THE INTERWEBS-

-Once Upon a Time in Afghanistan...: "Record stores, Mad Men furniture, and pencil skirts -- when Kabul had rock 'n' roll, not rockets." An archive of 1960s photos reveal a very different Afghanistan- read more

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- Comfort zones: "From the backless bench to Matisse's 'good armchair', furniture has always been about more than bums on seats. But when the surrealists entered the drawing room, domestic interiors would never be the same again..." read more-

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ALMANAC-

June 18, 1877: Illustrator James Montgomery Flagg was born. "James Montgomery Flagg was an American artist and illustrator. He worked in media ranging from fine art painting to cartooning, but is best remembered for his propaganda posters. Flagg was born in Pelham Manor, New York. He was enthusiastic about drawing from a young age, and had illustrations accepted by national magazines by the age of 12 years. By 14 he was a contributing artist for Life magazine. From 1894 through 1898, he attended the Art Students League of New York. He studied fine art in London and Paris from 1898–1900, after which he returned to the United States, where he produced countless illustrations for books, magazine covers, political and humorous cartoons, advertising, and spot drawings. Among his creations was a comic strip that appeared regularly in Judge from 1903 until 1907, about a tramp character titled Nervy Nat."

"His most famous poster was created in 1917 to encourage recruitment in the United States Army during World War I. It showed Uncle Sam pointing at the viewer (inspired by a British recruitment poster showing Lord Kitchener in a similar pose) with the caption "I Want YOU for U.S. Army". Over four million copies of the poster were printed during World War I, and it was revived for World War II. Flagg used his own face for that of Uncle Sam (adding age and the white goatee), he said later, simply to avoid the trouble of arranging for a model. At his peak, Flagg was reported to have been the highest paid magazine illustrator in America. In 1946 Flagg published his autobiography, Roses and Buckshot."

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Who Sang Ave Maria at the Taj Mahal While Stravinsky Was Drawing Escher?

2010-06-17T18:42:00.000-04:00

NOTICED ON THE INTERWEBS-

- Trophy Hunters With Their Eye on Interiors: "And Just as the Rhino Charged, I Saw This Amazing Accent Tile on the Outdoor Shower!" "Bragging rights for homeowners are fleeting, hard to hold as a fistful of fog. You think your home is special because your backsplash is covered in tile imported from Mexico? There are those who think nothing of dispatching their architects and builders to the ends of the earth to personally scope out far more exotic goods — to the Middle East for the perfect limestone, even as bombs are going off, or to Indonesia for centuries-old reclaimed teak. For the ultra-high-end contractor, it’s just part of a day’s work..." read more-

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ALMANAC-

June 17, 1631: Mumtaz Mahal dies during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, then spends more than 20 years building her tomb, the Taj Mahal. "The Taj Mahal (also "the Taj") is considered the finest example of Mughal architecture, a style that combines elements from Islamic, Indian and Persian architectural styles. While the white domed marble mausoleum is its most familiar component, the Taj Mahal is actually an integrated complex of structures. Building began around 1632 and was completed around 1653, and employed thousands of artisans and craftsmen."

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June 17, 1818: Charles Gounod, French composer, was born. "Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette. The Bach/Gounod Ave Maria is a popular and much-recorded setting of the Latin text Ave Maria. Written in 1859, Ave Maria consists of a melody superimposed over the Prelude No. 1 in C major from Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV 846), composed by J. S. Bach some 137 years earlier. There are many different instrumental arrangements of the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria, including for violin and guitar, string quartet, piano solo, cello, and even trombones. It is often performed in Christian wedding ceremonies. Pop and opera singers, such as Luciano Pavarotti, as well as choirs have recorded it during the twentieth century."

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June 17, 1882: Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer, was born. "Composer, pianist, and conductor, Stravinsky is widely acknowledged as one of the most important and influential composers of 20th century music. He was a quintessentially cosmopolitan Russian who was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the century. He became a naturalized US citizen in 1946. In addition to the recognition he received for his compositions, he also achieved fame as a pianist and a conductor, often at the premieres of his works."

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June 17, 1898: Maurits Cornelis Escher was born. "Usually referred to as M.C. Escher, he was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. These feature impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, architecture, and tessellations. Escher's first print of an impossible reality was Still Life and Street, 1937. His artistic expression was created from images in his mind, rather than directly from observations and travels to other countries. Well known examples of his work also include Drawing Hands, a work in which two hands are shown, each drawing the other; Sky and Water, in which light plays on shadow to morph the water background behind fish figures into bird figures on a sky background; and Ascending and Descending, in which lines of people ascend and descend stairs in an infinite loop, on a construction which is impossible to build and possible to draw only by taking advantage of quirks of perception and perspective."

"He worked primarily in the media of lithographs and woodcuts, though the few mezzotints he made are considered to be masterpieces of the technique. In his graphic art, he portrayed mathematical relationships among shapes, figures and space. Additionally, he explored interlocking figures using black and white to enhance different dimensions. Integrated into his prints were mirror images of cones, spheres, cubes, rings and spirals. His works brought him fame: he was awarded the Knighthood of the Order of Orange Nassau in 1955. Subsequently he regularly designed art for dignitaries around the world. An asteroid, 4444 Escher, was named in his honour in 1985."

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June 17, 1907: Charles Eames, American designer and architect, was born. "Charles Eames was greatly influenced by the Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen (whose son Eero, also an architect, would become a partner and friend). At the elder Saarinen's invitation, Charles moved in 1938 to Michigan, to further study architecture at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he would become a teacher and head of the industrial design department. Together with Eero Saarinen he designed prize-winning furniture for New York's Museum of Modern Art "Organic Design in Home Furnishings" competition. Their work displayed the new technique of wood moulding (originally developed by Alvar Aalto), that Eames would further develop in many moulded plywood products, including, beside chairs and other furniture, splints and stretchers for the U.S. Navy during World War II."

"In the late 1940s, as part of the Arts & Architecture magazine's "Case Study" program, Ray and Charles Eames designed and built the groundbreaking Eames House, Case Study House #8, as their home. Located upon a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, and hand-constructed within a matter of days entirely of pre-fabricated steel parts intended for industrial construction, it remains a milestone of modern architecture. On June 17, 2008 the US Postal Service released the Eames Stamps. A pane of 16 stamps celebrating the designs of Charles and Ray Eames."

Dine-ing with Laurel (& Hardy)-

2010-06-16T07:23:00.000-04:00

ALMANAC-

June 16, 1860: George Frampton, British sculptor, was born. "Sir George James Frampton, RA was a notable British sculptor and leading member of the New Sculpture movement. Frampton, the London-born son of a stone mason, began his working life in an architect's office before studying under William Silver Frith at the City and Guilds of London Art School (formerly Lambeth School of Art). He went on to the Royal Academy Schools where he won the Gold Medal and Travelling Scholarship. From 1887 to 1890 Frampton undertook further study and work at the studio of Antonin Mercie in Paris. Frampton returned to England and took up a teaching position at the Slade School of Art in 1893. He was married to the artist Christabel Cockerell and had one son, the painter and etcher Meredith Frampton."

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June 16, 1890: Stan Laurel, English actor, was born. "Arthur Stanley Jefferson, better known as Stan Laurel, was an English comic actor, writer and film director, famous as the first half of the comedy double-act Laurel and Hardy, whose career stretched from the silent films of the early 20th century until after World War II."

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June 16, 1935 - Jim Dine, pop artist, was born. "Jim Dine is an American pop artist. He is sometimes considered to be a part of the Neo-Dada movement. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, attended the University of Cincinnati and received a BFA from Ohio University in 1957. He first earned respect in the art world with his "Happenings". Pioneered with artists Claes Oldenburg and Allan Kaprow, in conjunction with musician John Cage, the "Happenings" were chaotic performance art that was a stark contrast with the more somber mood of the expressionists popular in the New York art world. The first of these was the 30 second The Smiling Worker performed in 1959."

"Oh, PHIZ!!" Exclaimed Saul Steinberg, "Nick Poussin & Malvina Hoffman Are Playing Greig Again!"

2010-06-15T07:38:00.001-04:00

NOTICED ON THE INTERWEBS-

- Brooklyn Museum’s Populism Hasn’t Lured Crowds: "When it opened a new glass entrance in 2004 meant to beckon the masses, the Brooklyn Museum said it hoped to triple attendance in 10 years by concentrating on a local audience. It had stopped worrying about competing with Manhattan museums or about its image — despite its world-class collections — as a poor man’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. But six years in, the effort to build an audience is not working. Attendance in 2009 dropped 23 percent from the year before..." read more-

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ALMANAC-

June 15, 1594: Nicolas Poussin, French painter, was born. "Nicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century. Until the 20th century he remained the major inspiration for such classically-oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David and Paul Cézanne. He spent most of his working life in Rome, except for a short period when Cardinal Richelieu ordered him back to France to serve as First Painter to the King."

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June 15, 1815: Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne], English illustrator of Dickens works, and others, is born. "Hablot Knight Browne was an English artist, famous as Phiz, the illustrator of the best-known books by Charles Dickens, Charles Lever and Harrison Ainsworth in their original editions. His talents in other directions of art were of a very ordinary kind, but as an interpreter and illustrator of Dickens's characters, "Phiz", as he always signed his drawings, was exceptional, surpassing his rivals Cruikshank and Leech."

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June 15, 1843: Edvard Grieg, Norwegian composer, was born. "Edvard Hagerup Grieg was a Norwegian composer and pianist who composed in the Romantic period. He is best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor, for his incidental music to Henrik Ibsen's play Peer Gynt (which includes Morning Mood and In the Hall of the Mountain King), and for his collection of piano miniatures Lyric Pieces. Grieg is renowned as a nationalist composer, drawing inspiration from Norwegian folk music. Early works include a symphony (which he later suppressed) and a piano sonata. He also wrote three sonatas for violin and piano and a cello sonata. His many short pieces for piano — often based on Norwegian folk tunes and dances — led some to call him the "Chopin of the North"."

