Rare Book School is pleased announce our Summer 2012 course schedule. Rare Book School (RBS) provides continuing-education opportunities for students from all disciplines and levels to study the history of written, printed, and born-digital materials with leading scholars and professionals in the field.

Highlights of the summer schedule include two new courses, G-55: Scholarly Editing: Principles & Practice, taught by David Vander Meulen of the University of Virginia, and L-25: Reference Sources for Researching Rare Books, taught by Joel Silver of the Lilly Library at Indiana University; two courses taught by Rare Book School’s Founding Director Terry Belanger, including I-30: Advanced Seminar in Book Illustration Processes; and the retitled H-15: The History of the Book in America: A Survey from Colonial to Modern taught by Michael Winship of the University of Texas at Austin.


*4-8 June 2012 in Charlottesville, VA*

H-30: The Printed Book in the West to 1800, Martin Antonetti

I-20: Book Illustration Processes to 1900, Terry Belanger

H-70: The History of the Book in America, c.1700-1830, James N. Green

L-30: Rare Book Cataloging, Deborah J. Leslie

L-70: XML in Action: Creating Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) Texts, David
Seaman

*11-15 June 2012 in Charlottesville, VA*

H-60: The History of European & American Papermaking, Timothy Barrett &
John Bidwell

G-30: Printed Books since 1800: Description & Analysis, Tom Congalton &
Katherine Reagan

L-65: Digitizing the Historical Record, Bethany Nowviskie & Andrew Stauffer

G-45: Analytical Bibliography, Stephen Tabor

**G-55: Scholarly Editing: Principles & Practice, David Vander Meulen

*2-6 July 2012 in Charlottesville, VA*

I-30: Advanced Seminar in Book Illustration Processes, Terry Belanger

M-10: Introduction to Paleography, 800-1500, Consuelo Dutschke

L-95: Born-Digital Materials: Theory & Practice, Matthew Kirschenbaum &
Naomi Nelson

H-90: Teaching the History of the Book, Michael F. Suarez, S.J.

G-20: Printed Books to 1800: Description & Analysis, David Whitesell

*16-20 July 2012 in Charlottesville, VA*

H-10: The History of the Book, 200-2000, John Buchtel & Mark Dimunation

G-50: Advanced Descriptive Bibliography, Richard Noble

I-35: The Identification of Photographic Print Processes, James M. Reilly
assisted by Ryan Boatright

L-10: Special Collections Librarianship, Alice Schreyer

B-10: Introduction to the History of Bookbinding, Jan Storm van Leeuwen

*23-27 July 2012 in Charlottesville, VA*

M-20: Introduction to Western Codicology, Albert Derolez

H-40: The Printed Book in the West since 1800, Eric Holzenberg

**L-25: Reference Sources for Researching Rare Books, Joel Silver

G-10: Introduction to the Principles of Bibliographical Description, David
Whitesell

H-15: The History of the Book in America: A Survey from Colonial to Modern,
Michael Winship


** indicates a new course

Details for all courses, as well as our application form, can be found on
the RBS website: http://rarebookschool.org

On Friday, March 2, at 7:30 p.m. Stop Smiling hosts a multi-media evening of performance, readings, and visual presentations by four artists and writers who are not only dissolving the boundaries between the visual and literary but re-envisioning the form of “the book” itself. From uncanny poems made by folding the pages of old paperbacks to an epistolary romance that can only be read in augmented reality, these highly original works are, by turns, playful
and provocative. Come be astonished.

The Stop Smiling Storefront is located at 1371 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, IL 60622. Blue line: Division or Damen-O’Hare. This event is free and open to the public. Organized in conjunction with the Associated Writing Programs conference. Between Page and Screen by Amaranth Borsuk and Brad Bouse (Siglio, 2012)

Coupling the physicality of the printed page with the electric liquidity of the computer screen, Between Page and Screen chronicles a love affair between the characters P and S while taking the reader into a wondrous, augmented reality. The book has no words, only inscrutable black and white geometric patterns that—when seen by a computer webcam—conjure the written word. Reflected on screen, the reader sees himself with open book in hand, language springing alive and shape-shifting with each turn of the page. Merging concrete poetry with conceptual art, “technotext” with epistolary romance, and the tradition of the artist’s book with the digital future, Between Page and Screen expands the possibilities of what a book can be.

S P R AW L by Danielle Dutton (Siglio, 2010)
In the long line of novels about the vapidity of suburbia, Dutton’s has a narrator who may be one of the most likable. Aloof and hilarious, she dissects their lives with the casualness of a cynical scientist. —Jonathan Messinger, TimeOut Chicago

Absurdly comic and decidedly digressive, S P R A W L chronicles the mercurial inner life of one suburban woman. With vertiginous energy and a deadpan eye, the narrator records the seeming uniformity of her world as she rearranges the banalities and small wonders of suburban life. As the abundance and debris accumulate, the sameness of suburbia gives way to enthralling strangeness. Inspired by a series of domestic still life photographs by Chicago artist Laura Letinsky, Dutton creates her own trenchant series of tableaux, attentive to the surfaces of the suburbs and the ways in which life there is willfully, almost desperately, on display. In locating the language of sprawl itself—engrossing, unremitting, ever expansive—Dutton has written an astonishing work of fiction that takes us deep into the familiar and to its very edge. Short-listed for The Believer Book Award in 2011.

CHICAGO EVENT
Stop Smiling, Siglio, and Ugly Duckling Presse present LOOK! SEE! READ! An Evening of Word and Image with AMARANTH BORSUK, DANIELLE DUTTON, JILL MAGI, AND ERICA BAUM SLOT by Jill Magi (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2012) An experiential investigation of how we move through cultural landmarks and institutions, SLOT presents a lyrical and thinking response to official, landscaped memory. In the book, a person slips in and out of highly designed museums and memorials, looks for a mentor who is more than a tour guide, rebels during the official tour, and occasionally finds the lament she is looking for: in comparisons across history, in ambiguous photo sequences, and in poetry. The resulting text stages a quiet argument between the persistent urge to “slot” things—into narratives, frames, archives—and a clear view of what, by resisting, remains.

Dog Ear by Erica Baum (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2011)

The concept of Dog Ear is simple and straightforward: dog-eared pages of mass-market paperbacks are photographed to isolate the small diagonally bisected squares or rectangles of text. The photographs are formally quite neutral and sedate—cursorily reminiscent of Alber’s “Homage to the Square” series of prints, paintings and tapestries—but the text also demands attention and it is what allows or coaxes the viewer to linger. As Kenny Goldsmith says in his introduction: “The idea that there’s no one correct way to engage with an artwork is at the heart of Erica Baum’s Dog Ear series. Do we see them or do we read them? If we choose to read them, how should we read? Across the fold? Through it? Around it? If we choose to look at Baum’s pictures, how should we see them? As artistic photographs? Documentation? Text art?”

Author/Artist Bios

AMARANTH BORSUK recently won the Slope Poetry prize for her collection Handiwork. She is also the author of the chapbook Tonal Saw (The Song Cave, 2010), and a collaborative work Excess Exhibit (ZG Press). Her poems, essays, and translations have been published widely in journals such as the New American Writing, Los Angeles Review, Denver Quarterly, FIELD, Black Warrior Review, Aufgabe, and ZYZZYVA, among many others. She has a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from USC and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at MIT where she works on and teaches digital poetry, visual poetry, and creative writing workshops.

DANIELLE DUTTON is also the author of the short story collection Attempts at a Life (Tarpaulin Sky) and editor of Dorothy, a publishing project. Her work has appeared in Bomb, Harper’s, Fence, The Brooklyn Rail, Noon, jubilat, among other journals and magazines. She holds degrees from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, UC-Santa Cruz, and the University of Denver where she was Associate Editor of the Denver Quarterly. Born and raised in California, she is now an assistant professor in the English Department at Washington University in St. Louis.

JILL MAGI works in text and image and is also the author of Cadastral Map (Shearsman), Torchwood (Shearsman), Threads (Futurepoem), the chapbooks Die for love, furlough (In Edit Mode Press), Poetry Barn Barn! (2nd Avenue), Confidence and Autonomy (Ink Press), Cadastral Map (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs), and numerous handmade books. Her visual works have been exhibited at the Textile Arts Center, the Brooklyn Arts Council, apexart, AC Institute, and Pace University. Jill runs Sona Books from her apartment in Chicago and teaches at Goddard College.

ERICA BAUM received a B.A. in Anthropology from Barnard College, Columbia University, and an M.F.A. in Photography from the Yale School of Art. She has exhibited in New York, Baltimore, San Francisco, Kansas City, Berlin (Germany), Italy, and Mälmo (Sweden). Her work was included in the book Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography (Phaidon Press, 2006). She was a 2008 fellow in Photography from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Recent solo exhibitions include Shuffled Glances at Bureau, NYC, and Erica Baum: The Public Imagination at Circuit in Lausanne, Switzerland.

siglio is an independent press in Los Angeles dedicated to publishing uncommon books that live at the intersection of art and literature. Siglio books defy categorization and ignite conversation: they are cross-disciplinary, hybrid works that subvert paradigms, reveal unexpected connections, rethink narrative forms, and thoroughly engage a reader’s imagination and intellect. We believe that challenging work can be immensely appealing: our books are beautiful, affordable, and as much a pleasure to touch and hold as they are to read.

[ITHACA, NY] National Book Auctions, located in Ithaca, NY, will host a Sunday, February 19th auction featuring a broad range of rare antique books, as well as intriguing ephemera and artwork.  Of particular note are rare first editions of early and modern titles, many of which are signed.  Also featured are important Civil War history titles including large, important reference sets.  Ephemera lots include magazines, postage and postal history, advertising and various other genres.  Also being offered are two important bronze sculptures and Major League Baseball collectibles.

Important books in this auction include first editions, many of which are author-signed. Noteworthy examples include an author-signed copy of Michael Shaara’s “The Killer Angels” and first editions by Cormac McCarthy and Herman Melville.  Other lots include decorative sets by classic authors such as Henry Fielding and Charles Dickens as well as early printings of works by Charles Darwin.  Early works in French and Italian, dating back to the 1700’s, will also be sold.  Civil War historical works include the entire 128-volume work, “The War of the Rebellion:  A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies” and the complete 36-volume printing in leather by the Easton Press of “The Library of the Civil War.”  Modern works include hundreds of signed first editions by prominent writers such as Sue Grafton, Ha Jin, Tess Gerritsen, Jeffrey Archer, John Grisham, P. D. James, Dean Koontz and Dick Francis, to name just a few.

Found throughout this auction are pleasing groups of ephemera and artwork. Leading the art field is a pair of limited edition bronze sculptures of works by Erte and Mario Jason.  Dozens of the ephemera lots in this auction offer early postage and postal history including early American cancels and postage from Roman States, as well as cancels which date back centuries.  A large collection of vintage and antique collectible magazines will also be offered.

Other important collections offered in this auction include an array of themes. Reference libraries of Sherlockiana and volumes relating to the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy will be sold.  We will also bring to market more material from the estate of renowned philanthropist and collector, Charles Rand Penney, including items from the 1893 Columbian Exposition, the 1934 Century of Progress World’s Fair in Chicago and the New York World’s Fair in 1939.  Several signed baseballs will be offered including two Waterford Crystal limited edition pieces which commemorate the 2000 World Series win by the New York Yankees.

National Book Auctions is a public auction service specializing in books, ephemera, and art. National Book Auctions is a targeted service offering experience and expertise unique to marketing antique and modern books and ephemera for consignors and collectors alike. Preview for the upcoming Sunday, February 19th auction is at 10 a.m. and the live auction starts at noon. For more information or to consign collectible material please contact David Hall, Business Manager, at 607-269-0101 or email
mail@nationalbookauctions.com.

The Center for Book Arts is Pleased to Present Its Winter 2012 Featured Artist Project
Patricia S. Ward: Re/Vision
January 18th to March 31st 2012
Patricia S. Ward: Re/Vision
When: January 18th to March 31st 2012 Where: 28 W. 27th St., 3rd Floor, New York, NY
Subway: N/R to 28th St, or F to 23rd St Admission: free
Organized by Alexander Campos, Executive Director

In a site-specific installation titled Ward presents a replica of her workspace, along with a number of miniature books and book-objects created from shredded pieces of an unpublished novel on loss, nostalgia, and war. The installation reflects her journey of moving beyond the experience of rejection to delving into the themes that permeate her writing, returning at last to her wartime childhood and incorporating the memorabilia she has carried with her since leaving Lebanon. All objects in the exhibition are meant to be touched and explored, so that viewers can experience more intimately the artist's journey.

Visit our website for up-to-date details: www.centerforbookarts.org

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR BOOK ARTS
The Center for Book Arts is committed to exploring and cultivating contemporary aesthetic interpretations of the book as an art object, while invigorating traditional artistic practices of the art of the book. The Center seeks to facilitate communication between the book arts community and the larger spheres of contemporary art and literature through exhibitions, classes, public programming, literary presentations, opportunities for artists and writers, publications, and collecting. Founded in 1974, the Center for Book Arts was the first organization of its kind in the nation.
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The Center for Book Arts is Pleased to Present Its Winter 2012 Featured Artist Project
Ethan Shoshan: Strange Birds
January 18th to March 31st 2012
Ethan Shosan: Strange Birds
When: January 18th to March 31st 2012 Where: 28 W. 27th St., 3rd Floor, New York, NY
Subway: N/R to 28th St, or F to 23rd St Admission: free
Organized by Alexander Campos, Executive Director

Social ecologist Ethan Shoshan presents an archive of 31 treasured objects and their accompanying conversations. This project encompasses vignettes of people’s lives through objects that hold significant personal meaning to them. Through each object on display, a conversation with its caretaker begins; visitors have the freedom to peruse the objects and listen to an accompanying audio guide conversation. It is through these stories that we engage with the person and create an intimate connection to something deeper within ourselves. Shoshan’s Strange Birds weaves together forgotten histories, memories, and embodied experiences in an affirmation of life and its lessons. Collaborators include: Arthur Aviles, Jill L. Conner, Barry Frier, Bibbe Hansen, Geoffrey Hendricks, Jim Hubbard, Stephen Kent Jusick, Stephen Lack, Agosto Machado, Stefani Mar, Liz McGarrity, Lucia Maria Minervini, Angelo Monaco, Augustmoon Ochiishi, Uzi Parnes, Dennis Redmond, Hunter Reynolds, Charles Rice-Gonzalez, Rob Roth, Edward Rubin, Rafael Sanchez, Arleen Schloss, Gervaise Soeurouge, Sur Rodney Sur, Chris Tanner, Brad Taylor, Gail Thacker, Jack Waters, Kathleen White, Brian "Soigne" Wilson, and Stephen Winter.

Visit our website for up-to-date details: www.centerforbookarts.org

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR BOOK ARTS
The Center for Book Arts is committed to exploring and cultivating contemporary aesthetic interpretations of the book as an art object, while invigorating traditional artistic practices of the art of the book. The Center seeks to facilitate communication between the book arts community and the larger spheres of contemporary art and literature through exhibitions, classes, public programming, literary presentations, opportunities for artists and writers, publications, and collecting. Founded in 1974, the Center for Book Arts was the first organization of its kind in the nation.
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PARIS February -- LES ENLUMINURES gallery will showcase several exceptional examples of Illuminated Medieval and Renaissance miniatures, manuscripts, stained glass and finger rings at TEFAF Maastricht from March 16 - 25.

The world’s premier antiques and art show, The European Fine Arts Fair attracts over 250 of the most esteemed dealers from more than 17 countries and is vetted by no less than 29 different committees comprised of 175 world experts. Each year Maastricht attracts the world’s leading museums, collectors and connoisseurs of art.

Galerie Les Enluminures founder, Dr. Sandra Hindman says she is particularly thrilled to have “Triumph of David,” by the Berlin Master of Mary of Burgundy to show at this year’s TEFAF.
 
Dr. Hindman says, “The Master of Mary of Burgundy was originally named after two manuscripts, one in Berlin (Kupferstichkabinett, MS 78 B 12) made for Mary of Burgundy and her husband Maximilian I and another one in Vienna also made for Mary of Burgundy (ÖNB, Cod. 1857).  Recent scholarship has distinguished between the styles of these two manuscripts, identifying two different artists. This lyrical c1480 illumination is attributed to the Berlin Master, noted as a colorist, with a fine sense of decorative details, and with access to many designs that circulated among the group artists known as the Ghent Associates.”

The Belgian work (153 x 110mm) in tempera and gold leaf has a provenance that includes the Collection Ambroise Firmin-Didot (1790-1876) Hotel Drouot, Catalogue des livres précieux, manuscrits, et imprimés faisant partie de la Bibliothèque de M. Ambroise Firmin-Didot, 10-14 June, 1884, lot 88 and it has been extensively described in literature including Brinkmann, B., et al, in Das Berliner Studenbuch der Maria von Burgund und Kaiser Maximilians:  Handschrift 76 B 12 m Kupfertichkabinett der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin Preussischer Kulturbesitz, exh. cat., Berlin, 1998; Kren, T., and S. McKendrick, eds., Illuminating the Renaissance. The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe, exh. cat., London/Los Angeles, 2003; Pächt, O., The Master of Mary of Burgundy, London, 1948.

A second rare and important work to be featured at TEFAF is a Book of Hours (use of Paris) dating from 1410 and the Workshop of the Luçon Master (Paris active c1405-1415).

In Latin and French, this illuminated manuscript is on parchment, complete, and bound in old red velvet. It measures 171 x 130 mm.

Hindman says, “The Luçon Master, a Parisian illuminator of the ‘Golden age of French illumination,’ is known for his elegant sinuous figures and subtle tonalities.  He was active in the generation just before and contemporary with the Boucicaut Master and was first christened by Millard Meiss in 1956 after the cycle of miniatures that illustrates a Missal-Pontifical commissioned by Étienne Loypeau, Bishop of Luçon, later belonging to Jean, Duke de Berry (c. 1405-1407; Paris, BnF, MS lat. 8886).”

“It was written about in Meiss, Millard, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Limbourgs and Their Contemporaries, 2 vols., New York, Braziller, 1974, pp. 351-352, 393-397; Meiss, Millard, “The Exhibition of French Manuscripts of the XIII-XVIth-Centuries at the Bibliothèque Nationale,” Art Bulletin 38 (1956), pp. 187-196.”

Sandra Hindman founded Les Enluminures gallery in Paris 20 years ago and has seen it become among the top ranked sources for the most significant Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts and art entering the market.

Les  Enluminures is expanding and adding a New York gallery at 23 East 73 Street in May, 2012. Its Paris gallery is opposite the Louvre at Le Louvre des Antiquaires and Dr. Hindman maintains an office in Chicago where she twice headed the Art History department at Northwestern University during her academic career.  She has written 10 books on the subject and publishes comprehensive catalogues on the four specialties of her business, which include Medieval and Renaissance Illuminations, Manuscripts, Finger Rings and Stained Glass.

Les Enluminures clients range from major museums, libraries and universities to important private collectors.  The gallery is a featured exhibitor at the world’s most prestigious antiques and art fairs in New York, Paris, Maastricht, London, San Francisco and Florence. It has pioneered the use of 21st century technology for this genre, incorporating video ‘tours,’ and a ‘turn the page’ feature for viewing manuscripts on its web site and embracing social media platforms.

IF YOU GO
Galerie LES ENLUMINURES
at TEFAF MAASTRICHT Stand  #274
March 16 - 25
daily 11-7 Sunday 11-6
 
and at Le Louvre des Antiquaires,
2 Place du Palais-Royal,
75001 Paris (France)
Tel: +33 1 42 60 15 58
info@lesenluminures.com
www.lesenluminures.com

NEW YORK, February 3, 2012—Print/Out at The Museum of Modern Art examines the many roles that prints play in artistic practices today, embracing the versatile and global nature of contemporary art in the last two decades. On view from February 19 to May 14, 2012, in The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art Exhibition Gallery, Print/Out brings together approximately 70 series or projects drawn from MoMA’s extensive collection of more than 50,000 prints and illustrated books, while also including several important loans from private and public collections. Print/Out is part of a series of large-scale print surveys periodically organized by the Museum’s Department of Prints and Illustrated Books in order to assess the current state of the medium. The last two exhibitions were Printed Art: A View of Two Decades, organized by Riva Castleman in 1980, and Thinking Print: Books to Billboards: 1980-1995, organized by Deborah Wye in 1996. Part of Print/Out takes place on the Museum’s second floor with the exhibition Printin’, co-organized by the artist Ellen Gallagher and Associate Curator Sarah Suzuki, and centered around Gallagher’s major portfolio DeLuxe (2004-05). The Museum is also hosting Print Studio, an interactive space that explores the evolution of artistic practices relating to the medium of print, from January 23 to March 9, 2012, in the Mezzanine Level of The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building. Print/Out is organized by Christophe Cherix, The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Chief Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books, with Kim Conaty, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Prints and Illustrated Books, The Museum of Modern Art.