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June 15, 1887: Malvina Hoffman, American sculptor, was born. "Hoffman was well known for her life-size bronze sculptures of people. She also worked in plaster and marble. Portrait busts of significant individuals of that time and depictions of people in their everyday lives were frequent works executed by Hoffman. Dancers were the subjects of the works that brought her earliest recognition and she continued to sculpt dancers throughout her career, some individuals repeatedly, such as Anna Pavlova. She was highly skilled in foundry techniques as well, often casting her own works and she wrote a definite book on historical and technical aspects of sculpture, 'Sculpture Inside and Out'."

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June 15, 1914: Saul Steinberg, New York cartoonist/illustrator, was born. "Saul Steinberg was a Romanian-born American cartoonist and illustrator, best known for his work for The New Yorker. Although best remembered for his commercial work, Steinberg did exhibit his work throughout his career at fine art museums and galleries. He married Romanian born abstract expressionist painter Hedda Sterne in 1944. In 1946, Steinberg, along with artists such as Arshile Gorky, Isamu Noguchi, and Robert Motherwell, was exhibited in the critically acclaimed "Fourteen Americans" show at The Museum of Modern Art. He has also enjoyed a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art (1978) and another posthumous one at the Institute for Modern Art in Valencia (IVAM), Spain (2002)."

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ON OUR SHELVES-

“Set in Stone. The Face in Medieval Sculpture”

Edited by Charles T. Little.

Published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2006

“Faces in Medieval sculpture are explorations of human identity, marked not only by evolving nuances of style but also by the ongoing drama of European history. Created from materials as diverse as marble, limestone, polychromed wood, and silver gilt, the eighty-one sculpted heads featured in this beautifully illustrated volume date from the third century A.D. through the early 1500s and represent French, German, Italian, Spanish, Byzantine, English, and other medieval sculptural traditions. Each sculpture bears eloquent witness to its own history, whether it was removed from its original context for ideological reasons or because of changing tastes.

$50.00

Did John McCormack Sing of Margaret Bourke-White Taking Superman's picture?

2010-06-14T16:53:00.000-04:00

CAUGHT MY EYE ON THE INTERWEBS-

- What lies beneath: the fakes, mistakes and discoveries at the National Gallery: "Scientists working at the National Gallery found that Woman at a Window, a painting of a girl with neat dark hair and a steady gaze, contained a secret. Hidden under layers of varnish and paint was the original painting of the same woman, only this time she has a suggestive sideways glance and was dressed in a more revealing bodice. " Peek under the varnish...

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ALMANAC-

June 14, 1884: John McCormack, Irish tenor, was born. "John McCormack was a world-famous Irish tenor and recording artist, celebrated for his performances of the operatic and popular song repertoires, and renowned for his diction and breath control. He was also a Papal Count. In 1906 he made his operatic début at the Teatro Chiabrera, Savona. The following year he undertook his first important operatic appearance at Covent Garden in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana, becoming the theatre's youngest principal tenor. By 1912 he began to turn his attention increasingly to the concert stage, where his voice quality and charisma ensured that he became the most celebrated lyric tenor of his day. McCormack made hundreds of recordings, the first on phonograph cylinder in 1904. His most commercially successful series of records were those for the Victor Talking Machine Company in the 1910s and 1920s. McCormack was the first artist to record the World War I hit song It's a Long Way to Tipperary, in 1914."

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June 14, 1904: Margaret Bourke-White, American photojournalist, was born. "Margaret Bourke-White was an American photographer and documentary photographer. She is most famously known as the first foreign photographer permitted to take picture of Soviet Industry, the first female war correspondent (and related, the first female permitted to work in combat zones) and the first female photographer for Life magazine, where her photograph graced the first Life cover."

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June 14, 1938: Action Comics issue one is released, introducing Superman. "Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective Comics, Inc. (later DC Comics) in 1938, the character first appeared in Action Comics #1 (June 1938) and subsequently appeared in various radio serials, television programs, films, newspaper strips, and video games. With the success of his adventures, Superman helped to create the superhero genre and establish its primacy within the American comic book. Superman has come to be seen as both an American cultural icon and the first comic book superhero. His adventures and popularity have established the character as an inspiring force within the public eye, with the character serving as inspiration for musicians, comedians and writers alike. Kryptonite, Brainiac and Bizarro have become synonymous in popular vernacular with Achilles' heel, extreme intelligence and reversed logic respectively. Similarly, the phrase "I'm not Superman" or alternatively "you're not Superman" is an idiom used to suggest a lack of invincibility. Superman has fascinated scholars, with cultural theorists, commentators, and critics alike exploring the character's impact and role in the United States and the rest of the world. Umberto Eco discussed the mythic qualities of the character in the early 1960s, and Larry Niven has pondered the implications of a sexual relationship the character might enjoy with Lois Lane."

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ON OUR SHELVES-

“Modern Chinese Scholars’ Rocks. A Guide for Collectors”

By Kemin Hu.

Published by Floating World Editions in 2006.

DISCUSSION: “Scholars’ stones have been appreciated in China for more than a millennium, and acquiring them in the West has become increasingly popular. This book introduces nearly 50 stone types through color photographs and descriptions. The qualities for which they are valued and features for the stone connoisseur to look for are revealed, and separate chapters explain how to display stones to their best advantage and how stands are made.”

$29.95

Egon Schiele Goes Retro- Paints Cosimo de Medici!

2010-06-12T07:10:00.007-04:00

NOTICED ON THE INTERWEBS-

- Will Last Century’s Styles Open Today’s Wallets?: "For some clothing brands, the summer of 2010 looks a lot like the summer of 1910, and 1949, and 1957 — basically, any time but now..." Jump back to the future & read more!

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ALMANAC-

June 12, 1519: Cosimo de Medici was born. "Cosimo I de' Medici was Duke of Florence from 1537 to 1574, reigning as the first Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1569. He is perhaps best known today for the creation of the Uffizi ("offices"). Originally intended as a means of consolidating his administrative control of the various committees, agencies, and guilds established in Florence's Republican past, it now houses one of the world's most important collections of art, much of it commissioned and/or owned by various Medici. He also finished the Pitti Palace as a home for the Medici and created the magnificent Boboli Gardens behind the Pitti. As his more prominent ancestors had been, he was also an important patron of the arts, supporting, among others, Vasari, Cellini, Pontormo, Bronzino, the architect Lanci, and the historians Scipione Ammirato and Benedetto Varchi."

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- June 12, 1890: Egon Schiele, Austrian painter and graphic artist, was born. "Egon Schiele was an Austrian painter. A protégé of Gustav Klimt, Schiele was a major figurative painter of the early 20th century. Schiele's work is noted for its intensity, and the many self-portraits the artist produced. The twisted body shapes and the expressive line that characterize Schiele's paintings and drawings mark the artist as an early exponent of Expressionism, although still strongly associated with the art nouveau movement (Jugendstil). The most important collection of Schiele's work is housed in the Leopold Museum, Vienna.

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ON OUR SHELVES-

“Seduction. A Celebration of Sensual Style”

By Caroline Cox.

Published in New York by Collins Design in 2006.

“From Marie Antoinette and Madame de Pompadour in pre-revolutionary France, through the queens of 1930s Hollywood like Jean Harlow and Marlene Dietrich, to modern sex sirens like Madonna and Jennifer Lopez, this large visual history explores the sensual style of the seductress, illustrated with full-page photos, film stills, and reproductions of period art. An international authority on the history of fashion, Caroline Cox explores the art of seduction, examining the many ways in which women have used their environment, apparel, and attitude to create their allure."

$25.00

Could Julia Margaret Cameron Take a Picture of Nosferatu?

2010-06-11T09:51:00.007-04:00

ALMANAC-

June 11, 1776: John Constable, English painter, was born. "John Constable was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling". His most famous paintings include Dedham Vale of 1802 and The Hay Wain of 1821. Although his paintings are now among the most popular and valuable in British art, he was never financially successful and did not become a member of the establishment until he was elected to the Royal Academy at the age of 52. He sold more paintings in France than in his native England."

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June 11, 1815: Julia Margaret Cameron, English photographer, was born. "Julia Margaret Cameron was a British photographer. She became known for her portraits of celebrities of the time, and for photographs with Arthurian and other legendary themes. Cameron's photographic career was short, spanning eleven years of her life (1864-1875). She took up photography at the relatively late age of 48, when she was given a camera as a present. Her work had a huge impact on the development of modern photography, especially her closely cropped portraits which are still mimicked today. Her house, Dimbola Lodge, on the Isle of Wight is open to the public.

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June 11, 1864: Richard Strauss, German composer and conductor, was born. "Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, particularly of operas, Lieder and tone poems. Together with Gustav Mahler he represents the extraordinary late flowering of German Romanticism, after Wagner, in which pioneering subtleties of orchestration are combined with an advanced harmonic style. Strauss's music had a profound influence on the development of music in the twentieth century. Like Mahler, Strauss was also a prominent conductor."

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June 11, 1879: Max Schreck, German actor, was born. "Friedrich Gustav Max Schreck was a German actor. He is most often remembered today for his lead role in the film Nosferatu (1922). For three years between 1919 and 1922, Schreck appeared at the Munich Kammerspiele, including a role in the expressionist production of Bertolt Brecht's debut, Trommeln in der Nacht (Drums in the Night) (in which he played the "freakshow landlord" Glubb). In 1921, he was hired by Prana Film for their first and only production, Nosferatu. The company declared itself bankrupt after the film was released to avoid paying copyright infringement costs to Florence Stoker, Dracula author Bram Stoker's widow. Schreck portrayed Count Orlok, a character analogous to Count Dracula."

"In 1923, while still in Munich, Schreck appeared in a 16-minute (one-reeler) slapstick, "surreal comedy" written by Bertolt Brecht entitled Mysterien eines Friseursalons (Mysteries of a Barbershop), directed by Erich Engel. In 1926, Schreck returned to the Kammerspiele in Munich and continued to act in films surviving the advent of sound until his death in 1936 of heart failure. He was married to actress Fanny Normann, who appeared in a few films, often credited as Fanny Schreck. Curiously, the word schreck is also the German word for fright, or terror. Because of this, many authors who were unaware of Schreck's on-stage credits (and ignorant of the rather sparse details of his personal life) speculated that there was really no such person, and that Schreck was, in fact, some well-known actor who had chosen to adopt a pseudonym for his role in Nosferatu. Schreck's contemporaries recalled he was a loner with an unusual sense of humor and skill in playing grotesque characters. One reported he lived in "a remote and strange world" and that he spent time walking through dark forests."

Put on Your Dancing Shoes and Go Over the Rainbow- That's Where the Wild Things Are!

2010-06-10T07:09:00.001-04:00

NOTICED ON THE INTERWEBS-

- This Shoe Had Prada Beat by 5,500 Years: "Think of it as a kind of prehistoric Prada: Archaeologists have discovered what they say is the world’s oldest known leather shoe. Perfectly preserved under layers of sheep dung (who needs cedar closets?), the shoe, made of cowhide and tanned with oil from a plant or vegetable, is about 5,500 years old, older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids, scientists say. Leather laces crisscross through numerous leather eyelets, and it was worn on the right foot; there is no word on the left shoe..." Read the rest of the story-

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ALMANAC-

June 10, 1819: Gustave Courbet, French painter, was born. "Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement (characterized by the paintings of Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix), with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social commentary in his work. Courbet courted controversy by addressing social issues in his work, and by painting subjects that were considered vulgar: the rural bourgeoisie and peasantry, and the working conditions of the poor. For Courbet realism dealt not with the perfection of line and form, but entailed spontaneous and rough handling of paint, suggesting direct observation by the artist while portraying the irregularities in nature. He depicted the harshness in life, and in so doing, challenged contemporary academic ideas of art.

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June 10, 1880: André Derain, French painter, was born. "André Derain was a French painter and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse. Fernande Olivier, Picasso's mistress at the time, described Derain as: Slim, elegant, with a lively colour and enamelled black hair. With an English chic, somewhat striking. Fancy waistcoats, ties in crude colours, red and green. Always a pipe in his mouth, phlegmatic, mocking, cold, an arguer."

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June 10, 1895: Hattie McDaniel, American actress, was born. "Hattie McDaniel was the first African American to win an Academy Award of any kind. She won the award for Best Supporting Actress for her role of Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939). McDaniel was also a professional singer-songwriter, comedienne, stage actress, radio performer, and television star. She was the first black woman to sing on the radio in America. Over the course of her career, McDaniel appeared in over 300 films, although she received screen credits for only about 80. McDaniel has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood: one for her contributions to radio at 6933 Hollywood Boulevard, and one for motion pictures at 1719 Vine Street. In 1975, she was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame and in 2006 became the first black Oscar winner honored with a US postage stamp.

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June 10, 1907: Fairfield Porter, American painter, was born. "Fairfield Porter was an American painter and art critic. Though educated at Harvard, he was largely self-taught, and produced representational work in the midst of the Abstract Expressionist movement. His subjects were primarily landscapes, domestic interiors and portraits of family, friends and fellow artists, many of them affiliated with the New York School of writers, including John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, and James Schuyler. Many of his paintings were set in or around the family summer house on Great Spruce Head Island, Maineand the family home at 49 South Main Street, Southhampton, New York. His painterly vision which encompassed a fascination with nature and the ability to reveal extraordinariness in ordinary life was heavily indebted to the French painters Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. He said once, When I paint, I think that what would satisfy me is to express what Bonnard said Renoir told him: make everything more beautiful."

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June 10, 1922: Judy Garland, American musical actress, was born. "Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years, Garland attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage. Respected for her versatility, she received a Juvenile Academy Award, won a Golden Globe Award, received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for her work in films, as well as Grammy Awards and a Special Tony Award. After appearing in vaudeville with her sisters, Garland was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as a teenager. There she made more than two dozen films, including nine with Mickey Rooney and the 1939 film with which she would be most identified, The Wizard of Oz. After 15 years, Garland was released from the studio but gained renewed success through concert appearances, including a critically acclaimed Carnegie Hall concert, a well-regarded but short-lived television series and a return to acting beginning with a critically acclaimed performance in A Star Is Born. In 1997, Garland was posthumously awarded a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Several of her recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 1999, the American Film Institute placed her among the ten greatest female stars in the history of American cinema."

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June 10, 1928: Maurice Sendak, American writer & illustrator, was born. "Sendak gained international acclaim after writing and illustrating Where the Wild Things Are, although the book's depictions of fanged monsters concerned some parents when it was first released. Sendak's seeming attraction to the forbidden or nightmarish aspects of children's fantasy have made him a subject of controversy. The monsters in the book were actually based on relatives who would come to weekly dinners. Because of their broken English and odd mannerisms, they were the perfect basis for the monsters in Sendak's book. Before Where the Wild Things Are, Sendak was best known for illustrating Else Holmelund Minarik's Little Bear series of books. When Sendak saw a manuscript of Zlateh the Goat, the first children’s story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, on the desk of an editor at Harper & Row, he offered to illustrate the book, which was first published in 1966 and received a Newbery Award. Sendak was delighted and enthusiastic about the collaboration. He once wryly remarked that his parents were finally impressed by their youngest child when he collaborated with Singer."

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I'm Dreaming of Textile Mills in Vienna, Night and Day!

2010-06-09T15:23:00.000-04:00

ALMANAC-

June 9, 1768: Samuel Slater, creator of the American textile industry, was born. "Samuel Slater was an early American industrialist popularly known as the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution" or the "Father of the American Factory System" because he brought British textile technology to America. A native of England, he was apprenticed to Jedediah Strutt in Belper as a manager in a cotton mill of the type pioneered by Richard Arkwright at Cromford. In 1789 he violated a British emigration law that prohibited the spread of British manufacturing technology to other nations. When he left for New York, he had memorized the plans for the mill and had a deep understanding of Strutt's managerial practices. He offered to sell his knowledge to American industrialists, doing so to Moses Brown, who used the plan, and made major profit. He soon found work in Massachusetts and Rhode Island replicating British factory equipment for a textile mill, and earned the owner's backing to design and build the first water-powered cotton mill in the United States. Slater established tenant farms and towns around his textile mills such as Slatersville, Rhode Island. Due to his technical knowledge from Britain, he became a full partner and eventually went into business for himself and grew wealthy. By the end of Slater's life he owned thirteen spinning mills. Samuel also known as the "Father of the American Sunday School System" establishing youth Bible classes in his mills after the pattern of Strutt and Arkwright.' "

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June 9, 1810: Otto Nicolai, German composer, conductor, and founder of the Vienna Philharmonic, was born. "Nicolai is best known for his operatic version of Shakespeare's comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor (Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor). In addition to five operas, Nicolai composed lieder, works for orchestra, chorus, ensemble, and solo instruments."

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June 9, 1891: Cole Porter, American composer and lyricist, was born. "Cole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. His works include the musical comedies Kiss Me, Kate, Fifty Million Frenchmen, DuBarry Was a Lady and Anything Goes, as well as songs like "Night and Day," "I Get a Kick out of You," "Well, Did You Evah!" and "I've Got You Under My Skin." He was noted for his sophisticated, bawdy lyrics, clever rhymes and complex forms. Porter was one of the greatest contributors to the Great American Songbook. Cole Porter is one of the few Tin Pan Alley composers to have written both the lyrics and the music for his songs."

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ON OUR SHELVES-

"Memoir of Samuel Slater, The Father of American Manufactures. Connected with a History of the Rise and Progress of the Cotton Manufacture in England and America. With Remarks on the Moral Influence of Manufactories in the United States"

By George S. White.

Published in Philadelphia; Printed at No.46, Carpenter Street: 1836.

The earliest and best biography of the “Founder of the American Industrial Revolution”, written by a friend.

$275.00

Would Frank Lloyd Wright Have Used Missile Mail?

2010-06-08T07:07:00.000-04:00

NOTICED ON THE INTERWEBS-

- For New ‘Ring’ Set, Met Has to Buy Steel Supports: "Wagner’s “Ring” cycle concludes with the flaming destruction of Valhalla, the hall of the gods, a scene that will play out when the Metropolitan Opera mounts a new production of the cycle’s four operas over the next two seasons. Structural collapse is definitely not the fate you want for your actual theater. But at the Met, that was a distinct possibility. Engineers determined that the set, conceived by Robert Lepage, the Canadian director who is creating this production, would be so heavy — roughly 45 tons — that the floor under the stage might not hold..." Read the full story

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ALMANAC-

June 8, 1810: Robert Schumann, German composer, was born. "Robert Schumann was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is one of the most famous and important Romantic composers of the 19th century. Schumann had hoped to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist, having been assured by his teacher, Friedrich Wieck, that he could become the finest pianist in Europe after only a few years of study with him. However, when a hand injury prevented those hopes from being realized, he decided to focus his musical energies on composition. Schumann's published compositions were written exclusively for the piano until 1840; he later composed works for piano and orchestra; many lieder (songs for voice and piano); four symphonies; an opera; and other orchestral, choral, and chamber works. In 1840, after a long and acrimonious legal battle with his piano instructor (Wieck), Schumann married Wieck's daughter, pianist Clara Wieck, who also composed music and had a considerable concert career, including premieres of many of her husband's works. Robert Schumann died in middle age; for the last two years of his life, after an attempted suicide, he was confined to a mental institution at his own request. Schumann exerted considerable influence in the nineteenth century and beyond, despite his adoption of more conservative modes of composition after his marriage. He left an array of acclaimed music in virtually all the forms then known. Partly through his protégé Brahms, Schumann's ideals and musical vocabulary became widely disseminated. Composer Sir Edward Elgar called Schumann "my ideal." "

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June 8, 1829: Sir John Everett Millais, English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, was born. "Millais achieved popular success with A Huguenot (1852), which depicts a young couple about to be separated because of religious conflicts. He repeated this theme in many later works. All these early works were painted with great attention to detail, often concentrating on the beauty and complexity of the natural world. This style was promoted by the critic John Ruskin, who had defended the Pre-Raphaelites against their critics. Millais' friendship with Ruskin introduced him to Ruskin's wife Effie. Soon after they met she modelled for his painting The Order of Release. As Millais painted Effie they fell in love. In 1856, after her marriage to Ruskin was annulled, Effie and John Millais married. He and Effie eventually had eight children including John Guille Millais, a notable naturalist and wildlife artist.