Focusing on the medium’s defining characteristics—its reproducibility, collaborative nature, and ability to circulate widely—Print/Out explores how artists have integrated these ideas in some of the most innovative art practices of our time. The exhibition features some 40 artists and artist groups, including Ai Weiwei, Trisha Donnelly, General Idea, Martin Kippenberger, Lucy McKenzie, Aleksandra Mir, Robert Rauschenberg, Rirkrit Tiravanija, SUPERFLEX, and Kelley Walker, along with publishers and publishing projects such as Edition Jacob Samuel, museum in progress, and Permanent Food. Among the notable installations is Thomas Schϋtte’s Low Tide Wandering (2001), an ambitious series of 139 prints that will be hung on site by the artist, criss-crossing the gallery space to create a maze-like, immersive environment.

The earliest works in the exhibition coincide with the geopolitical transformations of the late 1980s and early 1990s, an emblematic point of departure for examining a medium, which, because of its capacity to disseminate information, has often been linked to social change. For Vienna-based association museum in progress (founded 1990), newspapers, magazines, and other media spaces offered effective sites for artist interventions, which founders Kathrin Messner and the late artist Josef Ortner commissioned from an impressive range of international artists. While recognized as an artist and political activist, Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957) is often overlooked in his role as a pioneering publisher, yet the three volumes he produced in the 1990s—known as The Black Cover Book (1994), The White Cover Book (1995), and The Grey Cover Book (1997)—could well be among his most impactful and enduring legacies. These paperbacks, comprised of artists’ submissions, essays, and translations of existing art-historical and critical texts, offered a new vehicle for circulating and disseminating information among China’s contemporary artists during a moment marked by a near total lack of access to foreign monographs, exhibition catalogues, and art magazines.

Another notable artist’s project that demonstrates the potential of the print medium for spreading ideas across vast geographies is Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ “Untitled” (1991). Based on a black-and-white photograph of an unmade bed, this site-specific project is to be presented on public billboard spaces. As part of Print/Out, the work will be on view on billboards in the following six locations throughout New York City from February 20 to March 18, 2012: 11th Avenue and 38th Street in Manhattan; Neptune Avenue and Guider in Brooklyn; Pennsylvania Avenue near Fulton Street in Brooklyn; Van Dam Street near Queens Boulevard in Queens; 31st Street near Ditmars Boulevard in Queens. One additional billboard will be on view at the entrance to the exhibition.

Print/Out opens with a work by Martin Kippenberger (German, 1953-97), who realized an impressive body of multiples in collaboration with various publishers and galleries throughout his career. On view is a set of screenprints from 1992, Inhalt auf Reisen (Content on Tour), which Kippenberger produced with Austrian publisher Edition Artelier. This series is the result of a multi-stage process that began in 1989 when the artist asked his assistant to make a group of paintings after his own. Deeming the copies “too good,” Kippenberger decided to destroy them, but this apparent end was just the beginning. Several works grew out of these paintings, among them sculptures of industrial containers made to house the smashed-up, discarded paintings, and Content on Tour, whose imagery is based on a photograph of the destroyed paintings in one of the containers. The screenprint exists in four variants: one of the full image and three smaller, cut-down versions, each of which has been mounted on plywood. The artist then used a circular saw to make random linear marks on the surfaces, partially destroying the images and also distinguishing each print as a unique object. The works became the material result of the artist’s previous endeavors in painting, photography, and sculpture, ultimately producing a work that transcends its origin through a long sequence of reproduction and alteration.

Robert Rauschenberg’s (American, 1925-2008) The Lotus Series forms the other bookend to the exhibition. The last printed project completed by the artist before his death, The Lotus Series (2008) exemplifies the experimentation with process and transfer techniques that Rauschenberg engaged in throughout his career. Based on the artist’s small, faded photographs from his trips to China between 1982 and 1985, these 12 large-scale prints were made using high-resolution scans and digital printing processes as well as the photogravure technique. With this series, Rauschenberg blends tradition with innovation, prompting the viewer to look at the receding past with the hyperclarity that recent technology has made possible.

Other featured artists, like Rirkrit Tiravanija (Thai, b. Argentina, 1961) and Philippe Parreno (French, b. 1964), have used prints to recount, share, or reactivate earlier events and ephemeral works. Tiravanija has been challenging traditional models of art-making since the early 1990s, developing a practice based in participation, interaction, and collaboration. Around 1992, the same year as his paradigmatic work Untitled (Free) (which was recently on view in MoMA’s Contemporary Galleries), Tiravanija began to produce editions, publishing the first of many multiples in relation to his ephemeral or experience-based work. These editions included tins of curry paste or a backpack equipped for an expedition, both of which are on view in Print/Out. In 2011 Tiravanija completed what he considers to be his first traditional print project, Untitled 2008-2011 (the map of the land of feeling), comprising three scrolls stretching more than 80 feet altogether. The relentlessly peripatetic artist’s expansive passport—reproduced page by page, end to end—provides both a central organizing structure and an autobiographical narrative, the story of the artist’s life through the places he has visited. For Tiravanija, the laborious production process required for prints of this scale and complexity, involving the collaboration of 40 assistants over a span of four years, was an integral part of the final work.

In Parreno’s Fade to Black (2003)—a set of posters printed in phosphorescent ink—the artist recounts a series of past events organized in collaboration with some of his contemporaries, including Tiravanija as well as Liam Gillick and Pierre Huyghe. Each poster depicts an image or text related to one of these earlier events, with Parreno‘s Argentina vs. Netherlands 1978, Medina 2003 (2003) consisting of a photograph of a workshop that he gave in Medina, Argentina, in 2002. At that workshop Parreno screened the 1978 World Cup soccer final and then asked students “to replay the game in the schoolyard like they would have with a classical theatrical play.” In Print/Out this poster, along with the other posters in the series, is presented in a space in which the lights are programmed to go on and off at regular intervals, producing the strange effect of seemingly blank, white sheets, whose imagery suddenly emerges, glowing vibrantly when the room plunges into darkness. The images repeatedly fade in and out of sight, creating, as the artist describes, “a flickering memory” of his artistic practice.

Another special project presented in Print/Out is by SUPERFLEX, the Copenhagen-based artists’ group (Bjørnstjerne Christiansen [Danish, b. 1969], Jakob Fenger [Danish, b. 1968], and Rasmus Nielsen [Danish, b. 1969]) that has been organizing projects questioning social and economic structures since 1993. The group describes its practice in terms of tools (rather than artworks), utilized in the service of concrete cultural interventions; these tools are not finished products but rather instructions for doing and calls for participation. Copy Light/Factory (2008) addresses the larger implications of copyright through a workshop in which a series of lamp designs are “refabricated” by affixing photocopies of the designs to a basic cubic lighting structure. The resultant lamps reveal how copies of copies can become originals again. At certain times over the course of the exhibition, visitors to the Museum can participate in this project by making these lanterns at work stations, with the results going on view within the gallery space.

Investigating the nature of networks and circulation, Aleksandra Mir (American/Swedish, b. Poland, 1967) has developed a practice that merges cultural anthropology and fine art, investigating social structures, globalization, and the contemporary urban experience. Mir’s elaborate mapping project Naming Tokyo (2003-present) is organized around her solicitation from friends and colleagues of names for Tokyo’s otherwise undesignated streets. Print/Out presents one of the incarnations of this project: blank maps of the city, with legends on the reverse offering proposed organizations for Tokyo’s neighborhoods and streets, according to her research and her friends’ suggestions. Another project, Venezia (all places contain all others) (2009), organized for the 2009 Venice Biennale, consisted of one million fake postcards—ten thousand each of one hundred designs—combining stock images of generic or well-known scenery (such as a picturesque harbor or the New York City skyline) with the Italian city’s name. Just as the colorful maps and playful descriptions of Naming Tokyo mask its underlying critique of colonialism, the Venezia postcards—free souvenirs within the Biennale grounds—explored ideas of tourism, cultural geography, and displacement. In all of her projects, the artist’s light-handed and witty approach to her material often belies the heavier cultural and political content that it invokes.

Print/Out also includes a presentation of the work of California-based printer and publisher, Jacob Samuel (Edition Jacob Samuel, founded 1988). Samuel is best known for his unconventional approach to the print medium, adapting his expertise in the traditional technique of etching to the diverse practices of contemporary artists. This exhibition focuses on Samuel’s “portable printing studio,” a specially made, travel-ready aquatint box that he first used in 1996 with the performance artist Marina Abramović (Yugoslav, b. 1946), traveling to the artist’s Amsterdam studio to work with the artist in her own environment. The result, Spirit Cooking (1996), a portfolio that functions as a cookbook of “essential aphrodisiac recipes,” is on view in the exhibition, along with Samuel’s project with Chris Burden, Coyote Stories (2005), which recounts through handwritten texts and allusive imagery the artist’s personal encounters with coyotes near his Topanga Canyon, California, home. As part of Print/Out, Samuel has worked on a new portfolio with the artists and twin brothers Gert and Uwe Tobias (German, b. Romania, 1973), whose colorful, graphic compositions draw on a range of motifs, from popular culture, Eastern European folk art, and Russian Constructivism. Over the course of three days, Samuel worked with the artists in their Cologne studio, teaching them the basics of etching and helping them translate and adapt motifs from their visual lexicon into a set of plates. Print/Out follows this project through the printing, proofing, and publishing process, presenting a range of working materials and documentation in the galleries, and taking the opportunity to study one of Samuel’s collaborations from start to finish.

Within the exhibition these and other focused presentations are featured alongside areas physically demarcated with dotted wallpaper, in which print series by various artists—including Trisha Donnelly, Damien Hirst, Guillermo Kuitca, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Julie Mehretu, Jorge Pardo, Slavs and Tatars, Kara Walker, Franz West, Pae White, and Xu Bing—are broken apart and interspersed throughout the galleries. The layouts of these sections were designed by Armand Mevis and Linda Van Deursen (Mevis and Van Deursen, Amsterdam), who also served as the designers of the exhibition’s publication. The resulting view within the galleries captures both the familiarity and the ubiquity of prints in today’s landscape, and attests to the extraordinary vitality of a medium central to contemporary artistic practice.

Printin’
February 15-May 14, 2012
The Paul J. Sachs Prints and Illustrated Books Galleries, second floor
As part of Print/Out, the related exhibition Printin’, co-organized by artist Ellen Gallagher (American, b. 1965) and Sarah Suzuki, Associate Curator, Department of Prints and Illustrated Books at MoMA, is also on view. Printin’ takes as its starting point DeLuxe (2004-05), a tour de force portfolio of 60 works by Gallagher that challenged traditional ideas of what a print could be. This technically complex work employs a range of mediums, unorthodox tools, and elements, from slicks of greasy pomade to plastic ice cubes. DeLuxe also offers a constellation of ideas, touching on such issues as portraiture, identity, history, advertising, commodity, and the disruption, translation, and recasting of space. Proposing a kind of technical dissection and conceptual unpacking of this portfolio, Printin’ brings together work by more than 50 artists from multiple disciplines in a sweeping chronology that extends from the 17th century to the present day, to propose a free-flowing yet incisive web of associations that are reflected in DeLuxe. Encompassing prints, drawings, films, books, photographs, sculptures, videos, and comic strips, the exhibition features such artists as Vija Celmins, David Hammons, George Herriman, Rammellzee, Robert Rauschenberg, Martha Rosler, Experiens Sillemans, and many others, forming a dense network of formal, technical, and conceptual connections and intersections.

SPONSORSHIP: Major support for Print/Out is provided by MoMA’s Wallis Annenberg Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art through the Annenberg Foundation.

The Museum acknowledges generous funding from Anna Marie and Robert F. Shapiro, Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, Orentreich Family Foundation, Mary M. Spencer, Philip Aarons and Shelley Fox Aarons, and Sally and Wynn Kramarsky.

Additional support is provided by The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art.

RELATED INSTALLATION:
Millennium Magazines
February 20-May 14, 2012
Mezzanine Level, The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building
This survey of experimental art and design magazines published since 2000 explores the various ways in which contemporary artists and designers utilize the magazine format as an experimental space for the presentation of artworks and text. Throughout the 20th century, international avant-garde activities in the visual arts and design were often codified first in the informal context of a magazine or journal. This exhibition, drawn from the holdings of the MoMA Library, follows the practice into the 21st century. The works on view represent a broad array of international titles within this genre, from community-building newspapers to image-only photography magazines to conceptual design projects. The contents illustrate a diverse range of image-making, editing, design, printing, and distribution practices. There are obvious connections to the past lineage of artists’ magazines and small press architecture and design magazines of the 20th century, as well as a clear sense of the application of new techniques of image-editing and printing methods. Assembled together, these contemporary magazines provide a first-hand view into these practices and represent the MoMA Library’s sustained effort to document and collect this medium. Millennium Magazine is organized by Rachael Morrison and David Senior, MoMA Library.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS:
Artist and Publisher: Printmaking and the Collaborative Process
MoMA hosts two conversations between publishers and artists featured in the exhibition Print/Out and Printin’ as they discuss their creative practice and the process of collaboration. Christophe Cherix, The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Chief Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books and organizer of Print/Out, moderates.
Thursday, February 16, 6:00 p.m., The Celeste Bartos Theater
Artist Ellen Gallagher in conversation with publishers and printers at Two Palms Press.
Tuesday, February 28, 6:00 p.m., The Celeste Bartos Theater
Artist Marina Abramović in conversation with Los Angeles publisher/printer Edition Jacob Samuel.
Tickets ($10, $8 members and corporate members, $5 students, seniors and staff of other museums) are available online, at the information desk in the main lobby, and at the film desk after 4:00 p.m. Any remaining tickets may be picked up one hour before the start of the program at the Education and Research Building ticketing desk.

Print Studio
January 23 to March 9, 2012
Open daily, Wednesday to Monday, 12:00-4:00 p.m.
Mezzanine Level, The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building
Print Studio is an interactive space that explores the evolution of artistic practices relating to the medium of print. The Studio offers a series of free drop-in workshops, lectures, and events that emphasize accessible and sustainable models for the production and dissemination of ideas.
See separate press release for complete details and schedule or visit MoMA.org/PrintStudio.
Print Studio is made possible by a partnership with Volkswagen of America.

AUDIO GUIDES:
The audio guide accompanying Print/Out features exhibition organizer Christophe Cherix joined
by artists Rirkrit Tiravanija, Alexandra Mir, and Lucy McKenzie, among other artists, publishers, and printers, along with a new, specially-produced soundscape by participating artist Trisha Donnelly. The audio guide accompanying Printin’ is led by artist Ellen Gallagher and Associate Curator Sarah Suzuki. Artists David Shrigley, Simon Fujiwara, and Martha Rosler also discuss the exhibition, while poet Terence Hayes and artist-performer Theaster Gates read the poetry of Aimé Césaire and Bob Kaufman. MoMA Audio is also available for download at MoMA.org, at MoMA.org/audio, and as a podcast on iTunes. MoMA Audio is available free of charge courtesy of Bloomberg.

PUBLICATION:
A fully illustrated publication accompanies the exhibition and includes essays and interviews by Mr. Cherix, Ms. Suzuki, and Ms. Conaty. Print/Out: 20 Years in Print features focused sections on 10 artists and publishers—Ai Weiwei, Ellen Gallagher, Martin Kippenberger, Lucy McKenzie, Aleksandra Mir, museum in progress, Edition Jacob Samuel, SUPERFLEX, Robert Rauschenberg, and Rirkrit Tiravanija—as well as rich illustrations of printed projects from the last two decades by major artists such as Trisha Donnelly, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Thomas Schütte, and Kelley Walker. 236 pages, 585 illustrations. Paperback, $50. Available at the MoMA Stores and online at MoMAStore.org. Distributed to the trade through ARTBOOK | D.A.P. in the United States and Canada, and through Thames & Hudson outside North America.

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Public Information:
The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019, (212) 708-9400, MoMA.org
Hours: Wednesday through Monday, 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Friday, 10:30 a.m.-8:00 p.m. Closed
Tuesday
Museum Admission: $25 adults; $18 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.; $14 full-time students with current I.D. Free, members and children 16 and under. (Includes admittance to Museum galleries and film programs). MoMA.org: $22.50 adults; $16 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.; $12 full-time students with current I.D. No service charge for tickets ordered on MoMA.org. Tickets purchased online may be printed out and presented at the Museum without waiting in line. (Includes admittance to Museum galleries and film programs).
Film Admission: $12 adults; $10 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.; $8 full-time students with current I.D. (for admittance to film programs only)
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BEVERLY HILLS, CA - One of just 300 first edition copies printed of Ernest Hemingway’s first book - Three Stories & Ten Poems. [Paris]: Contact Publishing Co., 1923 - is expected to bring $75,000+ when it comes across the auction block on Thursday, Feb. 8, as the lead lot in Heritage Auctions’ Rare Books Signature® Auction, taking place at the company’s Beverly Hills showroom, 9478 West Olympic Boulevard.

“Any Hemingway first edition is a highly sought-after thing,” said James Gannon, Director of Rare Books auctions at Heritage, “let alone the very first book he ever published. Making it even more interesting is the warm inscription from Hemingway to two of the editors of The Little Review, the important ‘little magazine’ that published works by avant garde writers of the time such as James Joyce and T. S. Eliot and who published Hemingway’s first mature prose work the very same year.”

That inscription reads: “For j.h. [Jane Heap] and Margaret Anderson with love from Hemingway.”

Heritage Rare Book auctions have increasingly become known as a leader in rare Sci-Fi and Fantasy editions, and one of the most interesting groupings of the auction comes from the Jack Cordes Collection of Science Fiction. It is an amazing assemblage of rare first edition Sci-Fi books inscribed to Mr. Cordes by a veritable who’s who of the genre: Ray Bradbury, Ayn Rand, Kurt Vonnegut, Charles Beaumont, and more, including a 1957 first edition of Philip Jose Farmer’s classic The Green Odyssey, New York: Ballantine Books, inscribed to Cordes: “Jack, /I know you'll have/a pleasant voyage on your/green odyssey through the/matrimonial sea, because/you'll not be wanting to escape/your own personal Amra./Philip Jose Farmer.” It is estimated at $2,000+.

Two of the 18th century’s greatest writers are represented by first editions of what are among their most important works: fans of Charles Dickens will thrill to the inclusion of several of his Christmas books, including A Christmas Carol; The Chimes; The Cricket on the Hearth; The Battle of Life; The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain (estimate: $15,000+), while Edgar Allan Poe aficionados will take special note of his Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1840 (estimate: $15,000+).

James Bond fans will be happy to find several early Ian Fleming works in this auction, including a gorgeous first edition of Goldfinger, London: Jonathan Cape, [1959], inscribed by Fleming on the front free endpaper, “To Gerald Micklem, This piece - of homework! from (sic) Ian Fleming.” It carries a pre-auction estimate of $15,000+.

A rare Pony Express Bible - The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments… - New York: American Bible Society, 1857, is already making collectors take note as it readies for the auction. The thick, pocket-sized volume, bound in eights, is still in its original custom leather binding, with "PRESENTED BY / RUSSELL, MAJORS & WADDELL / 1858" in gilt at the center of the front board. It is estimated at $10,000+.

“There few things more evocative to Americans than the thought of the Pony Express,” said Gannon. “These bibles, issued to riders and employees of the company that ran the Pony Express are true prizes of Americana, and we expect collectors will bid accordingly.”

Rare Incunabula, or books from the first 50 years of printing following Gutenberg, are represented in the Feb. 8 auction by a rare copy of Guillelmus Duranti’s Rationale divinorum officiorum. [Paris: Ulrich [Gering], Martin [Crantz], and Michael [Friburger], 13 April 1475], which is expected to bring $15,000+.

“This auction, across the board, presents a superb selection of major literature from across the epochs,” said Gannon, “from Chaucer to Cormac McCarthy, a considerable grouping of rare early American imprints, a wonderful selection of genre literature, an outstanding group of children's & illustrated titles and more selected artwork from the estate of illustrator Garth Williams. There is something for every level of collector in this one.”

Further highlights include, but are not limited to:
Samuel Augustus Mitchell, Description of Oregon and California, Embracing an Account of the Gold Regions... Philadelphia: Thomas, Cowperthwait & Co., 1849: Second edition, with an excellent example of the rare “New Map of Texas Oregon and California.” Estimate: $7,500+.