After his marriage, Millais began to paint in a broader style, which was condemned by Ruskin as "a catastrophe". It has been argued that this change of style resulted from Millais' need to increase his output to support his growing family. Unsympathetic critics such as William Morris accused him of "selling out" to achieve popularity and wealth. His admirers, in contrast, pointed to the artist's connections with Whistler and Albert Moore, and influence on John Singer Sargent. Millais himself argued that as he grew more confident as an artist, he could paint with greater boldness. Millais was also very successful as a book illustrator, notably for the works of Anthony Trollope and the poems of Tennyson. His complex illustrations of the parables of Jesus were published in 1864. He also provided illustrations for magazines such as Good Words. In 1869 he was recruited as an artist for the newly founded weekly newspaper The Graphic."

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June 8, 1867: Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect, was born. "Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 projects, which resulted in more than 500 completed works. Wright promoted organic architecture (exemplified by Fallingwater and Graycliff), was a leader of the Prairie School movement of architecture (exemplified by the Robie House, the Westcott House, and the Darwin D. Martin House), and developed the concept of the Usonian home (exemplified by the Rosenbaum House). His work includes original and innovative examples of many different building types, including offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, and museums. Wright also often designed many of the interior elements of his buildings, such as the furniture and stained glass. Wright authored 20 books and many articles, and was a popular lecturer in the United States and in Europe. His colorful personal life often made headlines, most notably for the 1914 fire and murders at his Taliesin studio. Already well-known during his lifetime, Wright was recognized in 1991 by the American Institute of Architects as "the greatest American architect of all time".

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June 8, 1921: LeRoy Neiman, American painter, was born. "LeRoy Neiman is an American artist known for his brilliantly colored, semi-abstract paintings and screen prints of athletes and sporting events. Neiman worked as an illustrator for department store Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. in Chicago in the early 1950s alongside a copywriter named Hugh Hefner. After Hefner started Playboy magazine in 1953, Neiman's artwork was featured in several issues. To this day, Neiman continues to illustrate the "Femlin", a Playboy character that is featured every month on the jokes page. He is considered by many the premier sports artist in the world challenged only in recent years by younger artists Stephen Holland and Richard T. Slone. Neiman works in oil, enamel, watercolor, pencil drawings, pastels, serigraphy and some lithographs and etching."

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June 8, 1949: Emanuel Ax, Polish-born pianist, was born. "Emanuel Ax is a Grammy-winning American-Jewish classical pianist. He is currently a teacher on the faculty of the Juilliard School. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 21st century. Ax is a particular supporter of contemporary composers and has given three world premieres in the last few seasons; Century Rolls by John Adams, Seeing by Christopher Rouse and Red Silk Dance by Bright Sheng. He also performs works by such diverse figures as Sir Michael Tippett, Hans Werner Henze, Joseph Schwantner and Paul Hindemith, as well as more traditional composers such as Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin. Ax regularly performs duo recitals with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and played quartets with Ma and violinists Isaac Stern and Jaime Laredo."

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June 8, 1959: Missile Mail is debuted... "In 1959 the U.S. Navy submarine USS Barbero assisted the Post Office Department, predecessor to the United States Postal Service, in its search for faster mail transportation with the only delivery of "Missile Mail". On 8 June 1959, Barbero fired a Regulus cruise missile — its nuclear warhead having earlier been replaced by two Post Office Department mail containers — at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station in Mayport, Florida. Twenty-two minutes later, the missile struck its target. The USPS had officially established a branch post office on Barbero and delivered some 3000 pieces of mail to it before Barbero left Norfolk, Virginia. The mail consisted entirely of commemorative postal covers. Upon witnessing the missile's landing, Postmaster General Arthur E. Summerfield predicted that "before man reaches the moon, mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to Britain, to India or Australia by guided missiles. We stand on the threshold of rocket mail." Notwithstanding the Postmaster General's enthusiasm, in reality the Department of Defense saw the measure more as a demonstration of U.S. missile capabilities. Experts believe that the cost of using missile mail could never be justified."

Well, darn.

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ON OUR SHELVES-

“Moorcroft. A Guide to Moorcroft Pottery 1897-1993”

By Paul Atterbury.

Published in Somerset by Richard Dennis & Hugh Edwards in 2008. 2nd edition.

“Moorcroft is one of the most important names in the history of British art and studio pottery, representing as it does an unbroken line of production that reaches back over a century to 1897. Throughout this period collectors all over the world have enjoyed the characteristic style and colors of Moorcroft pottery, and today both the decorative wares of the past and the new ranges in production at the factory are highly sought after. This new enlarged and completely revised edition includes many new photographs, making it invaluable for all Moorcroft collectors' and those interested in decorative arts of the 20th century”.

$95.00

Beau Brummell, Charles Rennie Macintosh & Paul Gauguin Will NOT Remain Silent!

2010-06-07T09:42:00.000-04:00

NOTED ON THE INTERWEBS-

- Long-Lost Silent Films Return to America: "A late silent feature directed by John Ford, a short comedy directed by Mabel Normand, a period drama starring Clara Bow and a group of early one-reel westerns are among a trove of long-lost American films recently found in the New Zealand Film Archive. Some 75 of these movies, chosen for their historical and cultural importance, are in the process of being returned to the United States under the auspices of the National Film Preservation Foundation, the nonprofit, charitable affiliate of the Library of Congress’s National Film Preservation Board." Read the whole story

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- Scars from lion bite suggest headless Romans found in York were gladiators: "Evidence from tests on 80 skeletons of young men found in Yorkshire gardens points to world's best-preserved gladiator graveyard, archaeologists say..." Read the rest of the story

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ALMANAC-

June 7, 1778: Beau Brummell, English fashion leader, was born. "Beau Brummell, born as George Bryan Brummell, was the arbiter of men's fashion in Regency England, and was included in Prince George's circle. Here, he made an impression with his elegant understated manner of dress and clever remarks. His fastidious attention to cleaning his teeth, shaving, and bathing daily became popular. He established the mode of men wearing understated, but fitted, tailored clothes including dark suits and full-length trousers, adorned with an elaborately-knotted cravat. Beau Brummell is credited with introducing and establishing as fashion the modern man's suit, worn with a tie. He claimed to take five hours to dress, and recommended that boots be polished with champagne. His style of dress was known as dandyism."

In 1811, however, the Prince became Regent, and began abandoning all his old Whig friends, including Brummel. Their break has become infamous- "Brummell, Lord Alvanley, Henry Mildmay and Henry Pierrepoint were considered the prime movers of Watier's, dubbed "the Dandy Club" by Byron. They were also the four hosts of the masquerade ball in July 1813 at which the Prince Regent greeted Alvanley and Pierrepoint, but then "cut" Brummell and Mildmay by snubbing them, staring them in the face but not speaking to them. This provoked Brummell's famous remark, "Alvanley, who's your fat friend?".

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June 7, 1848: Paul Gauguin, French painter, was born. "Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading Post-Impressionist artist, painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist and writer. His bold experimentation with colouring led directly to the Synthetist style of modern art while his expression of the inherent meaning of the subjects in his paintings, under the influence of the cloisonnist style, paved the way to Primitivism and the return to the pastoral. He was also an influential proponent of wood engraving and woodcuts as art forms. Gauguin's bold, colorful and design oriented paintings significantly influenced Modern art. Gauguin's influence on artists and movements in the early 20th century include Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, André Derain, Fauvism, Cubism and Orphism, among others. Later he influenced Arthur Frank Mathews and the American Arts and Crafts Movement."

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June 7, 1868: Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Scottish architect, designer, and watercolourist, was born. "Charles Rennie Mackintosh was a Scottish architect, designer, watercolourist and sculpter. He was a designer in the Arts and Crafts movement and also the main exponent of Art Nouveau in the United Kingdom. He had a considerable influence on European design."

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June 7, 1897: George Szell, Hungarian conductor, was born. "George Szell was a Hungarian-born American conductor and composer. He is remembered today for his long and successful tenure as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, and for the recordings of the standard classical repertoire he made in Cleveland and with other orchestras. Szell came to Cleveland in 1946 to take over a respected, but undersized, orchestra which was struggling to recover from the disruptions of World War II. By the time of his death he was credited, to quote the critic Donal Henahan, with having built it into "what many critics regarded as the world's keenest symphonic instrument." Through his recordings, Szell has remained a presence in the classical music world long after his death, and in some circles his name remains synonymous with that of the Cleveland Orchestra."

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FROM OUR SHELVES-

"The Arts and Crafts Companion"

By Pamela Todd.

Published by the Bulfinch Press in 2004.

“As a revival of traditional craftsmanship in the wake of the sweeping shift of manufacturing toward mass production, the Arts & Crafts Movement evolved on both sides of the Atlantic, embraced by designers and architects like Edwin Lutyens, Frank Lloyd Wright, William Morris, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Louis Tiffany, and Gustave Stickley. This book, illustrated with 250 color and 50 black and white images, is a superb reference, tracing the origins of the movement; the personalities behind it and their distinctive designs; and the many aspects of the Arts & Crafts style in architecture and interiors, pottery, glass, applied arts and decoration, and the garden.”

$35.00

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VIDEO OF THE DAY-

Speaking of Beau Brummell...

Velazquez, Trumbull & Flaxman Go to Heist School-

2010-06-06T15:03:00.000-04:00

NOTICED ON THE INTERWEBS-

-Heist School: On Friday, May 21, the day after five paintings worth roughly $125 million, including works by Braque, Matisse, Modigliani and Picasso, were discovered stolen from the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, an ebullient scandalmonger known as Turbo Paul, who runs two art-theft blogs, sent me an e-mail message: “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” Cheers, Turbo Paul. You scare me... Read more-

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ALMANAC-

June 6, 1599 - Diego Velazquez, painter, was baptized. "Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist. In addition to numerous renditions of scenes of historical and cultural significance, he painted scores of portraits of the Spanish royal family, other notable European figures, and commoners, culminating in the production of his masterpiece Las Meninas. From the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Velázquez's artwork was a model for the realist and impressionist painters, in particular Édouard Manet. Since that time, more modern artists, including Spain's Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí, as well as the Anglo-Irish painter Francis Bacon, have paid tribute to Velázquez by recreating several of his most famous works."