Thomas Hardy, Desperate Remedies. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1871: First edition of Hardy's rare first book, one of only about 500 copies printed. Inscribed by Hardy on a slip of paper mounted on the recto of the front free endpaper of volume I: “Autographed as requested- / Thomas Hardy.” Estimate: $7,000+.

(Joaquin Miller) C. H. Miller, Specimens (A Tale of the Rogue River War), Portland, printed by George Himes, 1868: First edition of Miller's first book and one of the rarest of all books to emanate from the west - only about 10 copies exist. Estimate: $7,500+.

Henry M. Stanley, In Darkest Africa or the Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin, Governor of Equatoria. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1890: Estimate: $4,000+.

Salvador Dali, Illustrator - Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 12 Illustrations with Original Woodcuts and an Original Etching by Salvador Dali. New York: Maecenas Press-Random House, 1969: One of 2,500 numbered portfolios printed on Mandeure paper, signed by the artist on the title-page. Estimate: $4,000+.

Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are Prints, (N.p., 1971): Complete set of four art prints, each printed in 1971 from the original drawings for this classic and influential picture book, each printed on a single sheet, measuring 15 x 24 inches, and signed by Sendak in the lower left hand corner. Estimate: $3,000+.

The Center For Book Arts is Pleased to Present Its Winter 2012 Exhibition

Fine & Dirty
Contemporary Letterpress Art
January 18th to March 31st 2012
Fine & Dirty
When: January 18th to March 31st 2012 Where: 28 W. 27th St., 3rd Floor, New York, NY
Subway: N/R to 28th St, or F to 23rd St Admission: free

Organized by Betty Bright and Jeff Rathermel, Minnesota Center for Book Arts

The practice of letterpress printing incorporates craft standards and the book’s haptic character, along with art world strategies, materials and content. With Fine & Dirty, the Center for Book Arts’ Winter 2012 Exhibition, the curators assemble work that represents the best in letterpress books today, created by established and emerging artists. The exhibit explores the forces that are reshaping the meanings of craft in letterpress printing in the twenty-first century, and that may shed light on the larger craft-world’s relationship to art and to life. The exhibition also investigates other influences on current letterpress work. These include DIY (Do It Yourself) and its playful organizational spin-off for letterpress, ILLSA (Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts); Asian influences such as wabi sabi; international influences such as the UK’s Ken Campbell’s improvisatory approach and Ron King’s theatrical presentations, and a heightened focus on design and on a wide use of papers seen in work by Germany’s Viktoria Schäpers and Barbara Tetenbaum.

Visit our website for up-to-date details: www.centerforbookarts.org

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR BOOK ARTS

The Center for Book Arts is committed to exploring and cultivating contemporary aesthetic interpretations of the book as an art object, while invigorating traditional artistic practices of the art of the book. The Center seeks to facilitate communication between the book arts community and the larger spheres of contemporary art and literature through exhibitions, classes, public programming, literary presentations, opportunities for artists and writers, publications, and collecting. Founded in 1974, the Center for Book Arts was the first organization of its kind in the nation.
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Los Angeles - Timed to coincide with the 45th California International Antiquarian Book Fair, Bonhams is pleased offer property from the Serendipity Bookstore in Berkeley, CA on February 12.  Highlights will include general antiquarian books, art and fine press, modern literature and poetry with a section dedicated to John Steinbeck, Americana and early baseball literature.
 
Peter Howard [1939-2011] of the landmark Bay Area Serendipity Books has been eulogized as "one of the most imaginative booksellers of his generation."  Howard stocked not only individual titles but entire collections.  The store was organized in sections by the original source: a collection of modern poetry from collector X is in one corner; another collection with similar titles from another source might be on the opposite side of the building.  It wasn't a library and so, to Howard's mind, it wasn't supposed to be organized like one.

The bookstore on University, for those who never crossed its threshold, was a warren of rooms filled to the roof with titles from the mundane and popular to the erudite and obscure.  Howard wanted people to search for their books, looking carefully and hopefully finding not only what they were looking for, but far more.
 
The centerpiece of the February sale is Howard's tremendous collection of John Steinbeck material.  This includes the typed manuscript of "The Pearl of the World," the original short story version of The Pearl (est. $15,000-20,000); copy number 4 of The Red Pony, a presentation copy inscribed to Louis Paul (est. $2,000-3,000); an inscribed copy of Cup of Gold (est. $10,000-15,000); an inscribed copy of The Grapes of Wrath (est. $10,000-15,000); Steinbeck's novella version of Lifeboat, written at the behest of Alfred Hitchcock (est. $5,000-7,000); advance proofs of several of his most famous novels (estimates vary); as well as letters, photographs (estimates vary), and even a signed document relating to a proposed musical version of Viva, Zapata! (est. $2,000-3,000).
 
The Antiquarian section features early printed works in architecture, travel literature natural history, and English literature including a first collected edition of Beaumont and Fletcher (est. $1,000-2,000) and several Thackeray titles in parts (estimates vary).
 
The Art, Fine Press and Photography offering includes a portrait of William Blake by Leonard Baskin (est. $1,000-1,500); a group of signed photographs of Wright Morris (est. $8,000-12,000); and several albums of 19th and early 20th century photograph albums, including images of India and California (estimates vary).
 
In the Modern Literature and Poetry section features a rare broadside of Elizabeth Bishop's poem, The Fish, one of only 12 known copies (est. $3,000-5,000); a large group of Lawrence Durrell first editions and letters (estimates vary); a strong selection of William Faulkner material, including a signed copy of Sartoris, the Ole Miss yearbook from 1918 featuring a submission by Faulkner (est. $8,000-12,000), screenplay adaptations of his work (estimates vary), and a photograph of himself taken in 1960, signed and inscribed for his longtime love, Meta Carpenter Rebner (est. $3,000-5,000).
 
The sale will also feature an impressive group of Robinson Jeffers novels and letters (estimates vary); the exceedingly rare James Joyce broadside, Gas from a Burner, his angry farewell to Ireland after the suppression of his book Dubliners (est. $12,000-18,000); Ross Macdonald's working manuscript of the screenplay version of The Instant Enemy (est. $5,000-7,000); Nancy Mitford's manuscript of her biography Madame de Pompadour (est. 1,200-1,800); Carl Sandburg's guitar (est. $10,000-15,000); and original costume designs by Orson Welles for Macbeth (est. $800-1,200) and another production (3,000-5,000).
 
In honor of Howard's great love for the game of baseball, the auction will conclude with a rare offering of baseball material, including one of the earliest known baseball broadsides for the first intercollegiate ball game (est. $2,500-3,500), and an 18th century German book that contains one of the first known mention of "das englische Base-ball" (and its other variants of the period, Thorball, Schnurball, Fangball and Prellball) (est.12,000-18,000).
 
Additional property from Serendipity Books will be offered by Bonhams throughout 2012 in the following auctions: Fine Photography in New York on May 8, Period Art & Design in San Francisco on April 15 and May 20, Made in California in Los Angeles on May 21, Fine Books and Manuscripts in New York on June 19 and Entertainment Memorabilia in Los Angeles on June 24.
 
The illustrated auction catalog for this sale will be available online for review and purchase at www.bonhams.com/us in the weeks preceding the sale.
 
San Francisco Preview: February 3-5
 
Los Angeles Preview: February 9-11
 
Auction: April 16, Los Angeles, simulcast to San Francisco

 

New York—On Thursday, February 23 Swann Galleries will conduct an auction of Private Press & Illustrated Books that features highly desirable press books from two fine American collections.

The top lot in the sale is the Kelmscott Press masterpiece The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer now newly imprinted, first edition, Hammersmith, 1896 (estimate: $30,000 to $50,000). Master craftsman William Morris only printed 425 copies of this extraordinarily influential book—he had to refuse orders for hundreds more due to time constraints—and upon his death later the same year the woodcuts were given to the British Museum and the fonts to the University Press, Cambridge, so no further copies could be printed.

Other Kelmscott examples of note include a first edition of the first book they printed, The Story of the Glittering Plain, 1891 ($3,000 to $4,000); a copy of The Poems of William Shakespeare, inscribed by Morris to English critic and poet Theodore Watts-Dunton in the year of its publication, 1893 ($4,000 to $6,000); and a rare edition of Syr Ysambrace, one of only eight on vellum and in the original binding, 1897 ($5,000 to $7,500).

Kelmscott’s influence led to the creation of several other English presses, many of which are also represented in the sale. From the Ashendene Press is Cervantes’s Don Quixote, London, 1927-28, which was Ashendene’s largest work ($1,200 to $1,800); and an association copy of Edmund Spencer’s Minor Poems, warmly inscribed by publisher Charles Henry St. John Hornby to engraver Emery Walker of Doves Press, Chelsea 1925 ($2,000 to $3,000). A handful of works by Doves Press are also in the sale.

A wonderful example by Eragny Press is a dedication copy of Songs by Ben Jonson, one of only 10 copies on vellum, with a colored frontispiece, border and initials by Lucien Pissarro, the press’s founder and son of Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro, inscribed by Lucien and Esther Pissarro to J.M. Andreini, London, 1906 ($1,500 to $2,500).

A run of works by the celebrated Golden Cockerel Press features Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, Waltham St. Lawrence, 1928-31 ($4,000 to $6,000); Troilus and Criseyde, 1927 ($2,000 to $3,500); and The Four Gospels of the Lord Jesus Christ, 1931 ($4,000 to $6,000).

Eric Gill, who designed typefaces and illustrated several works for Golden Cockerel, also collaborated on one of the most beautiful illustrated books of the 20th century: the Cranach Press’s The Tragedie of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, with a title page designed by Gill, one of 300 in deluxe red morocco binding, Weimar, 1930 ($3,500 to $5,000).

From the same era are a wonderful association copy of Merrymount Press’s printing of the controversial protestant Episcopal revision of The Book of Common Prayer by the General Convention of 1928, ex-collections J.P. Morgan and C.H. St. John Hornby, Boston, 1928-30 ($3,000 to $4,000); an unusually nice copy of Grabhorn Press’s edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, New York, 1930 ($2,000 to $3,000); Shakespeare Head Press’s Odes of Victory; The Nemean and Isthmian Odes by Pindar, one of seven on vellum, Oxford, 1930 ($4,000 to $6,000); and one of the most impressive books by the Gregynog Press, The History of Saint Louis by John, Lord of Joinville Seneschal of Champagne, 1937 ($1,200 to $1,800).

A rich assortment of titles from contemporary and modern American presses includes Arion Press’s Moby-Dick, or, The Whale, one of 250 copies of the first trade edition designed by Andrew Hoyem, San Francisco, 1979 ($5,000 to $7,500), and a deluxe edition of The Great Gatsby, signed by and with two original drawings by Michael Graves, who illustrated the book, 1984 ($4,000 to $6,000); Janus Press’s scarce Aura by Hayden Carruth with an accordion folded multi-color paper pulp landscape, from an edition of 50, West Burke, Vermont, 1977 ($2,000 to $3,000), and The Circus of Doctor Lao, by Charles G. Finney, signed by the author and illustrator Claire Van Vliet, 1984 ($2,500 to $3,500); and Pennyroyal Press’s Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, one of 50 deluxe copies for patrons signed by Barry Moser, 1982 ($2,500 to $3,500), and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, signed by Moser and with an additional suite of prints, 1985 ($1,500 to $2,500).

Examples of collectible Limited Editions Club books are signed copies of John Hersey’s Hiroshima, with a poem by Robert Penn Warren, and illustrated by Jacob Lawrence, New York, 1983 ($1,200 to $1,800); Duane Michaels’s A Tribute to Cavafy: A Selection of Poems with Photogravures, 2003 ($2,000 to $3,000); and Junichiro Tanizaki’s A Portrait of Shunkin, illustrated with Eikoh Hosoe photographs, 2000 ($1,200 to $1,800).

From the modern British Parvenu Press is Judith Kazantzis’s The Garden of Earthly Delights, one of 12 signed copies, London, 2003 ($2,000 to $3,000).

Rounding out the press books are editions from Aquarius Press, Bird & Pull Press, Cheloniidae Press, Essex House press, Grabhorn Press, Nonesuch Press, Officina Bodoni, Tideline Press and more.

Illustrated books of note include Michael Mazur’s collaboration with Robert Pinsky on a new illustrated translation of The Inferno of Dante, first deluxe edition, signed by Mazur, New York, 2002 ($5,000 to $7,500).

The auction will begin at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 23. The books will be on public exhibition Friday, February 17, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Tuesday, February 21 and Wednesday, February 22, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Thursday, February 23, from 10 a.m. to noon.

An illustrated catalogue, with information on bidding by mail or fax, is available for $35 from Swann Galleries, Inc., 104 East 25th Street, New York, NY 10010, or online at www.swanngalleries.com.

For further information, and to make advance arrangements to bid by telephone during the auction, please contact Christine von der Linn at (212) 254-4710, extension 20, or via e-mail at cvonderlinn@swanngalleries.com.

Live online bidding is available via Artfact. Click on the Artfact link on the swanngalleries.com homepage.
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ITHACA, N.Y. (Jan. 31, 2012) - Cornell University Library’s extensive new collection of African-American photographs contains impressive images of iconic leaders of the civil rights movement and world-changing events — but the less momentous moments in black history make up an equally important part of the collection.
 
Among the nearly 2,000 items, recently donated by Beth and Stephan Loewentheil, are images of African Americans going about their regular lives in the 19th and 20th centuries.
 
“Certainly, African Americans were fighting for justice in this country, but at the same time, they were celebrating births and graduations and marriages, mourning deaths, holding family reunions, buying new homes and cars and clothes — the stuff of everyday life,” said Katherine Reagan, curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts. “Those things can be easily overshadowed, but this collection provides a window into the lives of men and women who are so frequently underrepresented in the historical record.”

Images in the collection depict the African-American experience from slavery in the agricultural antebellum South to celebrities of modern media-frenzied America.

“I'm thrilled about the collection for the possibilities it offers for research in African and African American Studies, especially as portraits like those in the new collection are hard to find today in both private and public collections,” said Cheryl Finley, associate professor of art at Cornell. “Images such as these reveal volumes about the social, material, cultural and political lives of the people pictured as well as those who may have lived similar lives or had similar experiences.”

Among the collection’s most memorable images are striking photographs of Martin Luther King Jr. in a jail cell, rare tintypes of freed slaves and personal family photo albums. The photographs also encompass a wide diversity of formats: daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, carte-de-visite photographs, albumen prints, Polaroids and more.

In honor of Black History Month, the Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections will display a sample of the collection in the gallery space between Olin and Kroch libraries on Cornell’s main campus in Ithaca, N.Y. The exhibition will open Wednesday, Feb. 1, and it is free and open to the public.

The collection will soon be open to researchers from all over the world and, Reagan added, “it has a tremendously high research value. It’s a trove of material that will help scholars who are looking for a more comprehensive view of a period that saw enormous changes for people of color in the United States.”

The African-American photographs are the newest component of the Beth and Stephan JD ’75 Loewentheil Family Photographic Collection, a magnificent set of 16,000 historic images that make up a candid cross-section of the early American experience. Many of those photographs are also currently on display on level 2B of the Carl A. Kroch Library as part of the major exhibition, “Dawn’s Early Light: The First 50 Years of American Photography.”

To learn more and see a sampling of the images, visit http://communications.library.cornell.edu/news/afamphotos.

[ITHACA, NY] National Book Auctions, located in Ithaca, NY, hosted a Sunday, January 29th auction featuring a broad range of rare antique and vintage books, as well as a large collection of intriguing ephemera and artwork. Of particular note were rare first editions of 19th century and modern titles as well as a very large collection of signed modern first editions. This 437-lot auction also featured a select group of estate furniture and other antiques.

A 1965 first printing of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Orchard Keeper” fetched a hammer price of $3240.00 (including buyer’s premium). This scarce first printing of this debut novel contains the author's signature on a laid-in illustrated bookplate. Additionally, a rare stated first edition of Cormac McCarthy’s third publication, “Child of God” brought a hammer price of $799.50 (including buyer’s premium). This volume features a dust jacket featuring a full rear panel photo of a young McCarthy.

Realizing a hammer price of $2829.00 (including buyer’s premium) was a rare first edition of Edwin Lefevre’s “Reminiscences of a Stock Operator.” This work is a thinly-disguised biography of early 20th-century stock investor Jesse Livermore, a remarkable character who first started speculating in New England bucket shops at the turn of the century. What makes this book so intriguing are the observations that Lefevre records about investing, speculating, and the nature of the market itself.

Bringing a hammer price of $799.50 (including buyer’s premium) was an original Disney poster for Children's Book Week which ran Nov. 12-18, 1939. This poster features an illustration of Pinnochio, with the caption "Film classics from the World's Best Books."

National Book Auctions is a public auction service specializing in books, ephemera, and art. National Book Auctions is a targeted service offering experience and expertise unique to marketing antique and modern books and ephemera for consignors and collectors alike. Preview for the upcoming Sunday, February 19th auction is at 10 a.m. and the live auction starts at noon. For more information or to consign collectible material please contact David Hall, Business Manager, at 607-269-0101 or email mail@nationalbookauctions.com.

NEW YORK - The Billy Wright Collection, a newly CGC-pedigreed collection - featuring five of the top six comic books in the hobby, all unrestored and all offered without reserves - leads the way in Heritage’s Feb. 22-24 Vintage Comics and Comic Art Signature® Auction, taking place at the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion (Ukrainian Institute of America) at 2 East 79th Street (at 5th Ave.).

“While a relatively small collection of little more than 300 comic books,” said Lon Allen, Managing Director of Comics Auctions at Heritage. “The Billy Wright Collection represents not only five of the top six comics in the business, but also 45 of the top 100 comics overall, all unrestored.”

Those top comics include Detective Comics #27 (DC, 1939) CGC FN+ 6.5, the first appearance of “The Bat Man” (Estimate: $475,000+); Action Comics #1 (DC, 1938) CGC GD/VG 3.0, the most important comic book ever published (Estimate: $325,000+); All-American Comics #16 (DC, 1940) CGC VF 8.0, the debut of Green Lantern (Estimate: $125,000+); Batman #1 (DC, 1940) CGC VF+ 8.5, a superb copy of the first official Batman comic (Estimate: $125,000) and Marvel Comics #1 (Timely, 1939) CGC VF- 7.5 (Estimate: $125,000+).

In complement to the Billy Wright copy of Detective #27, Heritage will also be offering another copy of the famed comic book, this one in a lesser grade, CGC 2.0, estimated at $80,000+, giving collectors two chances to own one of the greatest comic books of all time.

Collectors will also take special note of the amazing Curator Pedigree run of Fantastic Four comics, led by a superb CGC 9.4 graded copy of Fantastic Four #5, estimated at $55,000+.

“Not much is known about this collection,” said Ed Jaster, Senior Vice President of Heritage Auctions, “but many experts agree that the Curator books are among the best Silver Age Marvel comics available, and many of these FFs are the highest-graded copies in existence.”

One of the most interesting wrinkles in the Feb. 22-24 Heritage Comics event will be the auction of 12 original DC “ashcan” comics, special editions created by DC comics to protect trademark and logos of what would become their most valuable titles, including Action Comics. The top offering of these incredibly rare books is the Action Funnies Ashcan Edition (DC, 1937/38) Condition: VF+, estimated at $20,000+.

“In the early days of comics publishing,” said Jaster, “a print run might have been in the hundreds of thousands, maybe even the millions. Yet only about 100 to 1,000 of a given issue of any comic survived. With these ashcans, only two or three copies were made in the first place, so it’s a miracle that even one of these has made it.”

As is always the case with Heritage Comics auction, original comic art plays an important role in this event, led by John Romita Sr.’s Amazing Spider-Man Annual #3 cover art, a large size cover, by one of the greatest names to ever pick up a pen, featuring superb renderings of almost every top Marvel character. The piece is estimated at $100,000+.

A Dark Knight Returns #1 original double page spread, pages 46-47, a moody sequence featuring classic villain Two-Face, is expected to catch collector attention, as original Dark Knight artwork has recently been commanding great interest in the hobby and superb prices. This piece is expected to bring $50,000+.

The creator of The Dark Knight series, Frank Miller himself, has consigned two pieces of original Dark Knight artwork to the auction, Absolute Dark Knight Book Cover Original Art (DC, 2006) and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (10th Anniversary Edition) Batman and Robin Frontispiece Splash Page Original Art (DC, 1997), a classic take on the famous issue #3, Page 10 splash page art from the original Dark Knight series. Both pieces are estimated at $50,000+.

“These pieces, consigned by the master himself, Frank Miller, represent some of the best original Dark Knight artwork yet to come on the market,” said Todd Hignite, Vice President of Heritage. “To top it off, Miller himself will be making an appearance at the auction preview on Tuesday, Feb. 21, at the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion. Fans are more than welcome to come by and say hello in person.”

One of the most special pieces in the auction, and likely one of the event’s sleeper pieces, is the original published Bill Watterson cover art for the Calvin & Hobbes 1989-1990 18-month calendar, the only piece of published Calvin & Hobbes artwork to ever surface for public auction. While estimated at $50,000+, this piece has the potential to go much higher.

“Beyond the Peanuts comic strips of legendary cartoonist Charles Schulz, there is no more popular comic strip and certainly no strip where the original art is more in demand,” said Hignite. “The difference being that original Schulz work can be had at a variety of price points. Original published Calvin and Hobbes artwork simply never comes up for public auction. There’s really no telling how high collectors will be willing to go on this one, seeing as they will also be competing with non-traditional collectors who simply love the comic strip and will be very excited to see a piece of original art on the block.”

One more important original comic art highlight is represent by the original Robert Crumb cover art for The People’s Comix, estimated at $30,000+. This is the artwork from the famous mid-1970s Underground Comic where R. Crumb - bitter over the many difficulties thrown his way by his early success, and his opposition to the Ralph Bakshi Fritz the Cat movie - actually kills off his beloved Fritz, a character he had drawn since childhood.

New York - Phillips de Pury & Company continues to set the standard for editions with strong results totaling $1,585,125: selling 88% by value and 85% by lot.

In a packed and buzzing saleroom there was fierce competition between internet bidders formany pieces including prints by Ed Ruscha and Keith Haring with a lively bidding war taking place between phone and internet bidders for Andy Warhol’s Liz lithograph which sold for $22,500 nearly four times its pre- sale estimate.

"Another Editions filled auction room with new and enthusiastic faces helped propel the sale to strong results yesterday afternoon on Park Avenue. People will respond to fresh work presented beautifully, even in non-traditional selling times. Record prices were set for images by Helen Frankenthaler, Marcel Duchamp, Tom Wesselmann, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Serra and John Baldessari amongst others." Kelly Troester and Cary Leibowitz, Co-Directors of Modern and Contemporary Editions.

Top Ten Lots
102 ANDY WARHOL, Flash-November 22, 1963, $52,500
52 LYNN CHADWICK, Walking Cloaked Figures VI: one sculpture, $35,000
61 MARTIN LEWIS, Quarter of Nine, Saturday’s Children, $22,500 world record price for this image
103 ANDY WARHOL, Liz, $22,500
256 DAMIEN HIRST, Pharmaceuticals, $21,875
234 JOHN BALDESSARI, Object (with Flaw), $21,250
93 TOM WESSELMANN, Monica Nude with Cezanne, from Portfolio 90, $20,000
192 RICHARD ARTSCHWAGER, Book, $18,750 world record price for this multiple
60 VARIOUS ARTISTS, Regards sur Paris portfolio, $18,750
71 ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG, American Pewter with Burroughs series, $18,750 world record price for this set

The Evening Editions sale will take place on April 25th at 6pm at 450 Park Avenue.

Love Letters: 2000 Years of Romance, a title published by the British Library, is the first ever anthology to reproduce original love letters in each of the writers’ own hand. Featuring letters drawn from the Library's unique and vast collections, the romance spans from 168 BC to the 20th century and offers a rare insight into the intimate thoughts, feelings and desires of iconic individuals such as Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII, Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde.
 
Edited and written by Andrea Clarke, Curator of Early Modern Historical Manuscripts, Love Letters displays and transcribes in full 25 letters with engaging commentaries about the correspondents and their circumstances, as well as portraits of the writers and recipients. It includes letters by figures such as Henry VIII, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Horatio Lord Nelson, Oscar Wilde and Mervyn Peake.

From the raw passion of Rupert Brooke’s letter to Cathleen Nesbitt - ‘I will kiss you till I kill you’ - to the hurt and dejected pre-wedding note from Charles Dickens to his fiancée - ‘do not trifle with me’ - Love Letters exposes ‘every shade of love’ through these personal and private letters between lovers over hundreds of years.

Highlights include:

    •    Charlotte Brontë to Professor Constantin Héger, November 1844 - infatuated with her Belgian Professor, Charlotte wrote letters to him and despite the fact that Professor Héger tore up three of them and threw all four away, incredibly four of her letters have survived. Curiously, it is thanks to his wife - who retrieved them and sewed them back together - that we are able to read them today.

    •    Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas, January 1897 - the first and last pages of ‘De Profundis’, the 50,000-word letter that Wilde wrote to Douglas from Reading Gaol between December 1896 and March 1897. As well as charting Wilde’s spiritual growth through the physical and emotional hardships of his imprisonment, the letter is a bitter - yet remarkably tender and forgiving - indictment of the man who he felt had helped to destroy his life and reputation.

    •    Mervyn Peake to his wife, Maeve, 1949 - previously unpublished, Peake’s wonderfully illustrated and heartfelt letter was written just before his wife went to hospital to give birth. He signs off, ‘Maevie. I am in love. Deeply. Un-endingly, for ever and ever.’

Andrea Clarke, author of Love Letters, says: “In an age of emails, tweets and texted ‘I luv u’s’, Love Letters invites us into a privileged realm and reminds us why the written word is so special. We are delighted to share these handwritten, intimate exchanges between couples - some famous, others now lost to history - with a wider audience.”

To celebrate the publication of Love Letters the Library will hold an event in February with special guests, including acclaimed biographer Anne Sebba, who will join British Library curator Andrea Clarke, for a pre-Valentine's Day dip into the most intimate world of the handwritten love letter, with fascinating readings, discussion and insights into the private relationships of people across centuries and cultures.

 
British Library Publishing http://publishing.bl.uk/ 



Love Letters is available to buy from the British Library shop www.bl.uk/shop (T +44 (0)20 7412 7735 / email bl_shop@bl.uk )



Events


Love Letters: 2000 Years of Romance


When: Sat 11 Feb 2012, 14.00 - 16.30

Where: Conference Centre, British Library
Price: £7.50 / £5 concessions


http://www.bl.uk/whatson/events/event127223.html


Love Letters
Contents:
1: Letter from Isaias to her husband, Hephaestion, 29 August 168 BC
2: Margery Brews to John Paston III, February 1477
3: Prince Arthur to Katherine of Aragon, 5 October 1499
4: Pierre Sala, Petit Livre d’Amour (letter to Marguerite Bullioud), c.1500
5: Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, love notes in a Book of Hours, c.1528
6: Katherine Parr to Henry VIII, July 1544
7: Earl of Essex to Elizabeth I, 18 October 1591
8: Sir Thomas Baskerville to his wife, Mary, 21 August 1595
9: Thomas Knyvett to his wife, Katherine, 26 November 1621
10: George Villiers to James I, 29 August 1623
11: Dorothy Osbourne to Sir William Temple, 15/16 October 1653
12: Sir John Fenwick to his wife, Mary, January 1697
13: Vanessa [Esther van Homrigh] to Jonathan Swift, 1714
14: Horatio Nelson’s last letter to Lady Emma Hamilton, 19 October 1805
15: Charles Dickens to his future wife, Catherine Hogarth, May 1835
16: Charlotte Brontë to Professor Constantin Héger, 18 November 1844
17: Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas, De Profundis, January 1897
18: Gordon Bottomley to Emily Burton, 17 October 1899
19: Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet 43 from Sonnets from the Portuguese, c. 1846
20: Christina Rossetti, Valentine poem to her mother, 1884
21: Rupert Brooke to Cathleen Nesbitt, 1913
22: Roger Keyes to his wife, Eva, 10 December 1914
23: Mervyn Peake to his wife, Maeve Gilmore, early 1940s
24: Ted Hughes, poem to Sylvia Plath, c.1980
25: Ralph Richardson to his wife, Meriel Forbes, 1964-70
 
For more information contact:
 
Evie Jeffreys
British Library
t:+ 44 (0) 20 7412 7105
e:evie.jeffreys@bl.uk
 
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the world's greatest research libraries. It provides world class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world's largest and most comprehensive research collection. The Library's collection has developed over 250 years and exceeds 150 million separate items representing every age of written civilisation and includes books, journals, manuscripts, maps, stamps, music, patents, photographs, newspapers and sound recordings in all written and spoken languages. Up to 10 million people visit the British Library website - www.bl.uk - every year where they can view up to 4 million digitised collection items and over 40 million pages. 

 

Boston, Mass - January 2012 - Skinner, Inc. will auction prints, photographs, paintings and sculptures on Friday, February 3rd in two sessions at their Boston gallery. The prints and photography portion of the sale will begin at 12 p.m.; paintings and sculptures at 4 p.m.

Prints
Skinner recently has seen strong growth in the area of prints, drawings, and photography and will present an excellent assortment of work on paper in the upcoming sale. Highlights include works of Jasper Johns, Gustave Baumann, Jacques Villon, and M.C. Escher.

Jasper Johns frequently interpreted the same subject matter in different media at different points in his career. In 1955 Johns created an encaustic painting with collage and plaster cast elements. He revisited this same composition 25 years later, reinterpreting it in the 1980 etching Target with Plaster Casts (lot 75) estimated to sell between $20,000 and $25,000.

A woodblock print by Gustave Baumann will also be offered. The Ridge Road (lot 15), a color woodcut design, is estimated between $3,000 and $5,000 and features one of the first examples of Baumann’s use of the “hand-in-heart” chop mark. This exemplary piece demonstrates the style that would later cause Baumann to be regarded as one of the premiere woodcut artists in early 20th century America.
Several works by Jacques Villon will be up for bid, most notably a print of L’Espagnole (lot 177) estimated between $6,000 and $8,000. This work, which copies the eponymous portrait by Henri Matisse, shows Villon’s skill at capturing the styles of his contemporaries in intaglio print. Also offered will be Villon’s interpretation of Marcel Duchamp’s La Mariée from 1934 (lot 178), estimated between $1,500 and $2,000, and a number of Villon’s own designs including Minne étendue dans un rocking-chair, le repos from 1907 (lot 174) estimated between $700 and $900.

The classic image from 1944, Encounter (lot 43),from the ever-popular Dutch artist M.C. Escher, is estimated between $15,000 and $20,000.

Photography
A collection of photographs from a former film expert and technician at Polaroid Corporation will be offered. It includes the black-and-white Minor White (lot 241), estimated between $400 and $600, and a group of 17 Polaroid images (lot 208) taken for a 1972 film produced by Charles and Ray Eames to promote the Polaroid SX-70 camera. The group of photos is estimated to sell between $1,200 and $1,800.

Multiple images by rock and roll photographer Jim Marshall will be sold, including a 1963 photograph of Bob Dylan, Dylan - Seventh Ave. N.Y.C. (lot 227) estimated between $1,800 and $2,200.

Modernist Paintings
American modernist works are well represented with notable examples including Maurice Brazil Prendergast’s watercolor entitled Maine (lot 446) estimated between $25,000 and $30,000, and an untitled work by Lyonel Feininger (lot 602) estimated between $20,000 and $40,000. Marsden Hartley’s Two Gulls (lot 607) is estimated between $10,000 and $15,000; Autumn Tree (lot 626) by Milton Clark Avery is estimated between $20,000 and $30,000; and John Marin’s Mt. Washington (lot 618) is estimated between $30,000 and $50,000.

Untitled, a painting by Danish Painter Asger Oluf Jorn (lot 612) has drawn considerable pre-sale interest and is estimated between $50,000 and $70,000. Jorn worked in a variety of styles, from the figurative to the abstract, creating works that include political, pre-historic, and mythological references. This 1952 work is closely related to the palate and social sensibility of Jorns’ 1959 series The Silence Myth although it isn’t known to be a part of that series.

European Paintings
A fine work by Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Portrait of a Young Man (lot 314) was likely to have been painted around 1800. This rediscovered work, estimated between $40,000 and $60,000, is sensitively rendered and is expected to appeal to European buyers.

Additional European highlights include Leon Jean Basile Perrault’s Le Petit Frère (lot 318), which is estimated between $60,000 and $80,000; Belgian artist Edward Antoon Portielje’s Interior with Two Young Women Sharing a Letter (lot 323), estimated between $6,000 and $8,000; and a work by Charles Bertrand d'Entraygues, The Young Magician (lot 326), estimated between $8,000 and $12,000.

Special Events
Blooms for Books
As part of this sale there will be a special presentation during which Skinner Inc. will auction three original floral arrangements. Kathy Wong, a specialist in Skinner’s Department of American & European Works of Art, will interpret three notable works presented in the auction with fresh flowers. Each artistic flower arrangement will be sold during auction after the lot on which it is modeled. Proceeds will benefit the Fine Arts Research Library at the Boston Public Library.

Gallery Walk, Thursday February 2nd
On Thursday, February 2nd there will be a Fine Art Gallery Walk presented by Robin Starr, Director of American and European Works of Art, with a reception at 5:30 p.m. and Gallery Walk at 6 p.m. at the Skinner gallery, 63 Park Plaza, Boston, MA. Register here: http://conta.cc/02-02-gallerywalk.
 
Previews, Catalogues and Bidding
Previews for the auction will be held on Wednesday, February 1st, 2012, 12 p.m.-5 p.m., and Thursday, February 2nd, 12 p.m.-8 p.m., and Friday, February 3rd, 9 a.m.-10:30 a.m. Illustrated catalogue #2581B is available by mail for $35 ($42 for foreign requests) from the subscription department at 508-970-3240. It is also available at the gallery for $32. Prices realized will be available at www.skinnerinc.com during and after the sale. Skinner's site also allows users to view all lots in the auctions, leave bids, order catalogues, and bid live in real-time through SkinnerLive!

About Skinner
Skinner, Inc. is one of the world’s leading auction houses for antiques and fine art. With expertise in over 20 specialty collecting areas, Skinner draws the interest of buyers from all over the world and its auctions regularly achieve world record prices. Skinner provides a broad range of auction and appraisal services, and it is widely regarded as one of the most trusted names in the auction business. Skinner’s appraisal experts regularly appear on the PBS-TV series, Antiques Roadshow, and its specialty departments include American Furniture & Decorative Arts, American & European Works of Art, European Furniture & Decorative Arts, 20th Century Design, Fine Ceramics, Fine Silver, Fine Jewelry, Couture, Fine Musical Instruments, Asian Works of Art, Fine Wines, Rare Books & Manuscripts, Oriental Rugs & Carpets, American Indian & Ethnographic Art, Fine Judaica, Antique Motor Vehicles, Toys, Dolls & Collectibles, Discovery and Science, Technology & Clocks. Skinner galleries are located in Boston and Marlborough, Mass. For more information on upcoming auctions and events, visit Skinner’s web site www.skinnerinc.com.
 
###
Contacts
    •    Robin Starr, Director of American & European Works of Art, 508-970-3206, rstarr@skinnerinc.com
    •    Kate de Bethune, Director of Marketing, 508-970-3231, kdebethune@skinnerinc.com
 

Oxford, 24 January 2012 - The Bodleian main exhibition opens to the public this Saturday, 28 January. It celebrates the stories of medieval romance and how they have influenced our culture, literature and art over the last thousand years.  It includes the dramatic love stories about King Arthur and Tristan and Isolde as they are illustrated in sumptuous medieval manuscripts, alongside works of art and draft papers by J.R.R. Tolkien, Philip Pullman and Monty Python, the last on public display for first time.

The Romance of the Middle Ages exhibition at the Bodleian Library draws on the Bodleian’s outstanding collection of manuscripts and early printed books containing medieval romances. These range from lavishly-illustrated volumes to personal notebooks and fragments only saved by chance. Alongside these will be works of art from across Europe that illustrate romance legends; these include ivory carvings, jewellery and caskets, on loan from national museums and collections.

Romance writing developed in Britain after the Norman Conquest and flourished as a form of storytelling right through to the Middle Ages, forming the basis for many kinds of later drama, poetry and prose fiction. This colourful exhibition tells how these compelling medieval stories have inspired writers and artists across the centuries; from the early modern period (including Shakespeare, Ariosto and Cervantes) through to medievalism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (including Walter Scott, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris) and, finally, to contemporary versions and adaptations (including manuscripts and drafts by J.R.R. Tolkien, Philip Pullman and the Monty Python team). From the Knights of the Round Table to the Knights that say ‘Ni!’, The Romance of the Middle Ages exhibition tells the fascinating story of medieval romance across the ages.

Highlights of the exhibition include:
    •    The Song of Roland - the earliest copy of France’s national epic (mid-12th century)
    •    Exquisite ivory carvings from France (14th century)
    •    Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - One of the most precious manuscripts of Middle English poetry. On loan from the British Library (c.1400)
    •    The Red Book of Hergest - amongst the most important books written in Welsh, containing The Mabinogion and many other texts, on loan from Jesus College, Oxford (c.1400)
    •    William Caxton’s The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye - a copy of the first book ever printed in the English language (1473/4)
    •    A draft illustrated page from J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings (1946)
    •    Monty Python and the Holy Grail - Terry Jones’s own working copy of the screenplay for the film, never shown to the public before (1973)

Dr Nicholas Perkins, exhibition curator said: ‘It’s a great pleasure to open up the Bodleian’s wonderful collections for this exhibition. They are of huge importance in telling the story of romance, and include some of the most spectacular books from medieval Europe. They have also offered inspiration to those captivated by the Middle Ages as a time of romance and wonder. From the young William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones beguiled by the Arthurian legends as Oxford students, to providing a working base for J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, the Library has nourished both scholarly and imaginative engagement with the medieval for centuries.’

An online exhibition (http://medievalromance.bodleian.ox.ac.uk) with the same title will be launched on 29 January.  It will feature nearly all the items on display in the exhibition room, along with many additional items. A 12-min video with the curator of the exhibition and scholars from the University of Oxford introducing the exhibition and the ideas behind it is also available. Twitter hashtag is #BODromance

Events accompanying the exhibition include lunchtime talks, special school activities and a show A Love Like Salt inspired by the exhibition to be held in the Divinity School, Bodleian Library on 20 April.

THE ROMANCE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
28 January - 13 May 2012
Exhibition Room, Bodleian Library, Old Schools Quad, Catte Street, Oxford
Opening Hours: Monday to Friday 9am - 5pm; Saturday 9am - 4.30pm; Sunday 11am - 5pm CLOSED EASTER SUNDAY
ADMISSION FREE

NEW YORK, January 23, 2012—Organized in conjunction with The Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition Print/Out (February 19-May 14, 2012), the Museum will host Print Studio, an interactive space that explores the evolution of artistic practices relating to the medium of print, from January 23 to March 9, 2012, in the Mezzanine Level of The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building. The Studio offers a series of drop-in workshops, lectures, and events that emphasize accessible and sustainable models for the production and dissemination of ideas. Drawing from resources such as the Reanimation Library—a collection of discarded books acquired for their visual content—and a variety of print techniques, participants at the Studio are invited to experiment with and manipulate images and text. Led by artists and educators, activities highlight the ways in which new digital technologies incorporate traditional printing practices, re-imagining the role of print in contemporary visual culture.

The Studio will be accompanied by an original website at MoMA.org/PrintStudio. Each week from January 23 to March 9, the site will feature new updates including upcoming programs, guest blog posts, visitor viewpoints, and images. The site will include a calendar and schedule of workshops and events, a Flickr group for the collection of Print Studio “editions,” and videos of the 10-minute talks that will be held at Print Studio. The website launched on January 20, 2012.
Print Studio programs are free unless otherwise noted, with participation on a first-come, first-served basis limited to 25 people. The Studio will be open to all ages, and children must be accompanied by an adult.

SPONSORSHIP:
Print Studio is made possible by a partnership with Volkswagen of America.

DROP-IN PROGRAMS:
Reanimation Library: Mid-Manhattan Branch at MoMA
Wednesday to Monday, 12:00-4:00 p.m.
Based in Gowanus, Brooklyn, the Reanimation Library is a small, independent library open to the public where books that are outdated, discarded, and no longer in routine circulation have been given new life as a resource for artists, writers, and others. For Print Studio, the Library will be temporarily re-located at MoMA to serve as a resource for ongoing workshops and projects. Visitors to Print Studio will be allowed to use scanners, computers, and photocopiers to work with and manipulate material found within the books and to engage with these artistic materials in a unique manner.