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June 6, 1755 - John Flaxman, English Neoclassical sculptor, was born. "When he was 19 years old he was employed by Josiah Wedgwood and his partner Bentley, as a modeller of classic and domestic friezes, plaques, ornamental vessels and medallion portraits. It was in these inventive jasper" and "basalt" ware compositions that the manufacturers of the age, who had conceived and perfected the style, earned their great reputation. By 1780 Flaxman had also begun to earn money by sculpting grave monuments. His early memorial work included monuments for Thomas Chatterton in the church of St Mary Redcliffe in Bristol. During the rest of Flaxman's career memorial bas-reliefs of this type made up the bulk of his output; and may be found in many churches throughout England. What gained Flaxman his general fame was not his work in sculpture proper, but those outline designs to the poets, in which he showed the principles of ancient design in vase paintings and bas reliefs. The designs for the Iliad and Odyssey were commissioned by Mrs Hare Naylor; those for Dante by Hope; those for Aeschylus by Lady Spencer; they were all engraved by Piroli, not without considerable loss of the finer and more sensitive qualities of Flaxman's own lines."

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June 6, 1756 - John Trumbull, painter, was born. "John Trumbull was an American artist during the period of the American Revolutionary War notable for his historical paintings. His Declaration of Independence was used on the reverse of the two-dollar bill. Trumbull was born in Lebanon, Connecticut, to Jonathan Trumbull, who was Governor of Connecticut from 1769 to 1784, and his wife. Due to a childhood accident, Trumbull lost use of one eye, which may have influenced his detailed painting style. As a soldier in the American Revolutionary War, Trumbull rendered a particular service at Boston by sketching plans of the British works, and witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill. In 1780 he traveled to London, where he studied under Benjamin West. At his suggestion, Trumbull painted small pictures of the War of Independence and miniature portraits, of which he produced about 250 in his lifetime. In 1784 he painted his Battle of Bunker Hill and Death of General Montgomery at Quebec. Both works are now in the Yale University Art Gallery. In 1785 Trumbull went to Paris, where he made portrait sketches of French officers for Surrender of Lord Cornwallis. With the assistance of Thomas Jefferson, he began Declaration of Independence, well-known from the engraving by Asher Brown Durand. This latter painting was purchased by the United States Congress, along with his Surrender of General Burgoyne, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, and Washington Resigning his Commission. All now hang in rotunda of the United States Capitol."

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FROM OUR SHELVES-

“Medieval and Renaissance Treasures from the V&A”

Edited by Paul Williamson & Peta Motture.

Published in London by V&A Publications in 2007.

“This compact, beautiful book spotlights 35 major masterpieces from the Victoria & Albert Museum's holdings of European art from the period 300–1600 AD. It includes superb examples of sculpture, metalwork, ceramics, and glass, setting in artistic and historical context such works as the enameled Becket reliquary casket, the iv0ry Figure of the Crucified Christ by Giovanni Pisano, Donatello's bronze fountain figure Winged Putto with a Fantastic Fish, and gilded bronzes by Hubert Gerhard”.

$20.00

More information

Thomas Chippendale, Fancy Shoes & Elvis is in the Building!

2010-06-05T09:34:00.000-04:00

ALMANAC-

June 5, 1718 - Thomas Chippendale, England, furniture maker, was baptized. "Thomas Chippendale (probably born at Farnley near Otley) was a London cabinet-maker and furniture designer in the mid-Georgian, English Rococo, and Neoclassical styles. In 1754 he published to publish a book of his designs, titled The Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director. The designs are regarded as establishing the fashion for furniture for that period and were used by many other cabinet makers."

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June 5, 1898: Salvatore Ferragamo, Italian shoemaker, is born. "Salvatore Ferragamo was a Florentine and Italian shoe designer. He worked with many Hollywood stars in the 1920s, before returning to Italy to found the eponymous company making unique hand-made footwear. His scientific and creative approach to shoes spawned many innovations such as the wedge heel and cage heel. Film stars and celebrities continue to patronize his company, which has evolved into a luxury goods empire spanning the world."

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June 5, 1956: Elvis Presley introduces his new single, "Hound Dog", on The Milton Berle Show, scandalizing the audience with his suggestive hip movements. "Elvis Presley's first, apparently not very successful, appearance in Las Vegas, as an “extra added attraction”, was in the Venus Room of the New Frontier from April 23 through May 6, 1956. Freddie Bell and the Bellboys were the hot act in town, and Elvis went to the Sands to take in their show. Elvis not only enjoyed the show, but also loved their reworking of 'Hound Dog' and asked Freddie if he had any objections to him recording his own version. By May 16 Elvis had added “Hound Dog” to his live performances. The song was done as comic relief, and Presley based the lyrics, which he sometimes changed, and "gyrations" on what he had seen at the Sands. The song always got a big reaction and became the standard closer."

"Presley first performed "Hound Dog" to a nation wide television audience on The Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956, his second appearance with Berle. By this time Scotty Moore had added a guitar solo, and DJ Fontana had added a hot drum roll between verses of the song. Presley appeared for the first time on national television sans guitar. Before his death, Berle told an interviewer that he had told Elvis to leave his guitar backstage. "Let 'em see you, son", advised Uncle Miltie. Presley's movements during the performance were energetic and exaggerated. The reactions of young women in the studio audience were enthusiastic, as shown on the broadcast."

"Over 40,000,000 people saw the performance and the next day controversy exploded. Berle's network received many letters of protest. The various self appointed guardians of public morality attacked Elvis in the press. TV critics began a merciless campaign against Elvis making statements that; he had a "caterwalling voice and nonsense lyrics", he was an "influence on juvenile deliquency", and began using the nickname "Elvis the Pelvis".

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ON OUR SHELVES-

"The Chippendale Period in English Furniture"

By Kate W. Clouston.

Published in London by Debenham & Freebody and Edward Arnold, in 1897.

Although somewhat dated, Clouston's book remains an important early study of the work of Chippendale, Adam, Shearer, Hepplewhite and Sheraton. Clouston’s spidery, intricate drawings perfectly mirror the furniture itself.

$75.00

More information

Hunting for Cutlery at the Ballet? Try the Black Sun Press!

2010-06-04T09:42:00.012-04:00

NOTICED ON THE INTERWEBS-

- Trying to revive the Renaissance: "One of the things that attracted me to the story of how, in 1504, the Republic of Florence set its two most gifted sons into direct competition, challenging them to paint murals in the same hall at the heart of the city, was the chance to annoy as many art historians and historians as possible..." read more about Jonathan Jones' new book-

ALMANAC-

June 4, 1704: Benjamin Huntsman, English inventor and manufacturer of cast steel tableware, was born. "Huntsman started business as a clock, lock and tool maker in Doncaster. Huntsman experimented in steel manufacture, first at Doncaster. Then in 1740 he moved to Handsworth, near Sheffield. Eventually, after many experiments, Huntsman was able to make satisfactory cast steel. The local cutlery manufacturers refused to buy it as it was harder than the German steel they were accustomed to using. For a long time Huntsman exported his whole output to France. The growing competition of imported French cutlery made from Huntsman's cast-steel alarmed the Sheffield cutlers, who, after trying to get the export of the steel prohibited by the British government, were compelled in self-defence to use it. Huntsman had not patented his process, and his secret was discovered by a Sheffield iron-founder called Walker. "

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June 4, 1881: Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova, Russian avant-garde artist, painter, costume designer, writer, illustrator, and set designer, was born. "Natalia Goncharova was deeply inspired by the primitive aspects of Russian folk art and attempted to emulate it in her own work while incorporating elements of fauvism and cubist art. Goncharova was a member of the Der Blaue Reiter avant-garde group from its founding in 1911. In 1915, she began to design ballet costumes and sets in Geneva. She moved to Paris in 1921 where she designed a number of stage sets of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. On June 18, 2007 Goncharova's 1909 painting Picking Apples was auctioned at Christie's for $9.8 million, setting a record for any female artist. The record was updated a year later, when Goncharova's 1912 still-life The Flowers (formerly part of Guillaume Apollinaire's collection) sold for $10.8 million."

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June 4, 1898: Harry Crosby, American bon vivant, poet, publisher, and for some, epitome of the Lost Generation in American literature, was born. "Heir to a banking fortune and profoundly affected by his experience in World War I, Crosby vowed to live life on his own terms and abandoned all pretense of living the expected life of a privileged Bostonian. He and his wife Polly fled to Europe where they enjoyed a decadent lifestyle, drinking, smoking opium, and having affairs. Crosby's life in Paris was at the crossroads of early 20th century Paris literary and cultural life. He numbered among his friends some of the most famous individuals of the early 20th century, including Salvador Dali, Ernest Hemingway, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. In 1927 Polly took the name Caresse, and she and Harry founded the Black Sun Press. It was the first to publish works by a number of struggling authors who later became famous, including James Joyce, Kay Boyle, Ernest Hemingway, Hart Crane, D. H. Lawrence, Rene Crevel, T. S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound. Crosby died scandalously at age 31 as part of a murder–suicide pact with his lover.

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VIDEO OF THE DAY-

A very funny re-shooting of a Christina Aguilera song about geeks in the library...

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FROM OUR SHELVES-

"Georgian Jewellery, 1714-1830"

By Ginny Redington Dawes, & Olivia Collings.

Published by the Antique Collectors’ Club in 2007.

A colorful explosion of a book, packed with color photos of wonderful Georgian jewelry of all types and descriptions. The publisher says that this is not an “academic” book, but there is still plenty of information here, even though it is presented in a less scholarly format than readers may be used to. Interesting anecdotes and information fill the text between the dazzling photographs. If you like Georgian-era jewelry, this book is a “must have”.

$85.00

Allen Ginsburg Howls When Josephine Baker Dances with Raoul Dufy in Egypt-

2010-06-03T08:24:00.000-04:00

ALMANAC-
June 3, 1853: William Matthew Flinders Petrie, English Egyptologist, was born. "Professor Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie FRS, known as Flinders Petrie, was an English Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology. He held the first chair of Egyptology in the United Kingdom, and excavated at many of the most important archaeological sites in Egypt, such as Naukratis, Tanis, Abydos and Amarna. His painstaking recording and study of artifacts set new standards in archaeology. By linking styles of pottery with periods, he was the first to use seriation in Egyptology, a new method for establishing the chronology of a site. Flinders Petrie was also responsible for mentoring and training a whole generation of Egyptologists, including Howard Carter."