Re-imagining Collective Task
Wednesday to Monday, 12:00-4:00 p.m. A new task is presented every two weeks.
Collective Task is an ongoing project led by the poet Robert Fitterman where individuals are invited to respond to a set of tasks that have been set by another collective of individuals. Print Studio will host a re-imagined version of Collective Task adapted for the Studio’s context, using materials available in Print Studio. Participants are encouraged to respond to the bi-weekly task through the medium of print, exploring the sustainability of ideas and materials, printmaking and multiples, and the creative possibilities that result from bringing together a new community of participants.

WEEKLY PROGRAMS:
Ten-Minute Talks at Print Studio
Talks posted to MoMA website on January 30, February 6, 13, 20, 27, and March 5
Print Studio will host a series of short talks focusing on issues related to the medium of print and the sustainability of ideas within the context of modern and contemporary art. Various MoMA staff from conservators to librarians and archivists, as well as guest artists and educators, will share their expertise, offering insight on a variety of topics and a special look behind-the-scenes at MoMA’s engagement with the medium of print and selected Print Studio projects. Each week these talks will be posted on Print Studio’s blog at MoMA.org/printstudio.

Speakers include: Librarian Andrew Beccone on the foundation of The Reanimation Library, and its mission and continued evolution; Karl Buchberg, MoMA conservator on issues of paper and print conservation; Poet Rob Fitterman on his ongoing project Collective Task and its re-imagined version for Print Studio, in conversation with Lanny Jordan Jackson, the current curator of the Collective Task project; Scott Gerson, MoMA conservator on materials and processes explored in Ellen Gallagher’s featured work Deluxe on display in MoMA’s Printin’ exhibition; Phil Sanders, master printer and director/senior curator at Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop; David Senior, bibliographer at the MoMA Library and curator of the installation Millennium Magazines, in conversation with Emily Roysdon, artist featured in Millennium Magazines.

PARTICIPATORY WORKSHOPS & PROGRAMS:
The Print Studio programs are free, but tickets are required and are available on a first-come, first-served basis at the Cullman Desk in the Education and Research Building, beginning one hour before the first program each day. Participation is limited to 25 people. Each workshop runs for 90 minutes.

IRWIN-NSK Passport Office, New York
Wednesday, February 1, 12:00-4:00 p.m.
Thursday, February 2, 12:00-4:00 p.m.
Friday, February 3, 12:00-4:00 p.m.
Originally founded by a collective of artists, musicians, and philosophers, the NSK State in Time (Neue Slowenische Kunst) came into being in 1992 shortly after Slovenia’s independence from the Yugoslavian federation. This declaration of existence was accompanied by the issuing of passports at various temporary embassies which operated alongside NSK exhibitions and events. Led by the Slovenian artists’ collective IRWIN, Print Studio will host the IRWIN-NSK Passport Office, New York for three days and issue a limited number of passports to MoMA visitors. A concurrent series of presentations, discussions, screenings, and a culminating NSK State Citizens’ Rendezvous will offer a forum to engage the public with ideas central to the NSK State and what it means to be a citizen of this “state in time.”

NSK Rendezvous and Print Studio Inauguration
Thursday, February 2, 6:00-9:00 p.m.
Print Studio’s opening program will begin with an NSK State Citizens Rendezvous, featuring presentations by Miran Mohar, founding member of Slovenian art collective IRWIN, and NSKNY Organizing Committee members Conor McGrady, Gediminas Gasparavicius, and Charles Lewis. After the presentations, Ana Janevski, Associate Curator of Performance, MoMA, moderates a discussion and Q&A. A reception will follow, and participants are invited to engage in Print Studio’s activities: apply for citizenship at IRWIN’s NSK Passport Office, New York, make a print using visual resources found in the Reanimation Library: Mid-Manhattan Branch, or respond to a re-imagined task from the ongoing Collective Task project adapted for Print Studio.

Digital Finger-Drawing Workshop with JORGE COLOMBO
Thursday, February 9, 12:00-1:30 p.m. and 2:00-3:30 p.m.
Thursday, February 23, 12:00-1:30 p.m. and 2:00-3:30 p.m.
For the past three years, artist Jorge Colombo has been making digital compositions of New York landscapes finger painted from life, on location, on his iPhone. Innovative technological tools have made it possible for creative experimentation using easily accessible digital mediums. Drawing from his own experience of making “pocket art,” Colombo leads a workshop in digital finger drawing and invites participants to explore the inventive possibilities such technologies bring to the print medium.

For these workshops, participants are encouraged to bring in their own iPad or iPhone. A limited number of iPads will be available. The Brushes painting application will be used during the workshop.

Altered Book Workshop with KATERINA LANFRANCO
Thursday, February 16, 12:00-1:30 p.m. and 2:30-4:00 p.m.
Saturday, February 25, 12:00-1:30 p.m. and 2:30-4:00 p.m.
In this hands-on workshop led by artist and educator Katerina Lanfranco, participants are invited to explore the formal constraints and surprising elements of the book format, and how used books can be creatively re-purposed to make art. Participants will use found materials, mixed-media collage, drawing, and transfer techniques to redesign the space, form, purpose, and meaning of an old book.

Participants are encouraged to bring their own book with a cover and pages they can imagine altering.

TRIPLE CANOPY at Print Studio
Wednesday, February 15, 2:30-4:00 p.m.
Monday, February 27, 2:30-4:00 p.m.
Wednesday, March 7, 2:30-4:00 p.m.
Print Studio visitors can join the editorial collective and online magazine Triple Canopy and guest artists for discussions about the nature of publication, and help create a publication derived from those discussions. The programs will examine the relationships between specific objects in MoMA’s collection and contemporary artistic practices, focusing on new forms of public discourse, knowledge production, and circulation fostered by digital technologies (all new forms of publication). Triple Canopy editors and guest artists facilitate each conversation then edit transcripts and compile related materials for an edition of Volume Number, an ongoing series published by Triple Canopy. The publication will be distributed through the concurrent MoMA exhibition Millennium Magazines, organized by David Senior, Bibliographer, and Rachael Morrison, Senior Library Assistant, MoMA Library.

Handmade Papermaking workshop with Dieu Donné Papermill
Thursday, March 1, 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. and 2:30 to 4:00 p.m.
Visitors will be able to learn the creative possibilities inherent in hand papermaking in this introduction to contemporary papermaking workshop led by Paul Wong, Artistic Director at Dieu Donné Papermill Inc. Drawing from a project by James Siena, a featured artist in the Print/Out exhibition and the current artist-in-residence at Dieu Donné, participants create their own handmade paper and use pulp painting and stenciling techniques to make it distinctly theirs.

PUBLIC PROGRAMS:
Artist and Publisher: Printmaking and the Collaborative Process
MoMA will host two conversations between publishers and artists featured in the exhibition Print/Out and Printin’ as they discuss their creative practice and the process of collaboration. Christophe Cherix, The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Chief Curator of Prints and Illustrated Books and organizer of Print/Out, moderates.

Thursday, February 16, 6:00 p.m., The Celeste Bartos Theater
Artist Ellen Gallagher in conversation with publishers at Two Palms Press.

Tuesday, February 28, 6:00 p.m., The Celeste Bartos Theater
Artists Marina Abramović in conversation with Los Angeles publisher/printmaker Jacob Samuel of Edition Jacob Samuel.

Tickets ($10, $8 members and corporate members, $5 students, seniors and staff of other museums) are available online, at the information desk in the main lobby, and at the film desk after 4:00 p.m. Any remaining tickets may be picked up one hour before the start of the program at the Education and Research Building ticketing desk.

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Public Information:
The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019, (212) 708-9400, MoMA.org
Hours: Wednesday through Monday, 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Friday, 10:30 a.m.-8:00 p.m. Closed
Tuesday
Museum Admission: $25 adults; $18 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.; $14 full-time students with current I.D. Free, members and children 16 and under. (Includes admittance to Museum galleries and film programs). MoMA.org: $22.50 adults; $16 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.; $12 full-time students with current I.D. No service charge for tickets ordered on MoMA.org. Tickets purchased online may be printed out and presented at the Museum without waiting in line. (Includes admittance to Museum galleries and film programs).
 
Film Admission: $12 adults; $10 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.; $8 full-time students with current I.D. (for admittance to film programs only)
 
MoMA/MoMA PS1 Blog, MoMA on Facebook, MoMA on Twitter, MoMA on YouTube, MoMA on Flickr 

The Library of Congress announced today the acquisition of a rare book to its Thomas Jefferson’s Library. Donated by the United States Naval Observatory, a Latin version of "Sur la Figure de la Terre," written by the 18th-century French mathematician and philosopher Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, will join the more than 6,000 titles already assembled in the collection.

While serving as the American ambassador in Paris in 1789, Jefferson ordered a copy of Maupertuis’ Latin version, "Figura Telluris de Maupertuis," which was published in Leipzig, Germany in 1742. It was one of a number of books he selected from a catalogue issued by bookseller Armand Koenig in Strasburg.

The book was ordered on June 29, 1789, and was sent to Jefferson with a bill from Koenig for £ 2.0.0, dated July 17. Jefferson entered the book without price in his undated manuscript library catalogue.

In 1815, Congress purchased the 6,487 volumes in Jefferson’s collection in order to reestablish the Library of Congress after the burning of the U.S. Capitol by the British during the War of 1812. Of the original volumes that Jefferson had, only about 2,000 remained following another fire on Dec. 24, 1851, that spread through the congressional library housed in the Capitol. These original 2,000 books, plus replacement copies of the other books, constitute a Library exhibition titled "Thomas Jefferson’s Library" (http://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/jeffersonslibrary/Pages/default.aspx). During the past decade, Mark Dimunation, chief of the Library’s Rare Book and Special Collections Division, and his staff have assembled all but about 300 titles that were in Jefferson’s original library.

Over the years, the Library’s own copy of "Figura Telluris de Maupertuis" was lost. The USNO library has two copies of this book - the original French edition printed in 1738 and the Latin version from 1742.

With origins more than 181 years ago, the U.S. Naval Observatory continues to perform an essential operational role for the United States, the Navy and the Department of Defense. Its mission includes determining the positions and motions of the Earth, Sun, Moon, planets, stars and other celestial objects; providing astronomical data; determining precise time; measuring the Earth's rotation; and maintaining the Master Clock for the United States. The USNO’s James M. Gilliss Library was established in 1842. Today it holds more than 80,000 titles and is considered to be one of the world’s premier astronomical libraries.

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, with nearly 142 million items in various languages, disciplines and formats. As the world’s largest repository of knowledge and creativity, the Library is a symbol of democracy and the principles on which this nation was founded. The Library serves the U.S. Congress and the nation both on-site, in its reading rooms on Capitol Hill, and through its award-winning website at www.loc.gov.
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The Grolier Club is pleased to present a unique exhibition that explores and illuminates the causes, conduct, and historical record of the Civil War through maps and other historic items. Torn in Two: the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War, organized by The Norman B. Leventhal Map Center of the Boston Public Library, will open to the public on February 22, 2012.

This unique presentation - which will run through April 28 before continuing on its national tour - will showcase 50 historical objects including maps, photographs, prints, diaries, political cartoons, music, and press of the period. The overarching theme of the exhibition is the central role geography has played in the causes, conduct, consequences, and commemorations of the American Civil War.

The exhibit is divided into three major sections: Rising Tensions, which will examine the economic, social, and political differences between the North and the South that led to war; Nation in Conflict, which will focus on the war itself; and Remembering Battles and Heroes, which will document the nation’s attempts to commemorate the battles and honor the lives that were lost during the war.

Included in this remarkable selection are rare examples of photographic images depicting 19th-century slave life, the first American demographic map which was one of Abraham Lincoln’s key resources during the war, and Ensign, Bridgman and Fanning’s United States railroad map which revealed the contrast between the newly industrialized, increasingly urban North and the agrarian, rural culture of the South. Throughout the exhibition, the history of the national conflict is examined through the eyes of everyday citizens, helping to portray this most complex national schism in personal terms.

Torn in Two will feature a special emphasis on New York City that will challenge and engage visitors of all ages.  Of particular interest to New York audiences will be Civil War battle maps and diagrams published in rare, original newspapers such as The New York Times, The New York Herald and New York Tribune.  Also included will be a spectacular 1865 “bird’s eye view” map of Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn published by Charles Parsons, so detailed that street patterns, church steeples and even chimney smoke are clearly visible, along with harbored ships in the distance.  

A virtual exhibition of Torn in Two with digital images of all objects, as well as K-12 curriculum materials and educational resources based on the exhibition’s themes, are offered on the Leventhal Map Center’s website, maps.bpl.org and at tornintwo.org.

About the Leventhal Map Center - The Map Center was established in 2004 as a public-private partnership between the Boston Public library and map collector-philanthropist, Norman Leventhal. The Map Center’s mission is to make the Library’s extensive collection of more than 200,000 historic maps and 5,000 atlases dating from the 15th century to the present accessible to the general public and to promote their creative use in research and scholarship, education, and civic engagement. In October 2011, the Map Center opened a permanent, state-of-the-art Map and Study Center on the first floor of the library’s historic McKim Building in Copley Square, Boston.

Torn in Two is sponsored by the Liberty Mutual Insurance Company.

LOCATION AND TIME: Torn in Two will be on view at the Grolier Club, 47 East 60th Street, New York, from Feb. 22 - April 28, 2012. The exhibit will be open to the public free of charge, Monday - Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Additional information and directions are available at www.grolierclub.org.  

CATALOGUE: A fully-illustrated 170-page catalog of Torn in Two, published by the Boston Public Library, will be available at the Grolier Club.

FORTHCOMING EXHIBITIONS AT THE GROLIER CLUB
May 15 - July 28, 2012. Aaron Burr Returns to New York: An Exhibition on Burr and His Contemporaries.

Visit the Grolier Club website: www.grolierclub.org

51st Stuttgart Antiquarian Book Fair 27th to 29th January 2012

A very attractive and high-class offer by 80 exhibitors from Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain, the USA, Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Hungary: The 51st Stuttgart Antiquarian Book Fair - organized by the German Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association (VDA) and officially supported by the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB) - will be held on the last weekend of January, in the elegant rooms of the Württemberg Art Museum, opposite to the Palace, next to the Palace Garden and directly in the city centre of Stuttgart. Alberto Govi from Modena, Adam Bosze from Budapest, Alessandro Meda Riquier from London, and also several young colleagues like Dr. Dasa Pahor, Winfried Kuhn, Elvira Tasbach, das Rote Antiquariat and Rainer Schlicht are among the newcomers to the fair this year. They will be contributing to the diversity of the Stuttgart Antiquarian Book Fair with prestigious manuscripts, unique autographs, beautiful prints, magnificent bindings and rare masterpieces from more than 500 years of book art and printing.

Beauty for the eye and the intellect
From the masters of medieval book illumination to avant-garde, Galileo Galilei next to Marcel Proust, Thomas Bernhard and James Bond, Maria Sibylla Merian's colourful flower studies, woodcuts of classical modernism and the meditative art of ukyioe-e besides modern minimalism, incunabula, artist books, autographs, manuscripts, first editions. Middle Ages and modernity, science and aesthetics, beauty for the eye and the intellect: The fascination of collecting lies in the manifold subjects, and therein lies the charm of the 51st Stuttgart Antiquarian Book Fair.

Some highlights:
A sumptous Bolognese bible for Carmelites, written shortly after 1300 and illuminated by Jacopino da Reggio with richly coloured borders in full column height, medaillions and initials can be admired in Heribert Tenschert’s showcase. The Biblia Latina is a prime example of Bolognese book illumination which influenced Italian book decoration, and, via Prague, that of large parts of northern Europe (850,000 €).

Napoleon’s copy of McPherson's "Ossian", printed in Paris in 1777 and bound in morocco with the arms of Napoleon, is offered by Fons Blavus (150,000 €). On all journeys and campaigns the Emperor carried this book with him and he used to read from it to his entourage.

Milestones in medicine. In his "Canterbury Tales", Geoffrey Chaucer names him as one of three authorities of medicine: Bernard de Gordon's "Lilium medicinae" in a southern French parchment manuscript from the hand of the Master Peter Rastellus from 1332 is one of the earliest textual evidence of this important work (Inlibris 185,000 €).

Two Arab manuscripts, describing human diseases from head to toe is offered by Giuseppe Solmi (7,500 € and 2,500 €). And the London bookseller Meda Riquier will be showing Andreas Vesalius' “De humani corporis fabrica libri septem", printed 1555 in Basel, with over 200 woodcuts, one of the largest and most important books in the field of early anatomy (59,000 €).

-Witchcraft!
Exact science? Superstition? Witchcraft? The highlights of the Antiquariat Löcker move in this border area with the rare first edition of an important handbook on witchcraft, written by a monk of the Milanese Ambrosian Order, Francesco Maria Guazzo in1608. (6,000 €), and the so-called "Vinculum Salomonis", scrolls with magical diagrams and symbols, seals and figures, drawn in different coloured ink and gold (5.600 €).

The exact sciences are represented by Wagner's "Pharmaceutisches-medicinische Botanik" (Schumann 35,000 €), Knorr's "Deliciae naturae selectae" (Neidhardt 26,000 €) or Esper’s famous treatise on butterflies (Junk 18,000 €). Gerhard Gruber, who has recently published a catalogue “Von Vitruv bis Navier” on the history of architecture, will be bringing the important “De urbibus, arcibus, casstelisque condensis” by Albrecht Dürer, printed in 1535. And the Libreria Editrice Goriziana will be showing Piranesi’s magnificient “Veduti di Roma” (44,000 €).

Baroque beauty
At the Stuttgart Fair 2012, several exceptional bindings will be shown: a "Communion-Buch", published in 1757, in a lavish silver binding decorated with floral motifs is offered by Neidhardt (6,900 €). Löcker shows tiny baroque book art: one of the few surviving miniature bibles (ca. 5,4 x 4,2 cm) with 263 copper plates in a wonderful contemporary, painted vellum binding. (5,400 €).

Dogs on sleds
Avant-garde and surrealism is one of the focal points of this year’s fair. The “Carte Surrealiste” - with dogs on sleds and other surrealistic miracles - is offered by Eckert & Kaun (2,200 €), Linke will be showing “Au 125 du boulevard Saint-Germain” with an original etching by Max Ernst (20,000 € ) and also the avantgarde magazine RAY of which its title says that it is “the most beautiful / the most expensive magazine in the world” (9,800 €).

Herbert Blank presents Vergil's "Eclogen", marvellously illustrated by Aristide Maillol (24,000 €), while Braecklein offers one of the classics of German literature in the very rare first edition: Grimmelshausen's "Simplicissimus" from the year 1683-1684 (32,000 €).

Dogs pulling sleds is a less artistic - and more realistic - view on travel and exploration. This year, Brockhaus / Antiquarium has focused on Polar travel, offering, among other polar items, Wally Herbert’s portfolio “Opposite Poles”, which was published in only 40 numbered copies containing 20 signed lithographs by the explorer (4,000 €). Warmer weather could be expected in the regions described by de Bry’s famous “Collectiones Peregrinationum in Indiam Occidentalem”. This Renaissance masterwork, rarely found complete, is showcased by Patzer & Trenkle (90,000 €). Only 20 years later Amatis’ “Relation Und gründtlicher Bericht von deß Königreichs Voxu in Japonischen Keyserthumb” was published, one of the very view and very rare early travel accounts from Japan which had been closed to foreign visitors for many years (Reiss & Sohn 12,000 €). Forum takes up the Eastern motif with Carl Ludwig Blume's "Collection of orchidées les plus Remarquables de l'Archipel India et du Japon" with over 70 hand-colored plates of Asian orchids (17,500 €).

Omai's handwriting
Omai, a young man from the island Ra'iatea was the first Pacific Islander to visit Europe. In August 1773 he went aboard the HMS Adventure in Huahine, Tahiti, a ship accompying James Cook on his second Pacific voyage. In Europe, "Prince" Omai was introduced into society, meeting the British Royal Family. He returned to his island in 1776, during Cook’s third voyage. Probably the only existing document that contains a sample of Omai’s handwriting can be admired at Ralf Eigl’ stand (75,000 €). Also on display at Eigl are the magnificent plates for Adalbert Berg’s "Preussische Expedition nach Ost-Asien” (59,000 €) and the very important first English edition of Urey Lisianskys "Voyage round the World" 37,000 €). Mercator’s monumental atlas in the 1606 Hondius edition is one of the many highlights of Libreria Alberto Govi (55,000 €).