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June 3, 1877: Raoul Dufy, Fauvist painter, was born. Raoul Dufy developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramics and textiles, as well as decorative schemes for public buildings. He is noted for scenes of open-air social events. He was also a draftsman, printmaker, book illustrator, a theatrical set-dresser, a designer of furniture, and a planner of public spaces.

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June 3, 1888: The poem "Casey at the Bat", by Ernest Lawrence Thayer, was first published, in the San Francisco Examiner. "Casey at the Bat" may not be great poetry, but it is a great poem, and for over a hundred years it has held our imaginations and hearts. There have been many explanations given. Certainly the most important factor is that Casey is expected to succeed, he has all the tools to succeed, and instead he fails. Marvelously, majestically, and with great verve, he falls flat on his face. Contrasts like this are the heart of comedy, and also the heart of baseball. The best hitters fail seven out of ten times, and each dramatic confrontation between batter and pitcher contains all the possibilities of great success or crashing failure. If baseball is, as some baseball writers have spent a lot of paper arguing, a metaphor for American life, then "Casey at the Bat" is a metaphor for all of baseball, the entire drama and pathos and history of the game neatly wrapped up in thirteen stanzas. And, most importantly, it's just plain funny. Read the whole story-

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June 3, 1906: Josephine Baker, American expatriate singer and actress, was born. "Most noted as a singer, Baker also was a celebrated dancer in her early career. She was given the nicknames the "Bronze Venus" or the "Black Pearl", as well as the "Créole Goddess". In France, she has always been known as "La Baker". She was the first African American to star in a major motion picture, to integrate an American concert hall, and to become a world-famous entertainer. She is also noted for her contributions to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, for assisting the French Resistance during World War II, and for being the first American-born woman to receive the French military honor, the Croix de Guerre."

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June 3, 1926: Allen Ginsberg, American poet, was born. "In the 1950s, Ginsberg was a leading figure of the Beat Generation, an anarchic group of young men and women who combined poetry, song, sex, wine and illicit drugs with passionate political ideas that championed personal freedoms. Major literary works of the Beat Generation include the novels On The Road by Jack Kerouac and Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs, as well as Ginsberg's epic poem Howl, in which he celebrates his fellow "angelheaded hipsters" and excoriates what he saw as the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States."

The poem, dedicated to writer Carl Solomon, famously begins-

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix...

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VIDEO OF THE DAY-

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ON OUR SHELVES-

A rare early printing of 'Casey at the Bat'!

The Poem's first printing in an anthology, just a year after its first publication as a book-

Thayer, Ernest Lawrence Thayer, “Casey at the Bat” (in) A Treasury of Humorous Poetry. Being a Compilation of Witty, Facetious, and Satirical Verse Selected from the Writings of British and American Poets” edited by Frederic Lawrence Knowles.

Published in Boston by Dana Estes & Company: October, 1902.

$450.00

Cagliostro, Hardy & Elgar...

2010-06-02T10:28:00.014-04:00

ALMANAC-

June 2nd, 1743: Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, Sicilian man-of-mystery and con artist, was born as Giuseppe Balsamo. "He was prosecuted in the affair of the diamond necklace which involved Marie Antoinette and Prince Louis de Rohan, and was held in the Bastille for nine months but finally acquitted. His enemies would have been delighted had he been convicted- Casanova, the greatest lover of the age, was bitterly jealous of him; Catherine the Great, empress of Russia, wanted to strangle him; Johann von Goethe, the most revered of Germany's writers, was driven almost mad by hatred of him; King Louis XVI of France persecuted him as a dangerous revolutionary; Queen Marie-Antoinette wanted him locked permanently in the Bastille for involving her in a diamond necklace swindle; and Pope Pius VI accused him of threatening the survival of the Catholic church."

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June 2, 1840: English novelist Thomas Hardy was born. "An English novelist and poet of the naturalist movement, he regarded himself primarily as a poet who composed novels mainly for financial gain. During his lifetime he was much better known for his novels, such as Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, which earned him a reputation as a great novelist. The bulk of his fictional works, initially published as serials in magazines, were set in the semi-fictional land of Wessex (based on the Dorchester region where he grew up) and explored tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances. Hardy's poetry, first published in his fifties, has come to be as well-regarded as his novels and has had a significant influence over modern English poetry, especially after The Movement poets of the 1950s and 1960s cited Hardy as a major figure."

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June 2, 1857: Edward Elgar, English composer, was born. "Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet, OM, GCVO, is known for orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos for violin and cello, and two symphonies. He also composed oratorios, including The Dream of Gerontius, chamber music and songs. He was appointed Master of the King's Musick in 1924. His music was taken up by a wide range of international conductors and orchestras, but is nevertheless more played in Britain than overseas. Elgar was one of the first composers who recorded their works for the gramophone."

ON OUR SHELVES-

"Tiffany Flora / Tiffany Fauna"

By John Loring.

Published in New York by Harry N. Abrams in 2003.

A colorful, sumptuous survey of the best and most dramatic in Tiffany jewelry in two volumes, one focusing on animals, the other on flowers. “a striking visual survey of the unparalleled craftsmanship of Tiffany & Co. The effect is like peering into an ark of fantastic, bejeweled creatures—winged dragons with fiery eyes clutching beautiful gems; a golden parrot in a jaunty diamond cap and blue enameled pantaloons; an extravagant wreath of diamond and platinum leaves and flowers; a blushingly suggestive enameled orchid; and a Tiffany lamp in blues and greens evoking an illuminated wisteria.” The pieces illustrated and described range from the 19th century to the present day. A must-have set for the Tiffany & Co. enthusiast.

$65.00

The Society of American Artists Visit the Lewis & Clark Exposition-

2010-06-01T10:35:00.000-04:00

ALMANAC-

June 1, 1877: The Society of American Artists is founded by artists who felt the National Academy of Design was too conservative. "The group began meeting in 1874 at the home of Richard Watson Gilder and his wife Helena de Kay Gilder. In 1877 they formed the Society, and subsequently held annual art exhibitions. Some of the first members included sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens, whose work had been rejected from a National Academy exhibition in 1877; painters Robert Swain Gifford, Albert Pinkham Ryder, John LaFarge, Julian Alden Weir, John Henry Twachtman, and Alexander Helwig Wyant; and designer and artist Louis Comfort Tiffany. Eventually most of the best-known artists of the day joined the group, and many held dual membership with the National Academy. The cycle of conservative to progressive repeated in 1897 when the Ten American Painters group broke away from the Society of American Artists. The Society ultimately merged with the National Academy in 1906."

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June 1, 1905: The Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition opens in Portland, Oregon. "The Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, commonly also known as the Lewis and Clark Exposition, and officially known as the Lewis and Clark Centennial American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair, was a worldwide exposition held in Portland, Oregon, United States in 1905 to celebrate the centennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. While not officially considered a World's Fair by the Bureau of International Expositions, it is often informally described as such; the exposition attracted both exhibits and visitors from around the world. During the exposition's four month run, it attracted over 1.6 million visitors, and featured exhibits from 21 countries. Portland grew from 161,000 to 270,000 residents between 1905 and 1910, a spurt that has been attributed to the exposition."

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June 1, 1926: Marilyn Monroe, American actress, was born. "Born Norma Jeane Mortenson, but baptized Norma Jeane Baker, Monroe was an American actress, singer, and model. Her early film appearances were minor, but her performances in The Asphalt Jungle and All About Eve (both 1950) were critically acclaimed. In a few years, Monroe reached stardom and was cast as the leading lady in such films as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How to Marry a Millionaire, Some Like It Hot, and The Seven Year Itch. The typecasting of Monroe's "dumb blonde" persona limited her career prospects, so she broadened her range. She studied at the Actors Studio and formed Marilyn Monroe Productions. Her dramatic performance in Bus Stop was hailed by critics, and she won a Golden Globe Award for Some Like it Hot. In 1999, Monroe was ranked as the sixth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute."

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June 1, 1967: The Beatles release their album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by the English rock group The Beatles. Recorded over a 129-day period beginning in December 1966, Sgt. Pepper sees the band exploring further the experimentation of their previous album, Revolver (1966). Making use of orchestras, hired musicians and innovative production techniques, the album incorporates elements of genres such as music hall, jazz, rock and roll, western classical and traditional Indian music. Its lyrics deal with several themes including childhood, aging, everyday routine and life in postwar Britain, the tone ranging from cheerful and ironic to transcendent and surreal. A defining album in the emerging psychedelic rock style, Sgt. Pepper was critically acclaimed upon release and won four Grammy awards in 1968. Often recognised by prominent critics and publications as one of the most influential albums in the history of rock music, Sgt. Pepper frequently ranks at or near the top of published lists of the greatest albums of all time. In 2003, the album was placed at number 1 in the Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time."

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Ramses the Great & Walt Whitman

2010-05-31T08:31:00.009-04:00

ALMANAC-

May 31, 1279 BC: Rameses II (The Great) (19th dynasty) becomes pharaoh of Ancient Egypt. "He is often regarded as Egypt's greatest, most celebrated, and most powerful pharaoh. His successors and later Egyptians called him the "Great Ancestor". In the third year of his reign Ramesses started the most ambitious building project after the pyramids, that were built 1,500 years earlier. The population was put to work on changing the face of Egypt. Ramesses decided to eternalize himself in stone, and so he ordered changes to the methods used by his masons. The elegant but shallow reliefs of previous pharaohs were easily transformed, and so their images and words could easily be obliterated by their successors. Ramesses insisted that his carvings were deeply engraved in the stone, which made them not only less susceptible to later alteration, but also made them more prominent in the Egyptian sun, reflecting his relationship with the sun god, Ra. Ramesses constructed many large monuments, including the archeological complex of Abu Simbel, and the Mortuary temple known as the Ramesseum. He built on a monumental scale to ensure that his legacy would survive the ravages of time. Ramesses used art as a means of propaganda for his victories over foreigners and are depicted on numerous temple reliefs. Ramesses II also erected more colossal statues of himself than any other pharaoh. He also usurped many existing statues by inscribing his own cartouche on them."