"A qualified return to the gold standard would be practicable for most
countries"
This is not a headline from the Wall Street Journal or the “Spiegel” but a quote from a letter by John Maynard Keynes to the American journalist William Hillman (Kotte 5,000 €). A few years earlier, Karl Marx wrote on a similar, and similarly topical subject: "Tooke. A history of prices from 1839-1847". This manuscript contains the sum of his critique of political economy (Kotte 68,000 €). Author Johannes von Guenther’s guest book is a mirror of the avant-garde society of the 1920ies and 1930ies. His friends including Michael Kuzmin, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Alexander Block, Serge and Serge Sudeikin Tretiakow immortalized themselves in this decorative item presented by VDA President Eberhard Koestler (12,000 €).

Book Fair Catalogue
As every year, there is a printed catalogue, in which each exhibitor shows a few of his highlights to whet the collector’s appetite. The catalogue can be ordered in printed form or it can be browsed in the Internet.

The Beauty of Books - Artists Books
Round panel discussion with Akka von Lucius (collector of artists’ books), Annette Kulenkampff (director of Hatje & Cantz Publishers) and Simone Schimpf (director of the Stuttgart Art Museum) Wednesday, January 18th, 2012, at the Literaturhaus / Stuttgart

A Private Collector Opens His Library - Thomas Mann - Dedication Copies
For more than thirty years Achim Hall has been collecting signed copies, autograph letters and dedication copies by Thomas Mann and his family. On the occasion of the 51st Stuttgart Antiquarian Book Fair he opens his library and presents the most prestigious items of his collection in an exhibition during the Fair, accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue which documents the remarkable collection and tells the stories of the persons and historical events behind the dedication copies.

Exhibition at the Württemberger Kunstverein (Art Museum), during the book fair hours

Catalogue (German)
Ein Privatsammler stellt seine Bibliothek vor. Achim Hall.
Auf fliegendem Vorsatz. Widmungen von Thomas Mann. Verband Deutscher Antiquare e.V. 2012. Ca.
112 pp. 40 Illustrations. ISBN 978-9812223-7-1 (20 €)

Vernissage and lecture
The Saturday evening is dedicated to Thomas Mann and his dedication copies with a lecture by Dr. Dirk Heißerer and the official presentation of the exhibition and the catalogue.

51st Stuttgart Antiquarian Book Fair
27th - 29th January 2012
Württembergischer Kunstverein (Schloßplatz 2)

Opening hours
Friday 11 am - 7.30 pm, Saturday and Sunday 11 am - 6 pm

Contact
Verband Deutscher Antiquare e.V.
Seeblick 1
D-56435 Elbingen
GERMANY
Phone +49 6435 909147
munsch@antiquare.de

For more detailed information please visit the completely re-designed official website
>>> www.stuttgarter-antiquariatsmesse.de

PARIS January 2012 - Sandra Hindman, Ph. D. Owner and President of LES ENLUMINURES, specialists in Medieval and Renaissance Illuminated Manuscripts, Miniatures and Art, has announced that she will expand to New York by opening a new gallery in the penthouse of a townhouse at 23 East 73 Street in May.

“For twenty years we have operated from our main gallery at the Louvre des Antiquaires opposite the Louvre in Paris, and from our offices in Chicago.  Now I feel our growing business will benefit from a more regular presence in New York, which attracts the most important museums and private collectors and where so many exhibitions, fairs, and auctions occur.”

“We know from the people we sell to now that they appreciate the opportunity not just to see our latest acquisitions but also to have the face to face contact with me and my staff.  With an additional gallery in New York we can stage three or four important shows in New York each year in addition to the ones we already mount in our Paris gallery and at the most important international fairs.”

Les Enluminures is a featured exhibitor at many prestigious art and antique fairs including the Winter Antiques Show in New York each January, TEFAF Maastricht each March, the New York Antiquarian Book Fair, the Salon du Dessin in Paris, Masterpiece London, and the Biennale Firenze in the fall.

The opening show at Les Enluminures new gallery in New York will be titled “12 Books of Hours for 2012” and will feature important Books of Hours from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries.

Hindman says, “This exhibition gives us an opportunity to display some of our most important Books of Hours which were “best sellers” during a 300-year period when more Books of Hours were made than any other type of book, even the Bible.  From c. 1250, when the first Books of Hours began to appear, to 1571, when during the Counter-Reformation Pope Pius V prohibited the use of all existing Books of Hours, nearly every European family of a certain means owned at least one Book of Hours.”

“Textually interesting, aesthetically beautiful, Books of Hours survive as rich storybooks from the Middle Ages.  Unlike the Bible, whose text was carefully regulated and whose picture cycle was relatively uniform, each Book of Hours is wholly unique. Every Book of Hours reveals a whole world through its stories.”

Dr. Sandra Hindman is Professor Emerita at Northwestern University, where she twice headed the Art History Department.  A specialist in Gothic and Northern Renaissance Art, it was her years spent studying Medieval manuscripts that sparked her interest in acquiring key pieces, which led to her opening her Paris gallery.
 
She says, “When I worked as an expert for other dealers and handled these manuscripts on a daily basis, I gradually came to realize how coupling my academic knowledge with the purchase and sale of medieval art could lead to a shift in my career.  I feel being a dealer and an academic, for me anyway, are two parts of the same thing, my left arm and my right arm, so to speak.  I still write, publish, and teach, at the same time that I help museums and private collectors find important works for their collections.”

As a result, Les Enluminures is known for its ability to use its expert research capabilities to discover new facts about important Manuscripts and Miniatures.  Most recently that resulted in a six figure sale to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art of a Book of Hours composed late in the reign of Francis I, a manuscript that is now considered to be the only extant Book of Hours with contemporary illumination made for and with a portrait of King Francis I.

American museums and libraries that buy from Les Enluminures include The Metropolitan Museum, The Morgan Library, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, Harvard University Library, Newberry Library, Huntington Library, Princeton University Library, and Columbia University, among many.  Overseas Les Enluminures has sold important works to the Musee de Louvre, The British Museum, the Victoria and Albert, the Musee National du Moyen Age (Musee Cluny), Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the British Library, Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek in The Hague, Musee National de la Renaissance, and the Museum of the Abegg-Stiftung Foundation in Switzerland, as well as many regional libraries and museums in the US and abroad.

Les Enluminures New York gallery is located in an elegant townhouse at 23 East 73 Street just off Madison Avenue.  The seventh floor penthouse space was previously occupied by Trinity Fine Art.  It comprises three rooms and about 1200 square feet. Hindman is familiar with the building, having staged several important shows at C.G. Boerner gallery (one on Pen to Press in January 2010 and one on France 1500 in January 2011).  C.G. Boerner also has its gallery in the townhouse.

“We are delighted to have found an ideal space to showcase important Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts and Illuminations.”
 
The Les Enluminures web site --- www.lesenluminures.com --- includes video “tours” of the space, where Hindman provides background and history on the collections and special exhibitions.  The site offers a dynamic “turn the page” feature to assist with viewing manuscripts, and four separate sections of areas of specialty to make visits by customers more convenient.

Les Enluminures also produces comprehensive catalogues on subjects related to its collections, most recently for its twentieth anniversary year.  Its “20/20 Les Enluminures 1991-2011” catalogue featured twenty important sales of its first two decades and twenty items now on offer.  Another 2011 publication, “Before the King James Bible” was timed to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the first King James Bible.  Dr. Hindman has authored more than ten books in her field and numerous articles on the history of illuminated manuscripts and early printed books.

Hindman is a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America, the Syndicat national de la Librariie Ancienne et Moderne, the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, and the Syndicat des Antiquaires.  She is also a long-standing member of many professional organizations; including the College Art Association of America, the Medieval Academy of America, the Historians of Netherlandish Art, and the International Center for Medieval Art.
Hindman adds, “Opening a gallery in New York is an important step in our gallery’s development.  New York is an exciting city for art lovers on many levels, not the least of which is the buzz that attends the many important art exhibitions and shows there.  We are delighted that Les Enluminures will now have a greater presence in New York and look forward to seeing many of our clients, and to meeting new ones too.”
 
LES ENLUMINURES  in New York
23 East 73rd Street
7th floor
New York NY 10021
By appointment or 10am - 6pm during exhibitions
 
LES ENLUMINURES
Les Louvre des Antiquaires,
2 Place du Palais-Royal,  75001 Paris (France)
Tel: +33 1 42 60 15 58
info@lesenluminures.com   www.lesenluminures.com

[ITHACA, NY] National Book Auctions, located in Ithaca, NY, will host a Sunday, January 29th auction featuring a broad range of rare antique and vintage books, as well as a large collection of intriguing ephemera and artwork. Of particular note are rare first editions of the 19th century and modern titles, as well as a very large collection of signed modern first editions. The books in these collections are impressive both for their quality and condition. Also offered will be a select group of estate furniture and other antiques.

Important books in this auction include first editions, many of which are author-signed.  Noteworthy examples include first editions of three Cormac McCarthy books entitled “The Orchard Keeper,” “Child of God,” and “The Stone Mason.” Also offered are first American and English editions of Herman Melville’s landmark 1847 title, “Omoo.”  Other lots include decorative antique sets by classic authors such as Victor Hugo and Alexander Dumas, along with Justin Winsor’s eight-volume 1884-1889 work entitled, “Narrative and Critical History of America.” Modern works in this auction include hundreds of signed first editions by prominent writers such as Norman Mailer, Michael Crichton, Ken Follett, Dan Brown, Dick Francis and Amy Tan, to name just a few.

Found throughout this auction are pleasing groups of ephemera and artwork. Leading the field is a pencil-signed lithograph of “The Model Painter” by Pablo Picasso, offered with provenance.  A vast array of ephemera lots are included in this auction with vintage and antique items dating back to the 17th century. Themes of the ephemera lots include early engravings and lithographs, travel-related, transportation (aviation, automotive, and railroad), antique photographs (including tintypes), magazines, early ship cargo manifests and original documents, artwork, advertising-related items, original Civil War material, tobacciana, breweriana, large quantities of original correspondence with postage and early cancels, and many other genres. This auction also includes other antique items. Featured are antique bookcases and desks along with early stoneware pottery and a pendulum clock.

National Book Auctions is a public auction service specializing in books, ephemera, and art. National Book Auctions is a targeted service offering experience and expertise unique to marketing antique and modern books and ephemera for consignors and collectors alike. Preview for the upcoming Sunday, January 29th auction is at 10 a.m. and the live auction starts at noon. For more information or to consign collectible material please contact David Hall, Business Manager, at 607-269-0101 or email mail@nationalbookauctions.com.

New York, NY, January 2012—Best known for his groundbreaking fluorescent light installations, Dan Flavin (1933-1996) was also an avid draftsman and collector of drawings. Throughout his career, the self-taught artist turned to drawing to plan his constructions and installations, as well as to sketch from nature in the most traditional fashion. He also enthusiastically acquired drawings by artists of diverse styles and backgrounds with whom he felt affinities.
 

Now, for the first time, the central role that drawing played in Flavin’s art will be explored in a major exhibition at The Morgan Library & Museum, opening on February 17, 2012. The show includes more than one hundred drawings by the artist—from early abstract expressionist watercolors of the 1950s and portraits and landscape sketches, to studies for his seminal light installations and late pastels of sailboats. In addition, the exhibition will feature nearly fifty works from Flavin’s personal collection of drawings, including nineteenth-century American landscapes by Hudson River School artists, Japanese drawings, and twentieth-century works by artists such as Piet Mondrian, Donald Judd, and Sol LeWitt. The exhibition will be on view through July 1, 2012.



"The world knows Dan Flavin through the iconic fluorescent light installations on which his reputation rests," said William M. Griswold, director of The Morgan Library & Museum. "But few people are aware that these magnificent pieces often began as sketches, schematic drawings, and diagrams on graph paper. Throughout his career, Flavin turned to drawing to explore new ideas and new themes, and collected drawings by old and modern masters to serve as sources of inspiration. The Morgan is delighted to present this first-ever retrospective look at the key role that drawing played in the creative process of one of the twentieth-century’s most innovative artists."



Early works
Dan Flavin: Drawing begins with the artist’s early drawings and watercolors. Landscapes are often the subjects of these works, and they reveal his interest in atmospheric and meteorological conditions, stemming from his training as a meteorological technician while in the Air Force. His admiration for Abstract Expressionists such as Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline led him to adopt a broad, gestural style. Particularly important among his works of the late 1950s is a group of watercolors with handwritten texts copied from the Bible, as well as from Irish and Chinese poetry and from James Joyce—a figure with whom the young Flavin identified, owing partly to their shared Irish heritage. 



Early on Flavin began the practice, which he would continue throughout his career, of dedicating his works not only to friends and relatives, but also to historical figures and people whom he admired, such as Picasso and Cézanne. Some of these lengthy dedications express Flavin’s political and social engagement, as in the 1961 watercolor to those who suffer in the Congo, a reference to the crisis that ensued after the Congo achieved independence in 1960.



Drawings for icons and related constructions

Flavin’s first sustained series of constructions with light are the icons, created between 1961 and 1963. Each consists of a painted wooden square to which one or more lamps have been attached. Although only eight were fabricated, drawings document ideas for many more. Their collective title was inspired by the artist’s interest in Russian art of the early twentieth century, notably that of Kasimir Malevich, who referred to his abstract art as "the icon of my time." Likewise, Flavin compared his use of electric light to a modern type of icon. With characteristic irony, however, he noted that his icons "differ from a Byzantine Christ held in majesty; they are dumb—anonymous and inglorious . . . They are constructed concentrations celebrating barren rooms. They bring a limited light."


The drawings for Flavin’s icons range from small sketches on 3 x 5 inch notebook pages—a favorite support for his working drawings—to large, finished studies in colored pencil or pastel. icon V (Coran Broadway Flesh) is the subject of several detailed drawings, probably because, with the number of lamps it includes, it is one of the most complex in the series, but also no doubt because Flavin considered it to be his best work at the time. It is "a perfectly resolved piece—symmetrical square of one color which is totally lighted," he wrote in his journal. Obsessed with keeping records of his work, Flavin drew several "inventories" of his icons, taking stock of those already made and planning future ones. Many drawings document various possible arrangements of several icons together, attesting that, although they were eventually sold individually, these works were first conceived as a group. 



Drawings for fluorescent light installations

From 1963 until the end of his life, the fluorescent light installations for which he is celebrated constituted Flavin’s main artistic production. These were first worked out in rapid sketches on the pages of the 3 x 5 inch notebooks he carried with him at all times. Using a fine ballpoint pen, Flavin combined visual and verbal notations, including such inscriptions as the color and dimensions of the lamps. Sometimes writing and drawing became one as Flavin literally "drew" the fluorescent tubes with the words designating their color. Some studies were on larger sheets, usually of 8 1/2 x 11 inch typing paper, a support that, like the notebook pages, demonstrated a preference for nonartistic paper. Indeed, Flavin did not treat his working sketches as master drawings. "For me, drawing and diagramming are mainly what little it takes to keep a record of thought...," he wrote. But his drawings were essential to his working process, and he carefully kept them. All were precisely dated and sometimes numbered to record the sequence in which they were made. 



In the 1960s, Flavin also created finished drawings in preparation for his installations, using colored pencil and sometimes colored paper to suggest the interaction of the lights in the space. A few of these exist for the Green Gallery installation of 1964, Flavin’s first exhibition of fluorescent lights. As he became more familiar with the effects of lights, he no longer felt the need for such drawings. The later ones were made primarily for the market.
 

Beginning in 1971, Flavin kept visual records of his installations through what he called "final finished diagrams," carefully drawn in colored pencil on graph paper. These were not drawn by him but by others following his instructions—first his wife Sonja, and later his son, Stephen, and other assistants. The draftsperson’s initials appear on the sheet, next to Flavin’s signature. Delegating the actual making of a work is unusual with drawings, which are traditionally associated with the artist’s hand. But Flavin’s approach was in keeping with developments in Minimal and Conceptual art of the 1960s and 70s, which stressed the role of the artist as the person who conceives the work, though he may not be the one who actually executes it. This was notably the case with Flavin’s light installations. He planned them and closely supervised their placement, but the pieces, commercially available, were installed by electricians. 



Landscapes, sails, and portrait drawings

Perhaps the most unexpected aspect of Flavin’s drawing production is the numerous landscape sketches he made outdoors from observation. Particularly drawn to riverbanks and ocean shores, he often sketched views of the Hudson River and Long Island beaches. In these quick drawings, he would capture the mood of a scene in a few strokes. Working in series, he made many sketches from the same point of view in rapid succession. Unlike his studies for light installations, these drawings were made in traditional artists’ sketchbooks and in graphite pencil. Exercising the same care he took with his working studies, Flavin dutifully recorded the date, subject, and location of each sketch, sometimes even the weather conditions of the day on which it was made. For the purpose of exhibitions, he would frame many of them together, in sequences reflecting the order in which they were created.
 

During the 1980s, Flavin focused on the subject of sails in charcoal and pastel drawings whose spare composition and calligraphic qualities reflected his interest in Asian art. First drawn from observation, these were eventually made from imagination, allowing Flavin to draw them in any season. In addition to the landscapes, Flavin frequently drew portraits of his friends or of people he encountered by chance, for instance at restaurants or cafes. Often in ballpoint pen, these drawings can be found interspersed with sketches for light installations in Flavin’s notebooks. Rendered with quick, short marks, these likenesses often border on caricatures as the artist sought to catch his subjects’ salient features. 



Flavin’s collection

Highlights from Flavin’s collection include sheets by early-twentieth-century abstract painters such as Arp and Mondrian, both of whom he mentioned several times in his journal during the 1960s. Rather than finished drawings, Flavin sought sketches and studies, in which he found the most direct expression of the artist’s thoughts. Because of his own habit of working out his installations from quick notations on small pieces of paper, he felt a connection with artists like Mondrian, who could plan a painting by jotting down a few lines on the wrapper of a pack of cigarettes. Drawings by Hans Richter and George Grosz from the late 1910s and early 1920s are evidence of Flavin’s interest in the constructivist phase of Dada. 



Flavin’s collection also includes many drawings—probably acquired through exchange—by his friends and contemporaries. A large sheet by the Chinese-American artist Wallace Ting is a reminder that it was he who introduced Flavin to sumi ink—a medium the latter used extensively in the late 1950s. Drawings by Donald Judd, Robert Morris, and Sol LeWitt evoke Flavin’s friendship with other artists associated with the Minimalist movement. He was particularly close to LeWitt, who has acknowledged the influence of Flavin’s concept of series on his own development, and to Judd. Earning his living as an art critic in the early sixties, Judd wrote several pieces on Flavin, praising "the power and complexity" of his work. Judd’s drawings in Flavin’s collection are related to his early Minimalist sculpture. Two elegant designs in gouache and pastel show that the two men shared the same interest in the use of color to create objects that combined aspects of sculpture and painting while being neither. 



Flavin developed an interest in nineteenth-century American landscape drawings during the 1960s, especially after he moved to Cold Spring, in the Hudson River Valley, in 1965. His most intense period of acquisition of works by Hudson River School artists was 1979-81, when he bought a large number of them on behalf of Dia Art Foundation for the purpose of displaying them at a planned Dan Flavin Art Institute in Garrison, New York, a project that was never completed.


Flavin had a lifelong interest in Asian art as well, the influence of which is visible in his work from his early ink and charcoal drawings to his late pastels of sails. In the mid-1980s Flavin purchased over thirty Japanese drawings from Galerie Janette Ostier in Paris. Most of them date to the first half of the nineteenth century and are by artists associated with ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world), such as Hiroshige, Hokusai, and Kuniyoshi. Japanese drawing epitomizes the combination of expressivity and economy that Flavin aimed to achieve in his own art.
 

Light installations at the Morgan

Two major fluorescent light installations by Flavin will also be on view. At the entrance of the exhibition, visitors will encounter Flavin's untitled (to the real Dan Hill) 1a, 1978, a work composed of pink, yellow, green and blue light cast in two directions: out towards the viewer and back into the corner of the gallery. A spectacular corner installation, untitled (in honor of Harold Joachim) 3, 1977, an eight foot square grid, will suffuse the Clare Eddy Thaw Gallery on the ground floor with pink, yellow, green and blue light. Several studies related to this work are on view in the exhibition. 




Public Programs

Family Program

Glow Play: Sculpting with Light

Saturday, February 25, 2-4 p.m.

Artist and educator Nicole Haroutunian will invite children and their families to discover the drawings of Minimalist artist Dan Flavin. After visiting the exhibition and experiencing two of the artist's light installations first hand, they will then create color sketches inspired by Flavin's works on paper and shape glowing sculptures of their own.

Adults: $6; Members: $4; Children: $2



Gallery Talk 

Dan Flavin: Drawing 
Friday, March 2, 7 p.m.

With Isabelle Dervaux, Acquavella Curator, Modern and Contemporary Drawings

Free


Symposium 
Minimalist Drawing: The 1960s and 1970s

Friday, April 27, 10:30 am-5 p.m.

This symposium will explore the changing form, function, and status of drawing in the era of Minimalism and Conceptual art. Speakers to be announced. 
$15; $10 for Members; free to students with valid ID.


Additional programs to be announced



Organization and Sponsorship
This exhibition is supported in part by the Dedalus Foundation, Inc. and Nancy Schwartz, with additional assistance from The Aaron I. Fleischman Foundation. 


Major funding for the catalogue is provided by Lannan Foundation. 

Dan Flavin: Drawing is organized by Isabelle Dervaux, Acquavella Curator of Modern and Contemporary Drawings at The Morgan Library & Museum.


The Morgan exhibition program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

The Morgan Library & Museum

The Morgan Library & Museum began as the private library of financier Pierpont Morgan, one of the preeminent collectors and cultural benefactors in the United States. Today, more than a century after its founding in 1906, the Morgan serves as a museum, independent research library, musical venue, architectural landmark, and historic site. In October 2010, the Morgan completed the first-ever restoration of its original McKim building, Pierpont Morgan’s private library, and the core of the institution. In tandem with the 2006 expansion project by architect Renzo Piano, the Morgan now provides visitors unprecedented access to its world-renowned collections of drawings, literary and historical manuscripts, musical scores, medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, printed books, and ancient Near Eastern seals and tablets.



General Information

The Morgan Library & Museum

225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016-3405

212.685.0008

www.themorgan.org


Hours

Tuesday-Thursday, 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; extended Friday hours, 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; closed Mondays, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day. The Morgan closes at 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.


Admission
$15 for adults; $10 for students, seniors (65 and over), and children (under 16); free to Members and children 12 and under accompanied by an adult. Admission is free on Fridays from 7 to 9 p.m. Admission is not required to visit the Morgan Shop.

Washington, DC (Updated January 13, 2012)—Following a two-year renovation, the galleries devoted to impressionism and post-impressionism in the West Building of the National Gallery of Art reopen to the public on January 28, 2012. Among the greatest collections in the world of paintings by Manet, Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin, the Gallery's later 19th-century French paintings will return to public view in a freshly conceived installation design.

"The Gallery's French impressionist and post-impressionist holdings, comprising nearly 400 paintings, are among the most prized in the collection, and rightly so," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. "While the appearance of these revered rooms has changed very little—preserving the conditions of light, the room proportions, and wall colors that make the Gallery one of the great places to view art in the world—the paintings themselves will be shown in a newly innovative arrangement."

The new installation is organized into thematic, monographic, and art historical groupings. The "new" Paris of the Second Empire and the Third Republic are highlighted through cityscapes by Manet, Renoir, and Pissaro. Showcasing sun-dappled landscapes and scenes of suburban leisure, a gallery of "high impressionism" masterpieces of the 1870s is prominently located off the East Sculpture Hall, including such beloved works as Monet's The Artist's Garden at Vétheuil (1880) and Renoir's Girl with a Hoop (1885). A gallery is devoted to the sophisticated color experiments of late Monet, while Cézanne's genius in landscape, still-life, and figure painting is explored in another. Paintings exemplifying the bold innovations of Van Gogh and Gauguin are displayed along with Degas' later, experimental works in one gallery, followed by a room of canvases by artists such as Delacroix, Renoir, and Matisse celebrating exoticism and the sensual use of color and paint handling. The final gallery is dedicated to the Parisian avant-garde circa 1900: Toulouse-Lautrec, Modigliani, Rousseau, and early Picasso.

The recently acquired Black Rocks at Trouville (1865/1866) by Gustave Courbet will be on view for the first time in the French galleries. Additionally, 13 works have been newly restored. Most of these will be on view in the West Building galleries, including Renoir's sparkling Parisian view of the Pont Neuf (1872), his ever-popular Girl with a Watering Can (1876), Monet's classic Bridge at Argenteuil (1874), and an 1867 portrait of Monet's newborn son Jean in his cradle.

During the two-year period of repair, restoration, and renovation, works normally on view in these galleries were either in storage, on loan, or featured in a special installation—From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection—in the West Building Ground Floor galleries. Some 50 of the greatest works from this collection were included in major exhibitions shown in Houston, Tokyo, and Kyoto.

"A Collection of Collections"
Opened in 1941, the National Gallery of Art is significantly younger than its nationwide competitors—The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art —in this area of collecting. As the nation's art museum, the National Gallery's collection was formed through generous donations from private citizens and has continued to grow to the present day thanks to contributions by numerous collectors and patrons.

The impressionist and post-impressionist collection begins with the 1942 Widener bequest, and reaches a high point with an extraordinary gift from Chester Dale in 1962, which tripled the size of the Gallery's modern French paintings. These works include major masterpieces, such as Cézanne's The Peppermint Bottle (1893/1895), Gauguin's Self-Portrait (1889), Van Gogh's La Mousmé (1888), Degas's Four Dancers (c. 1899), and two of Monet's celebrated views of Rouen Cathedral (1894). Two of their most spectacular acquisitions, made within nine months of each other, were Manet's early masterpiece, The Old Musician (1862), and Picassos' early masterpiece, Family of Saltimbanques (1905). In particular, the Dales gravitated toward figural works, accruing examples by many of the modern masters of portraiture, as well as marvelous female nudes, such as Renoir's Bather Arranging Her Hair (1893) and Odalisque (1870) and Modilgiani's Nude on a Blue Cushion (1917). In accordance with the deed of gift, these great works may never be loaned.

Paul Mellon—son of the Gallery's founding benefactor Andrew Mellon—also avidly collected 19th-century French paintings, influenced by his second wife, Rachel "Bunny" Mellon. Inspired by Dale's example, Mellon expanded upon the the foundation of French modernism that Dale built for the Gallery. While the Dale collection includes Monet's later landscapes, Mellon collected Monet in all genres and across his career, as well as work by important impressionist painters the Dale did not collect, such as Bazille and Caillebotte. Mellon was a great admirer of Cézanne and gave the Gallery seven paintings spanning the artist's career, including the 1991 gift of Boy in a Red Waistcoat (1888­-1890), one of the Gallery's great masterpieces. Mellon was also a devotee of Degas, and his gift of major paintings and sculptures by the master makes the Gallery's Degas collection one of the best in the world.

Paul Mellon's sister Ailsa Mellon Bruce augmented the Mellon family's dedication to the Gallery through her extensive 1969 bequest of great old master and impressionist paintings, by Renoir in particular. Other important donors to this part of the Gallery's collection include the Havemeyer family, W. Averell Harriman, his second wife Marie Norton Whitney Harriman and his third wife Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman, John Hay and Betsy Cushing Whitney, and Eugene and Agnes Ernst Meyer.

Small French Paintings
The Small French Paintings galleries in the East Building, designed to accommodate the extraordinary gift of French paintings from Ailsa Mellon Bruce, are among the most beloved at the Gallery. The works in these rooms have also been part of reconsidering the 19th-century French collection in the West Building. One gallery will feature an installation of prints together with several paintings by Pierre Bonnard, illuminating the way this artist works across the two media. Other groupings include a selection of circa 1800 landscape sketches, impressionist interiors, realist landscapes, a suite of works by Eugène Boudin, and intimate paintings by the artistic brotherhood known as the Nabis.

General Information
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden are at all times free to the public. They are located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, and are open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The Gallery is closed on December 25 and January 1. For information call (202) 737-4215 or the Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) at (202) 842-6176, or visit the Gallery's Web site at www.nga.gov. Follow the Gallery on Facebook at www.facebook.com/NationalGalleryofArt and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ngadc. 

Visitors will be asked to present all carried items for inspection upon entering. Checkrooms are free of charge and located at each entrance. Luggage and other oversized bags must be presented at the 4th Street entrances to the East or West Building to permit x-ray screening and must be deposited in the checkrooms at those entrances. For the safety of visitors and the works of art, nothing may be carried into the Gallery on a visitor's back. Any bag or other items that cannot be carried reasonably and safely in some other manner must be left in the checkrooms. Items larger than 17 by 26 inches cannot be accepted by the Gallery or its checkrooms.

Amsterdam, January 13, 2012 - Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, and the Scaliger Institute of Leiden University Libraries announced today the founding of a three year fellowship program to enable international rare books scholars to study sixteenth-eighteenth century scientific scholarship and publishing.  The program will support two scholars to work with the extensive Leiden University Special Collections and the Elsevier Heritage Collection for a period of one to three months annually. They will be invited to share their research through public lectures and publications.

The fellowship program builds on Elsevier’s recent launch of the Elsevier Heritage Collection’s online catalogue comprising over 2,000 rare books with more than 1,000 distinct titles published by the original Elzevier publishing house from 1580 to 1712. Based in the Netherlands and closely tied to Leiden University, the original company published groundbreaking work from contemporary scholars including Descartes, Huygens and Galileo. The modern publisher Elsevier, founded in 1880, was named after the original firm when as a tribute to the publishing achievements of the Elzeviers.

The Scaliger Institute will also work closely with the Elsevier Heritage Collection team to provide training and expertise on preservation, exhibitions, display techniques, cataloguing, bindings, history and provenance study. The fellowships offer a scientific publishing complement to the longstanding Scaliger Institute Brill fellowships. These focus on rare books research in the fields of Middle East, Islamic and Asian Studies, medieval and early modern history as well as religious and classical studies.

”Our collaboration falls squarely in the tradition of the Scaliger Institute,” remarked Kurt De Belder, University Librarian and Director of Leiden University Libraries. “It stimulates the study of rare books and special collections to further our understanding of the foundations of academia. The Scaliger Institute is also dedicated to public outreach and looks forward to hosting the lectures and master classes generated by studying the history of publishing and scientific scholarships.”

“The Elsevier Heritage fellowships reinforce our longstanding relationship with the University of Leiden, and builds upon the original Elzeviers’ tradition of publishing the great scientific minds of the 16th-18th century,” noted David Ruth, Senior Vice President of Global Communications, Elsevier. “Supporting scholars to study the history of scholarship and science also ensures that the Elsevier Heritage Collection can be more fully researched and made available to scholars around the world.”

# # #
The closing date for Elsevier Heritage Fellowship is March 1st 2012. Fellowship applications will be reviewed by a special board consisting of: C. Keijsper MA (Director of the Scaliger Institute), Prof. dr. H. Beukers (President Scholarly Board), Professor Paul Hoftijzer (History of the Book, ULL) and Drs. K. van Ommen (Coordinator Scaliger Institute), David Ruth, SVP Elsevier Global Communications, and Ylann Schemm, Corporate Relations Manager. Additional information and the application form are available on the Scaliger Institute website www.library.leiden.edu/special-collections/scaliger-institute/. Applications may be sent to: K. van Ommen MA, Scaliger@library.leidenuniv.nl.
About the Scalinger Institute, University of Leiden

Founded by Leiden University Libraries and the Faculties of Humanities on the occasion of the 425th anniversary of Leiden University in June 2000, the Scaliger Institute aims to stimulate and facilitate the use of the Special Collections of Leiden University Libraries in both teaching and research. The Institute offers favorable working conditions and expertise, organizes conferences, master classes, fellowships, special courses and lectures, including the Scaliger Lectures, given by the Scaliger professor and other prominent scholars.
 
The Institute is named after the learned humanist Josephus Justus Scaliger (1540-1609) who joined the newly founded Leiden University In 1593. By 1600, Scaliger had become the centre of the young university, attracting students and scholars from all over Europe including Daniel Heinsius and Hugo Grotius. Scaliger donated a substantial part of his library to the University Library and his collection continues to represent the core of the collection of Leiden University Libraries.

About Elsevier

Elsevier is a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services. The company works in partnership with the global science and health communities to publish more than 2,000 journals, including The Lancet and Cell, and close to 20,000 book titles, including major reference works from Mosby and Saunders. Elsevier’s online solutions include SciVerse ScienceDirect, SciVerse Scopus, Reaxys, MD Consult and Nursing Consult, which enhance the productivity of science and health professionals, and the SciVal suite and MEDai’s Pinpoint Review, which help research and health care institutions deliver better outcomes more cost-effectively.

A global business headquartered in Amsterdam, Elsevier employs 7,000 people worldwide. The company is part of Reed Elsevier Group PLC, a world-leading publisher and information provider, which is jointly owned by Reed Elsevier PLC and Reed Elsevier NV. The ticker symbols are REN (Euronext Amsterdam), REL (London Stock Exchange), RUK and ENL (New York Stock Exchange).

PASADENA, Calif. (January 2012) - Exploring the avid pursuits of collectors past and present, the California International Antiquarian Book Fair will feature a special exhibit entitled “A Love Affair with Books: Personal Stories of Noted Collectors.” This colorful, wide-ranging exhibit spotlights legendary library builders as well as the contemporary Southern California book lovers including:

Railroad magnate Henry Huntington amassed a spectacular collection of rare books and manuscripts in the fields of British and American history and literature which make up the core of one of the finest research libraries in the world; selected materials from the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

Philanthropist William Andrews Clark, Jr. formed a collection that make up one of the nation’s most comprehensive rare books and manuscripts libraries with particular strengths in 17th and 18th century English literature and history, Oscar Wilde and fine printing; selected materials from UCLA’s William Andrews Clark Memorial Library

The Ward Ritchie Collection from Occidental College presents the work of the world-renowned, Southern California-based fine book printer

The Lawrence Clark Powell Collection from Occidental College honors the legendary librarian and literary bibliographer who founded the UCLA School of Library Service

Actress Sarah Michelle Gellar collects children’s books with an emphasis on the works of Victorian illustrator Arthur Rackham

Academy Award-winning producer and director Tony Bill’s collection documents the history of early aviation; now part of the San Francisco International Airport Aviation Museum & Library

Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan has assembled an encyclopedic cinema collection

Monsignor Francis J. Weber has published and built a big collection of small books all measuring less than 4 inches; selected materials from Azusa Pacific University

Librarian and gemologist Mary Murphy began her collection dedicated to precious stones and jewelry to advance her professional knowledge and 30 years later has a private library of over 600 items

A past president of the Zamorano Club, California’s oldest book club, Gordon J. Van De Water has long collected books dealing with California and the West

Now in its 45th edition, the California International Antiquarian Book Fair will take place at the Pasadena Convention Center on February 10 - 12, 2012. Recognized as one of the world’s largest and most prestigious exhibitions of antiquarian books, the Book Fair gives visitors the opportunity to see, learn about and purchase the finest in rare and valuable books, manuscripts, autographs, graphics, prints, maps, photographs and more.

With the collections and rare treasures of more than 200 booksellers from the Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association of America (ABAA) and the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), the Book Fair will feature volumes from five centuries of printing, as well as original manuscripts that predate Gutenberg. Books will cover every imaginable area of interest -- from the history of travel and exploration, early science and medicine to classic literature, modern first editions, children’s and illustrated books, and the arts. Items range in price from a few dollars to more than six figures.

The Book Fair also includes seminars on the basics of collecting as well as various themed topics. A panel discussion in conjunction with the special exhibit will feature collectors Kenneth Turan, Tony Bill, and Mary Murphy and will be moderated by journalist, author and TV/radio personality Patt Morrison. Sunday, February 12 is Discovery Day, which gives attendees the opportunity to present up to three items to experts for free examination.

Book Fair hours are Friday, February 10 from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday, February 11 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday, February 12 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Pasadena Convention Center, located at 300 East Green Street, Pasadena, CA. Tickets on Friday, February 10 are $25 and provide three-day admission. Proceeds from Friday tickets will benefit the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Tickets purchased on Saturday or Sunday are $15 and include return entry throughout the remainder of the Book Fair.

For more information, visit www.labookfair.com or call 800-454-6401.

Connect with the Book Fair at http://twitter.com/labookfair or http://www.facebook.com/LABookFair.
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(Washington, DC)  Shakespeare’s heroine Rosalind criticizes the verses penned by her lover Orlando: “some of them had in them more feet than the verses would bear.”  No doubt she would write better ones, but Shakespeare doesn’t give her a chance.  Did he know any women writers?  Had he read any women’s verses circulating in collections among his acquaintance?  We may never know, but we do know that many women of the time, from aristocrats to courtesans, wrote on a range of topics from the spiritual to the sensual.  

Shakespeare’s Sisters: Voices of English and European Women Writers, 1500-1700 showcases the emerging diversity of early women authors and suggests how this rich legacy has shaped subsequent writing and scholarship.

“For generations, the emphasis was on the canon of male writers’ works, which was of course established by men. Many works by early female authors have only been uncovered in the last 50 years by scholars interested in women’s writing. The first wave of feminist scholarship rooted in the archives to search for works by women writers. Now there is biographical and critical research on specific women writers and  an ongoing attempt to include them in the canon,” says exhibition curator Georgianna Ziegler.

The exhibition title, Shakespeare’s Sisters, is inspired in part by an influential essay by Virginia Woolf. In A Room of One’s Own (1929), Woolf imagined a sister for Shakespeare called Judith, who wanted to be a playwright like her brother, but was unable to pursue a career as a professional writer because of her gender.

In the near century since A Room of One’s Own was published, scholarship has uncovered previously unknown works by women—female authors who were “Shakespeare’s sisters” in literary enterprise.

“Women writers Shakespeare might have known is one of those questions, like many questions, we wish we could ask Shakespeare if he were around,” says Ziegler. “There is some thinking that Shakespeare might have known The Tragedy of Mariam by Elizabeth Cary. It has an Othello-like plot, but it was not written to be performed on a stage, so it is hard to say whether he might have been familiar with it.”

Many works were not published during the authors’ lifetimes, or survive in only a few copies. To rediscover these works, researchers delved into libraries, archives, or other repositories and simply “dug around,” as Ziegler describes it.  

Knowledge of these women and their works is now more readily available than ever before, and the exhibition showcases the works of over fifty women writers and literary patrons from England, France, and Italy.

Exhibition Highlights

Shakespeare’s Sisters features early printed and manuscript works by Shakespeare’s female contemporaries, as well as portraits and other artwork. The exhibition includes seventy-five items from the Folger collection, as well as materials from the Houghton Library at Harvard, the Beinecke Library at Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, the Library of Congress, and a private collection.

Highlights include: 

•    First edition. An original printing of Virginia Woolf’s classic text, A Room of One’s Own, first published in 1929.
•    Private musings. Lady Anne Clifford was a voracious reader and diarist.  On display is her own annotated copy of John Selden’s 1631 Titles of Honor and a 1923 printed edition of her diary edited by her descendent, Vita Sackville-West.
•    Mixed metaphors. Marguerite of Navarre, queen consort to the king of France, wrote on widely varying topics, from devout religious poetry to short stories on love and relationships. Her intense—and controversial—allegorical poem Miroir de l'âme pécheresse (Mirror of the Sinful Soul) as well as her story collection The Heptameron are both featured in the exhibition.
•    Love poems. Italian courtesan Veronica Franco, whose life inspired the film Dangerous Beauty, earned acclaim for her passionate poetry.   
•    Royal religion. Queen Catharine Parr, Henry VIII’s sixth and final wife, wrote several books, including Prayers Stirring the Mind.
•    Women playwrights.  Plays by Aphra Behn, Susanna Centlivre and others who were the first Englishwomen to follow Shakespeare in writing professionally for the theater.

Shakespeare’s Sisters brings the works of early women writers—often neglected, ignored, or overlooked for centuries—to a wider audience and showcases the rich literary legacy of Shakespeare’s female contemporaries. Through these rediscovered works, the voices of Renaissance women are heard by modern audiences.  

ABOUT THE CURATOR
Georgianna Ziegler is Louis B. Thalheimer Head of Reference.  She has been interested in early modern women for many years, writing a Ph.D. thesis on Queen Guinevere in medieval romance, and designing Davidson College’s first course on women writers when she was a member of the English faculty.  She has published on Elizabeth I, Elizabeth of Bohemia, Esther Inglis, and on female characters from Shakespeare, including Portia, Catharine of Aragon, and Lady Macbeth.  At the Folger she has curated exhibitions on Shakespeare’s Unruly Women and Elizabeth I: Then and Now.

RELATED PROGRAMS
10,000 Years of Women Writers
Join us for a series of readings, concerts, performances, and lectures celebrating the contributions of women to the arts. More information is available at www.folger.edu/womenwriters.