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1819: Walt Whitman, American poet, was born. "Walt Whitman has been claimed as America's first "poet of democracy", a title meant to reflect his ability to write in a singularly American character. A British friend of Walt Whitman, Mary Smith Whitall Costelloe, wrote: "You cannot really understand America without Walt Whitman, without Leaves of Grass... He has expressed that civilization, 'up to date,' as he would say, and no student of the philosophy of history can do without him." Modernist poet Ezra Pound called Whitman "America's poet... He is America." Andrew Carnegie called him "the great poet of America so far". Whitman's vagabond lifestyle was adopted by the Beat movement and its leaders such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac in the 1950s and 1960s as well as anti-war poets like Adrienne Rich and Gary Snyder. Lawrence Ferlinghetti numbered himself among Whitman's "wild children", and the title of his 1961 collection Starting from San Francisco is a deliberate reference to Whitman's Starting from Paumanok. Whitman also influenced Bram Stoker, author of Dracula, and was the model for the character of Dracula. Stoker said in his notes that Dracula represented the quintessential male which, to Stoker, was Whitman, with whom he corresponded until Whitman's death."

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May 31, 1860: Walter Sickert, painter, was born. "A German-born English Impressionist painter and a member of the Camden Town Group, Sickert was a cosmopolitan and eccentric who favoured ordinary people and urban scenes as his subjects. He is considered an eccentric figure of the transition from Impressionism to modernism, and as an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the 20th century." Sickert is perhaps best-known today as the subject of several far-fetched theories which name him as Jack-the-Ripper.

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ON OUR SHELVES-

"The Quest for Immortality. Treasures of Ancient Egypt”

Edited by Erik Hornung & Betsy M. Bryan.

Published by the National Gallery of Art in 2002.

“From the beginning of their civilization, ancient Egyptians conceived of an immortal afterlife, devoting vast material resources and energy into preparations for eternity. This catalog, filled with vivid photographs of objects from Cairo's Egyptian Museum, discusses their continually evolving understanding of the afterlife in the period from the New Kingdom (1550-1069 BC), when stability and prosperity fostered a flowering of cultural activity, to the Late Period (664-332 BC). More than 100 objects are shown in detail—coffins, tombs, masks, papyri, sarcophagi, and sculpture, some in multiple images or with full-page closeups—and the introductory essays are illustrated with some 75 additional color photographs.”

$35.00

Benny Goodman Plays the Jefferson Memorial

2010-05-30T08:48:00.000-04:00

ALMANAC-

May 30, 1846: Peter Carl Fabergé was born. "A Russian jeweller of French origin, Faberge is best known for the famous Fabergé eggs, made in the style of genuine Easter eggs, but using precious metals and gemstones. Although the House of Fabergé is famed for its Imperial Easter Eggs, it made many more objects ranging from silver tableware to fine jewelry. Fabergé’s company became the largest jewellery business in Russia, with 500 employees. In addition to its Saint Petersburg head quarters, it had branches in Moscow, Odessa, Kiev and London. It produced some 150,000 to 200,000 objects from 1882 until 1917."

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May 30, 1879: Vanessa Bell, English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury group, and the sister of Virginia Woolf, was born. "Vanessa Bell was educated at home by her parents in languages, mathematics and history, and took drawing lessons from Ebenezer Cook before she attended Sir Arthur Cope's art school in 1896, and then studied painting at the Royal Academy in 1901. After the deaths of her mother in 1895 and her father in 1904, Vanessa sold 22 Hyde Park Gate and moved to Bloomsbury with her sister Virginia, where they met and began socialising with the artists, writers and intellectuals who would come to form the Bloomsbury Group. She is considered one of the major contributors to British portrait drawing and landscape art in the 20th century."

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May 30, 1887: Alexander Archipenko, Ukraine sculptor/lithographer, is born. "Associated with the cubist movement, Archipenko departed from the neo-classical sculpture of his time and used negative space to create a new way of looking at the human figure, showing a number of views of the subject simultaneously. He is known for introducing sculptural voids, and for his inventive mixing of genres throughout his career: devising 'sculpto-paintings', and later experimenting with materials such as clear acrylic and terra cotta."

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May 30, 1909: Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was born. "An American jazz musician, clarinetist and bandleader, Goodman was known as "King of Swing", "Patriarch of the Clarinet", "The Professor", and "Swing's Senior Statesman". In the mid-1930s, Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America. His January 16, 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City is described by critic Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history: jazz's 'coming out' party to the world of 'respectable' music." Goodman's bands launched the careers of many major names in jazz, and during an era of segregation, he also led one of the first racially-integrated musical groups. Goodman continued to perform to nearly the end of his life, including exploring his interest in classical music."

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May 30, 1922: In Washington, D.C. the Lincoln Memorial is dedicated. "Built to honor the 16th President of the United States, it is located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The architect was Henry Bacon, the sculptor of the main statue (Abraham Lincoln, 1920) was Daniel Chester French, and the painter of the interior murals was Jules Guerin. It is one of several monuments built to honor an American president. The building is in the form of a Greek Doric temple and contains a large seated sculpture of Abraham Lincoln and inscriptions of two well-known speeches by Lincoln, The Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural Address. The memorial has been the site of many famous speeches, including Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered on August 28, 1963."

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May 30, 1980 – JMW Turner’s "Juliet and Her Nurse", consigned by Flora Whitney Miller (of Whitney Museum fame) sold for $6.4 million at auction in New York City, a world-record price for a piece of art.

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VIDEO OF THE DAY-

Hope, Crosby, Berlin & Buttrick!!!!

2010-05-29T09:45:00.000-04:00

ALMANAC-

May 29, 1826: Ebenezer Butterick, American tailor, inventor, manufacturer, and fashion business executive, born in Sterling, Massachusetts. "Regarded as the inventor, together with his wife Ellen Augusta Pollard Butterick, of tissue paper dress patterns offered in multiple standard sizes, also known as graded sewing patterns, which the couple began selling in 1863. The product revolutionized home sewing."

May 29, 1903: Bob Hope, British-born comedian and actor, was born. "A comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO tours entertaining American military personnel. Throughout his career, he was honored for his humanitarian work. In 1996, the U.S. Congress honored Bob Hope by declaring him the "first and only honorary veteran of the U.S. armed forces. Bob Hope appeared in or hosted 199 known USO shows. Hope celebrated his 100th birthday on May 29, 2003, quipping, 'I'm so old, they've canceled my blood type'" On July 27, 2003, Bob Hope died at his home in Toluca Lake at 9:28 p.m. According to one of Hope's daughters, when asked on his deathbed where he wanted to be buried, he told his wife, 'Surprise me.' "

May 29, 1942: Bing Crosby, the Ken Darby Singers and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra record Irving Berlin's "White Christmas", the best-selling Christmas single in history, for Decca Records in Los Angeles. "White Christmas is an Irving Berlin song reminiscing about an old-fashioned Christmas setting. The first public performance of the song was also by Crosby, on his NBC radio show The Kraft Music Hall on Christmas Day, 1941 and the recording is not believed to have survived. He recorded the song with the John Scott Trotter Orchestra and the Ken Darby Singers for Decca Records in just 18 minutes on May 29, 1942, and it was released on July 30 as part of an album of six 78-rpm songs from the film Holiday Inn."

VIDEOS OF THE DAY-

Bing Crosby and Marjorie Reynolds in 'Holiday Inn', 1942-

...and then, of course, there's Bing Crosby & Bob Hope-

Did the Dionne Quintuplets Ring Big Ben from the Golden Gate Bridge??

2010-05-28T06:54:00.000-04:00

NOTICED ON THE INTERWEBS-

- Can Art Be ‘Priceless’ in Rocky Times? "What explains the quick return to confidence in the art market? This month, a painting by Picasso, “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust,” became the most expensive painting ever sold at an auction when it exceeded expectations to fetch $106.5 million at Christie’s. In February, a sculpture by Giacometti, “Walking Man I,” sold for $104.3 million at Sotheby’s, setting the previous world record auction price. What accounts for these auction prices? Are investments in trophy art any different from investments made in an office park or a sports team?" Four art professionals offer their viewpoints-

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ALMANAC-

May 28, 1859: "Big Ben" is drawn on a carriage pulled by 16 horses from Whitechapel Bell Foundry to the Palace of Westminster. "Big Ben is the nickname for the great bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London. The original bell was a 16.3-tonne (16 ton) hour bell, cast on 6 August 1856 in Stockton-on-Tees by John Warner & Sons. Unfortunately, it cracked beyond repair while being tested and a replacement had to be made. The bell was recast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry as a 13.76-tonne (13½ ton) bell. This was pulled 200 ft up to the Clock Tower’s belfry, a feat that took 18 hours. This new bell first chimed in July 1859. In September it too cracked under the hammer, a mere two months after it officially went into service. According to the foundry's manager, George Mears, Denison had used a hammer more than twice the maximum weight specified. To make the repair, a square piece of metal was chipped out from the rim around the crack, and the bell given an eighth of a turn so the new hammer struck in a different place. Big Ben has chimed with an odd twang ever since and is still in use today complete with the crack. At the time of its casting, Big Ben was the largest bell in the British Isles until "Great Paul", a 17 tonne (16¾ ton) bell currently hung in St. Paul's Cathedral, was cast in 1881."

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May 28, 1930: The Chrysler Building in New York City officially opens. "The Chrysler Building is an Art Deco skyscraper in New York City, located on the east side of Manhattan in the Turtle Bay area at the intersection of 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Standing at 1,047 ft, it was the world's tallest building for 11 months before it was surpassed by the Empire State Building in 1931. The Chrysler Building is a classic example of Art Deco architecture and considered by many contemporary architects to be one of the finest buildings in New York City. In 2007, it was ranked ninth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects."

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May 28, 1934: The Dionne quintuplets are born. They are the first quintuplets known to survive their infancy, and the only female identical set of five ever recorded. The sisters were born just outside Callander, Ontario, Canada near the village of Corbeil. And thus an entire collecting category on Ebay was born...

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May 28, 1937: The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, California, is officially opened to cars by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Washington, D.C., who pushes a button signaling the start of vehicle traffic over the span. "The Golden Gate Bridge is a suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the opening of the San Francisco Bay into the Pacific Ocean. As part of both U.S. Route 101 and California State Route 1, it connects the city of San Francisco on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Marin County. The Golden Gate Bridge was the longest suspension bridge span in the world when it was completed during the year 1937, and has become one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco, California, and of the United States. In 1999, it was ranked fifth on the List of America's Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects."

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Wearing Bloomers While Viewing the Century of Progress-

2010-05-27T18:03:00.000-04:00

ALMANACICAL-

May 27, 1818: Amelia Bloomer, American suffragette, was born. "Amelia Jenks Bloomer (May 27, 1818 – December 30, 1894) was an American women's rights and temperance advocate. Even though she did not create the women's clothing reform style known as bloomers, her name became associated with it because of her early and strong advocacy."

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May 27, 1819: Julia Ward Howe, American poet, was born. "Julia Ward Howe (May 27, 1819 – October 17, 1910) was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, and poet most famous as the author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic. This became one of the most popular songs of the Union during the American Civil War. In 1870 Howe was the first to proclaim Mother's Day for Peace. After the war Howe focused her activities on the causes of pacifism and women's suffrage. From 1872 to 1879, she assisted Lucy Stone and Henry Brown Blackwell in editing Woman's Journal."

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May 27, 1871: Georges Rouault, one of the most brilliant and gifted painters ever to emerge from French soil, was born. At the end of his life he burned 300 of his pictures.

May 27, 1933: The Century of Progress world's fair opens in Chicago. "A Century of Progress International Exposition was the name of a World's Fair held in Chicago, Illinois from 1933 to 1934 to celebrate the city's centennial. The theme of the fair was technological innovation. Its motto was "Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms" and its architectural symbol was the Sky Ride, a transporter bridge perpendicular to the shore on which one could ride from one side of the fair to the other."

Today in Architectural History, Ralph Waldo Emerson Sets Sail on the HMS Pinafore!

2010-05-25T07:39:00.011-04:00

NOTICED ON THE INTERWEBS-

- Tomes, sweet tomes: how Rem Koolhaas re-engineered the architecture book: "The Dutch architect's practice OMA is so prolific with research that it's rumoured to produce a book a day. So what's behind this preoccupation with publishing? ... find out at the Guardian

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ALMANAC-

May 25, 1803: Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist and philosopher, was born. "Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, philosopher, and poet, best remembered for leading the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. His teachings directly influenced the growing New Thought movement of the mid-1800s. He was seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society. Emerson gradually moved away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries, formulating and expressing the philosophy of Transcendentalism in his 1836 essay, Nature. As a result of this ground-breaking work he gave a speech entitled The American Scholar in 1837, which Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. considered to be America's "Intellectual Declaration of Independence". Considered one of the great orators of the time, Emerson's enthusiasm and respect for his audience enraptured crowds. His support for abolitionism late in life created controversy, and at times he was subject to abuse from crowds while speaking on the topic. When asked to sum up his work, he said his central doctrine was "the infinitude of the private man."

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May 25, 1878: Gilbert and Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore opens at the Opera Comique in London. "Pinafore's extraordinary popularity in Britain, America and elsewhere was followed by the similar success of a series of Gilbert and Sullivan works, including The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado. Their works, later known as the Savoy operas, dominated the musical stage on both sides of the Atlantic for more than a decade and continue to be performed today. The structure and style of these operas, particularly Pinafore, were much copied and contributed significantly to the development of modern musical theatre."

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ON OUR SHELVES-

“Two Centuries of English Silver Candlesticks, 1700-1900”

A catalog issued in New York by J. Mavec & Company, ltd. in 1986.

A silver dealer's catalog, which illustrates the development of the silver candlestick style from 1700 to 1900.Very nicely done, with the feel and look of a small museum exhibition catalog.

$40.00

Why Did Mark Twain Row Across the Delaware to See Victoria Instead of Using the Brooklyn Bridge?

2010-05-24T07:07:00.000-04:00

NOTICED ON THE INTERWEBS-

- The Joys of Jumpology: "When the photographer Philippe Halsman said, “Jump,” no one asked how high. People simply pushed off or leapt up to the extent that physical ability and personal decorum allowed. In that airborne instant Mr. Halsman clicked the shutter. He called his method jumpology..." Jump to the whole story

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- After keeping us waiting for a century, Mark Twain will finally reveal all: "The great American writer left instructions not to publish his autobiography until 100 years after his death, which is now..." read more

ALMANAC-

May 24, 1816: Emanuel Leutze, German-born American painter of historic events, was born. "Leutze was brought to America as a child, and then returned to Germany as an adult. A strong supporter of Europe's Revolutions of 1848, Leutze decided to paint an image that would encourage Europe's liberal reformers with the example of the American Revolution. Using American tourists and art students as models and assistants, Leutze finished Washington Crossing the Delaware in 1850. It is owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Late in life, he became a member of the National Academy of Design. He was also a member of the Union League Club of New York, which has a number of his paintings. He died in Washington, D.C. in his 53rd year. Leutze's portraits are known less for their artistic quality than for their patriotic emotionalism. Washington Crossing the Delaware firmly ranks among the American national iconography."

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May 24, 1819: Victoria, Queen of England, was born. "Her reign as the Queen lasted 63 years and 7 months, longer than that of any other British monarch before or since, and her reign is the longest of any female monarch in history. The time of her reign is known as the Victorian era, a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military progress within the United Kingdom."

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May 24, 1883: The Brooklyn Bridge in New York City is opened to traffic after 14 years of construction. "The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River. At 5,989 feet (1825 m), it was the longest suspension bridge in the world from its opening until 1903, and the first steel-wire suspension bridge. Originally referred to as the New York and Brooklyn Bridge, it was dubbed the Brooklyn Bridge in an 1867 letter to the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and formally so named by the city government in 1915. Since its opening, it has become an iconic part of the New York skyline. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964.

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ON OUR SHELVES-

"Specimen Book of One Hundred Architectural Designs, showing Plans, Elevations and Views of Suburban Houses, Villas, Sea-Side and Camp-Ground Cottages, Homesteads, Churches, and Public Buildings, including specifications, bills of materials, etc."

Published in New York by A.J. Bicknell & Co. in 1878.

The rather scarce first issue of this book, which was re-issued a year later, apparently without the colored Minton tile plate. This provides a very interesting survey of Victorian architectural designs, with some churches, a library and a few gazebos thrown in as well. Most of the designs were taken from a selection of other Victorian building books, so this provides an overview of the various types of designs which were then popular. There are also illustrations of some furniture and mantels. At the rear there are 20 pages of illustrated advertisements, including one for Minton Encaustic floor tiles, with a facing full-page chromolithographic illustration showing 6 patterns.

$750.00

Fake Painting? Take a Video, Run it Through the Moog, and Hang it in the Ashmolean!

2010-05-23T07:13:00.000-04:00

NOTICED ON THE INTERWEBS-

a portrait of Israels, but not -the- portrait

- Israeli art detectives crack a forgery riddle: "The portrait of a glum, bespectacled man was about to go on auction in Amsterdam when someone at Sotheby's noticed a problem: Israel's national museum owned precisely the same painting. One of them had to be a fake..." but, which one???

- Putting New Faces on Islamic History: "One balmy evening this month, a glamorous crowd was packed into the tiny Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller Gallery on the Upper East Side for the opening of “Icons,” a show of video installations by the Iranian-born filmmaker Shoja Azari that runs through Friday. But there was also an undercurrent of nervousness in the gallery, which specializes in Iranian art. For weeks, its owner, Ms. Heller, had received worried letters from friends, many of whom suggested that she think twice before showing Mr. Azari’s new work... find out why!

ALMANAC-

May 23, 1617: Elias Ashmole, celebrated English antiquary, politician, officer of arms, astrologer and student of alchemy, was born. "Ashmole was an antiquary with a strong Baconian bent for the study of nature. Although he was one of the founding members of the Royal Society, a key institution in the development of experimental science, his interests were antiquarian and mystical as well as scientific. Throughout his life he was an avid collector of curiosities and other artifacts. Many of these he acquired from the traveller, botanist, and collector John Tradescant the Younger. Ashmole donated most of his collection, his antiquarian library and priceless manuscripts to the University of Oxford to create the Ashmolean Museum". As historian Richard Garnett observed, "acquisitiveness was his master passion".

May 23, 1934: Dr. Robert Arthur Moog, American pioneer of electronic music, best known as the inventor of the Moog synthesizer, was born. "The Moog synthesizer was one of the first widely used electronic musical instruments. The first Moog instruments were modular synthesizers. In 1971 Moog Music began production of the Minimoog Model D which was among the first widely available, portable and relatively affordable synthesizers. One of Moog's earliest musical customers was Wendy Carlos whom he credits with providing feedback that was valuable to the further development of Moog synthesizers. Through his involvement in electronic music, Moog developed close professional relationships with artists such as Don Buchla, Keith Emerson, Rick Wakeman, John Cage, Gershon Kingsley, Clara Rockmore, and Pamelia Kurstin. In a 2000 interview, Moog said "I'm an engineer. I see myself as a toolmaker and the musicians are my customers. They use my tools."

ON OUR SHELVES-

"Traditional Jewish Papercuts. An Inner World of Art and Symbol"

By Joseph & Yehudit Shadur.

Published by the University Press of New England in 2002.

“The definitive work on papercuts, a long-overlooked aspect of Jewish folk art. The making of devotional papercuts is a relatively little-known aspect of traditional Jewish folk art and culture. While many ritual objects treasured today as "Judaica" were crafted from expensive materials, even the poorest Jew could afford paper, pencil, and penknife with which to make a papercut as a deeply-felt, personal expression of faith. Many of these works are gems of unaffected artistic creation. More than any other form of Jewish art, the surviving old Jewish papercuts evoke the spirit and lore of the East-European shtetl and the North African mellah. By the mid-20th century, however, the venerable Jewish papercutting tradition had become another lost folk art.

$40.00