January 24-March 4
FOLGER THEATRE
The Gaming Table
Whimsy, wit, and wordplay sparkle in this effervescent comedy by Susanna Centlivre, one of 18th-century London’s most popular playwrights. An independent-minded widow with a penchant for gambling holds a nightly card game teeming with revelers and rakes.
Hours: Tuesdays-Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 2pm & 8pm, Sundays at 2pm & 7pm
Tickets: $30-$60

February 16
O.B. HARDISON POETRY SERIES
Readings From Shakespeare’s Sisters
Rita Dove, Linda Gregerson, Elizabeth Nunez, Linda Pastan, and Jane Smiley read their commissioned poems and essays from the Shakespeare’s Sisters chapbook, published in conjunction with the Folger exhibition of the same name.
Hours: Thursday at 7pm
Tickets: TBA

February 25
FAMILY EVENT
Shake Up Your Saturdays
Learn about the women who dared to write poetry during and after Shakespeare's time in this free family workshop filled with history, activity, performance, and fun! A scavenger hunt takes young visitors through the Folger's Shakespeare's Sisters exhibit.
Hours: Saturday, 10-11am
Tickets: Free. Advance registration required. Email educate@folger.edu to register or for additional information.

March 2
PEN/FAULKNER
Tilar Mazzeo & Stacy Schiff
Two female historians talk about grappling with the past and the stories that create it. Tilar Mazzeo is the bestselling author of The Widow Clicquot: The Story of the Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It, and The Secret of Chanel No. 5: The Intimate History of the World’s Most Famous Perfume. Stacy Schiff is the author of Cleopatra, a #1 bestseller and named by The New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2010.
Hours: Friday at 7:30pm
Tickets: $15

March 5
O.B. HARDISON POETRY SERIES
Eavan Boland
Eavan Boland’s poems examine womanhood and history with a sheer, lyrical grace and skill. Boland has published ten volumes of poetry, including Journey with Two Maps: Becoming a Woman Poet, New Collected Poems, Domestic Violence, and An Origin Like Water: Collected Poems 1967-87. She is the recipient of the Lannan Award for Poetry and an American Ireland Fund Literary Award.
Hours: Monday at 7:30pm
Tickets: $15

March 16-18
FOLGER CONSORT
The Songbird
Francesca Caccini was one of the guiding spirits behind the revolutionary music of the earliest operas and the brilliant solo songs of the Baroque. Composer of a wide range of solo songs, duets, and stage music, she is perhaps best known for her La Liberazione di Ruggiero, the first opera by a woman, which premiered in 1625.
Hours: Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 5pm and 8pm, Sunday at 2pm
Tickets: $35

April 13-15
FOLGER CONSORT
The City of Ladies
The French and Burgundian courts of the early 15th century fostered a culture that treasured its musicians, artist, and writers and the revelatory idea of beauty for its own sake. Influential writer Christine de Pizan lived at court in France and wrote City of Ladies during this time. One of her ballades, Dueil angoisseus, was set to music. This song and other pieces composed for court and chamber are performed by vocalists, fiddles, harps, lutes, and winds.
Hours: Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 5pm and 8pm, Sunday at 2pm
Tickets: $35

Online Resources
Visit www.folger.edu/shakespearessisters for an online version of Shakespeare’s Sisters, including images, an audio tour, and related information.  

RELATED PUBLICATIONS
Shakespeare’s Sisters: Women Writers Bridge Five Centuries
Edited by Gigi Bradford and Louisa Newlin
Thirteen women poets and authors—among them, former U.S. poets laureate Rita Dove and Maxine Kumin and Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Jane Smiley—respond to the works of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century women writers in this elegantly designed, handbound collection of poetry and essays. 52 pages, softcover.  Available in the Folger Gift Shop for $19.95.

VISITOR SERVICES
Tours
Monday - Friday at 11am & 3pm,Saturday at 11am & 1pm and Sunday at 1pm
Folger Docents offer guided tours of the exhibition, as well as the Folger’s national landmark building, free of charge.  No advance reservations required.

Group Tours
Docent-led tours of the exhibition, as well as the Folger national landmark building, are offered for groups of 10 or more.  To arrange, please call (202) 675-0395.

Guide by Cell Audio Tours
Visitors, using their own cell phones, can call (202) 595-1844 and follow the prompts for 150# through 167# to hear women scholars share personal comments on exhibition items.

UPCOMING FOLGER EXHIBITIONS
Open City: London, 1500-1700
June 8-September 29, 2012
Kathleen Lynch and Betsy Walsh, Curators
Over the course of two centuries, London changed from the capital of England, secure within its medieval walls, to a metropolitan seat of empire. Open City explores activities and pressures that altered Londoners’ sense of community, focusing especially on three types of institutions that touched everyday lives: church, theater, and market. Drawing on materials as disparate as deeds, diaries, engravings, and maps, Open City illustrates the impact of new ideas, new products, and new people in this rapidly growing capital city.


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About Folger Shakespeare Library

Folger Shakespeare Library is a world-class center for scholarship, learning, culture, and the arts. It is home to the world’s largest Shakespeare collection and a primary repository for rare materials from the early modern period (1500-1750). Folger Shakespeare Library is an internationally recognized research library offering advanced scholarly programs in the humanities; an innovator in the preservation of rare materials; a national leader in how Shakespeare is taught in grades K-12; and an award-winning producer of cultural and arts programs—theater, music, poetry, exhibitions, lectures, and family programs. By promoting understanding of Shakespeare and his world, Folger Shakespeare Library reminds us of the enduring influence of his works, the formative effects of the Renaissance on our own time, and the power of the written and spoken word. A gift to the American people from industrialist Henry Clay Folger, the Folger Shakespeare Library—located one block east of the U.S. Capitol—opened in 1932. Learn more at www.folger.edu

The dates for The 55th London International Antiquarian Book Fair have been announced and for the first time, the fair will take place in May (Thursday May 24, Friday May 25 & Saturday May 26, 2012).

Organised by the ABA (the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association), the Fair will move to a new location - the larger National Hall at Olympia (London W14) with all stands on one level. This move follows on from the success of the 2011 Fair, which saw more stand space sold than ever before and it became evident that the Fair had finally out-grown Olympia 2.

The Fair has a new Chairman - Brian Lake of Jarndyce Antiquarian Booksellers (Great Russell Street, London). He commented: “Applications to exhibit at the World's Premier Book Fair are already flooding in from booksellers around the globe and this is an early indicator that 2012 will be a truly international fair. Among new exhibitors are dealers from Sweden, France and Germany but also one bookseller from Australia, Richard Neylon. There has also been a good take-up of Graphics stands as for the first time in many years we don’t clash with Map Fair.”

“We are very pleased about the new location, which will make the 2012 the biggest and best yet; more exhibitors, more books, maps, prints, ephemera & manuscripts in a bigger and better hall providing more space on stands, wider aisles, with ample space to sit and relax in three different cafés. We are delighted that the ABA's partner will be the National Trust, which will be promoting the many important libraries, containing over 2 million books, under its management.”

A detailed and searchable list of exhibitors at the 2012 Fair will be uploaded mid-January.

Full details of opening hours, location, and travel to Olympia can be found on
www.olympiabookfair.com

Tickets to the Fair are free if you register in advance, or may be purchased on the door for £10 each, £15 for two.

For more information and images, please email: books@exclamationpr.co.uk

Rachel Aked 07790 732448 /Silke Lohmann 07932 618754

PARIS-The gallery Les Enluminures in Paris has announced its Spring exhibition:  “Flemish Manuscript Illumination.”

Owner and President of Les Enluminures, Paris and Chicago, Dr. Sandra Hindman says, “This exhibition coincides with the seasonal exhibition on “Miniatures Flamandes 1404-1482” jointly organized by the Bibliothèque Royale in Brussels and the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.  The Brussels venue took place from September 30 to December 31, 2011. The Paris exhibition opens March 6 and closes on June 10, 2012.”
 
Les Enluminures, located in the Louvre des Antiquaires, opposite the Louvre Museum, will exhibit 30 works of art from the fifteenth century simultaneous with the Paris event (at Tolbiac).

Highlights include works by artists Simon Marmion, called in his day the “prince of illumination,” Willem Vrelant, who worked for the court, the municipality, as well as wealthy Europeans outside Bruges, and the Master of Mary of Burgundy, a lyrical illumination that was last on the market in 1884, among others.

Hindman says, “Featured items testify to the refined and lavish patronage of the Burgundian dukes and duchesses, including Philip the Bold, Philip the Good, and Charles the Bold and Margaret of York. Urban centers of production and monastic patronage are also explored in Les Enluminure’s exhibition."

“This exhibition gives us an opportunity to display some of our Flemish manuscripts and miniatures that are related to the incomparable treasures belonging to libraries in Brussels and Paris. The exhibition has special meaning and importance to me because I studied closely with the great L.M.J. Delaissé, who organized the landmark exhibition of Flemish manuscript illumination in Brussels in 1959, called “Le Siècle d’or.”  I myself have published extensively on the topic. These two exhibitions in Brussels and Paris are designed as a sort of update of what is new in Flemish illumination 52 years later.”

March 6 - June 10 2012
LES ENLUMINURES
Les Louvre des Antiquaires,
2 Place du Palais-Royal,  75001 Paris (France)
Tel: +33 1 42 60 15 58 info@lesenluminures.com   www.lesenluminures.com

[ITHACA, NY] National Book Auctions, located in Ithaca, NY, hosted a Sunday, January 8th auction featuring a broad range of rare antique and vintage books, as well as a fine collection of deluxe, limited bindings and an array of ephemera. One of the highlights of this auction was a substantial collection of printings by The Limited Editions Club, Easton Press and The Franklin Library including hundreds of signed first editions and signed limited editions, most of which are housed in handsome, deluxe leather bindings. This 484-lot auction also featured several important modern first editions, a great quantity of author-signed titles by prominent writers, and ephemera such as antique postcards, photographs, and travel-related material.

An 1842 printing of Jeremiah Greenleaf’s “A New Universal Atlas” fetched a hammer price of $3,567.00 (including buyer’s premium). Jeremiah Greenleaf was a little-known but highly admired American cartographer of the early 19th century. Greenleaf’s maps are extremely rare and admired for their stunningly vivid pastel color.

Realizing a hammer price of $2,280.00 (including buyer’s premium) was another antique landmark atlas by the same name, Samuel Augustus Mitchell’s “A New Universal Atlas.” This scarce edition is beautifully illustrated with a hand-colored title page engraving depicting the first landing of Columbus, and contains 73 numbered hand-colored lithographed maps.

Paulinus da San Bartholomaeo’s “Orientalist Compilation” brought a hammer price of $1,599.00 (including buyer’s premium). This first edition compilation contains seminal works on Sanskrit and Indian culture. The author, also known as Philip Werdin (or Wesdin) was an Austrian Carmelite missionary in Malabar from 1776 to 1789. An outstanding Orientalist, he was one of the first to remark upon the close relationship between Indian and European languages.

Bringing a hammer price of $1,230.00 (including buyer’s premium) was an antique volume containing a Latin-language collection of the works of the Roman playwright Plautus. This volume was published in 1511 by Johannes Grüninger.

National Book Auctions is a public auction service specializing in books, ephemera, and art. National Book Auctions is a targeted service offering experience and expertise unique to marketing antique and modern books and ephemera for consignors and collectors alike. Preview for the upcoming Sunday, January 29th auction is at 10 a.m. and the live auction starts at noon. For more information or to consign collectible material please contact David Hall, Business Manager, at 607-269-0101 or email mail@nationalbookauctions.com.

NEW YORK, January 10, 2012—The Museum of Modern Art presents the exhibition Cindy Sherman, a retrospective tracing the groundbreaking artist’s career from the mid-1970s to the present, from February 26 to June 11, 2012. The exhibition brings together some 180 key photographs from the artist’s significant series—including the complete ―Untitled Film Stills‖ (1977-80), the critically acclaimed centerfolds (1981), and the celebrated history portraits (1989-90)—plus examples from all of her most important bodies of work, ranging from her fashion photography of the early 1980s to the breakthrough sex pictures of 1992 to her 2003 clowns and monumental society portraits from 2008. In addition, the exhibition features the American premiere of her 2010 photographic mural. An exhibition of films drawn from MoMA’s collection selected by Sherman will also be presented in the Museum’s theaters in April. Cindy Sherman is organized by Eva Respini, Associate Curator, with Lucy Gallun, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art.

Cindy Sherman is widely considered to be one of the most important and influential artists of our time and her work is the unchallenged cornerstone of post-modern photography. Masquerading as a myriad of characters in front of her own camera, Sherman creates invented personas and tableaus that examine the construction of identity, the nature of representation, and the artifice of photography. Her works speak to an increasingly image-saturated world, drawing on the unlimited supply of visual material provided by movies, television, magazines, the Internet, and art history.
 
Ms. Respini says, ―To create her photographs, Sherman works unassisted in her studio and assumes multiple roles as photographer, model, art director, make-up artist, hairdresser, and stylist. Whether portraying a career girl or a blond bombshell, a fashion victim or a clown, a French aristocrat or a society lady of a certain age, for over 35 years this relentlessly adventurous artist has created an eloquent and provocative body of work that resonates deeply with our visual culture.

The American premiere of Sherman’s recent photographic mural (2010) will be installed outside the galleries on the sixth floor. The mural represents the artist’s first foray into 2 transforming space through site-specific fictive environments. In the mural Sherman transforms her face via digital means, exaggerating her features through Photoshop by elongating her nose, narrowing her eyes, or creating smaller lips. The characters, who sport an odd mix of costumes and are taken from daily life, are elevated to larger-than-life status and tower over the viewer. Set against a decorative toile backdrop, her characters seem like protagonists from their own carnivalesque worlds, where fantasy and reality merge. The emphasis on new work presents an opportunity for reassessment in light of the latest developments in Sherman’s oeuvre.
 
Entering the galleries, the exhibition strays from a chronological narrative typical of retrospectives, and groups photographs thematically to create new and surprising juxtapositions and to suggest common threads across several series. A gallery devoted to her work made for the fashion industry brings together commissions from 1983 to 2011.

Sherman’s interest in the construction of femininity and mass circulation of images informs much of the work that takes fashion as its subject, illustrating not only a fascination with fashion images but also a critical stance against what they represent. A gallery exploring themes of the grotesque focuses on bodies of work from the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s, including disasters (1986-89), sex pictures (1992), and horror and surrealist pictures (1994-96). Sherman’s investigation of macabre narratives followed a trajectory of the physical disintegration of the body, and features prosthetic parts as a stand-in for the human body. A gallery devoted to Sherman’s exploration of myth, carnival, and fairy tales pairs works from her 2003 clowns with her 1985 fairy tales series. These theatrical pictures revel in their own artificiality, with menacing characters and fantastical narratives.
 
Galleries devoted to single bodies of work are interspersed among the thematic rooms. Sherman’s seminal series the ―Untitled Film Stills,‖ comprising 70 black-and-white photographs made between 1977 and 1980, are presented in their entirety (the complete series is in MoMA’s collection). Made to look like publicity pictures taken on movie sets, the ―Untitled Film Stills‖ read like an encyclopedic roster of female roles inspired by 1950s and 1960s Hollywood, film noir, B movies, and European art-house films. While the characters and scenarios may seem familiar, Sherman’s ―Stills‖ are entirely fictitious. Her characters represent deeply embedded clichés (career girl, bombshell, girl on the run, housewife, and so on) and rely on the persistence of recognizable manufactured stereotypes that loom large in the cultural imagination.
 
Other series presented in depth include Sherman’s 1981 series of 12-color photographs known as the centerfolds. Originally commissioned by Artforum magazine, these send-ups of men’s erotic magazine centerfolds depict characters in a variety of emotional states, ranging from terrified to heartbroken to melancholic. With this series, Sherman plays into the male conditioning of looking at photographs of exposed women, but she turns this on its head by taking on the roles of both (assumed) male photographer and female pinup. The history portraits investigate the relationships between painter and model, and are featured in depth in the exhibition. These theatrical portraits borrow from a number of art historical periods, from Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, and Neoclassical. This free-association sampling creates an illusion of familiarity, but not with any one specific era or style (just as the ―Untitled Film Stills‖ evoke generic types, not particular films). The subjects (for the first time, many are men), include aristocrats, Madonna and child, clergymen, women of leisure, and milkmaids, who pose with props, elaborate costumes, and obvious prostheses.
 
Sherman has explored the experience of aging in a youth- and status-obsessed society with several bodies of work made since 2000. For her headshots from 2000-2002 (sometimes called Hollywood/Hamptons), the artist conceived a cast of characters of would-be or has-been actors (in reality secretaries, housewives, or gardeners) posing for headshots to get an acting job. With this series, Sherman underscores the transformative qualities of makeup, hair, expression, and pose, and the recognition of certain stereotypes as powerful transmitters of cultural clichés. Her monumental 2008 society portraits feature women ―of a certain age‖ from the top echelons of society who struggle with today’s impossible standards of beauty. The psychological weight of these pictures comes through in the unrelenting honesty of the description of aging and the small details that belie the attempt to project a certain appearance. In the infinite possibilities of the mutability of identity, these pictures stand out for their ability to be at once provocative, disparaging, empathetic, and mysterious.
 
SPONSORSHIP:
Major support for the exhibition is provided by Jerry I. Speyer and Katherine G. Farley, The Modern Women’s Fund, and The William Randolph Hearst Endowment Fund.
 
Additional funding is provided by The Broad Art Foundation, David Dechman and Michel Mercure, Robert B. Menschel, Allison and Neil Rubler, Richard and Laura Salomon, The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Glenstone, Michèle Gerber Klein, Richard and Heidi Rieger, Ann and Mel Schaffer, and The Junior Associates of The Museum of Modern Art.
 
EXHIBITION TOUR:
Cindy Sherman will travel to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (July 14-October 7, 2012); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (November 10, 2012-February 17, 2013); and Dallas Museum of Art (March 17-June 9, 2013).

PUBLICATION:
Cindy Sherman is accompanied by a publication that presents the stunning range of work produced by the artist during her 35-year career. Lavishly illustrated with more than 180 works (some never before published), the book highlights all of Sherman’s major series. Printed in Italy by Trifolio SRL using its new AREAW4 printing process—which yields especially vibrant blues, purples, yellows, and oranges, not possible in conventional offset printing—the book reproduces the artist’s work with astonishing color fidelity. In the plate section, Sherman’s photographs are grouped thematically to suggest the common threads that run through multiple series. An introductory essay by the exhibition’s curator, Eva Respini, presents an overview of Sherman’s career and investigates some of the dominant themes in her work, while also exploring the theoretical discourse that has surrounded it from the very beginning. A contribution by art historian Johanna Burton offers a critical reexamination of Sherman’s work in light of her recent series, and a conversation between Sherman and filmmaker John Waters provides an enlightening view into the artist’s process. 9 ••• x 12, 264 pages, 255 illustrations. Price: $40.00 (paperback); $60.00 (hardcover). Available at the MoMA Stores and online at MoMAStore.org. Available to the trade through ARTBOOK | D.A.P in the United States and Canada, and through Thames & Hudson outside North America. The publication will also be available in French (available from Éditions Hazan), German (available from Schirmer/Mosel), and Spanish (available from La Fábrica Editorial).

RELATED EXHIBITION:
Carte Blanche: Cindy Sherman
April 2-10, 2012
The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1
Carte Blanche: Cindy Sherman is presented in conjunction with the retrospective exhibition Cindy Sherman. Film—the common cultural language of our era—has had a profound influence on Sherman and is an inspiration for much of her work. Belonging to the first generation of Americans raised on television, Sherman was fully steeped in mass-media culture, and she recalls watching films such as Rear Window and La Jetée. In college in the mid-1970s, she immersed herself in film, studying under the avant-garde filmmaker Paul Sharits and experimenting with the medium of film alongside making photographs.
 
For Carte Blanche, Sherman has selected films from MoMA’s collection, including The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974), La Jetée (Chris Marker, 1962), Shadows (John Cassavetes, 1959), The Fearless Vampire Killers (Roman Polanski, 1964), and Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren, 1943). Ranging from camp to horror to classic art films, Sherman’s choices reflect the artist’s diverse interests and influences. Carte Blanche includes additional films on loan to MoMA, and has provided the opportunity for the Museum to acquire films for the collection. As the ―Curator’s Choice,‖ one screening features Sherman’s 1976 short film Doll Clothes, followed by her feature film Office Killer (1997), which draws on the horror genre well represented in Sherman’s choices for Carte Blanche. The exhibition is organized by Eva Respini, Associate Curator, with Lucy Gallun, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Photography, in collaboration with the Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art.

PUBLIC PROGRAM:
Cindy Sherman: Circle of Influence March 26, 2012, 6:00 p.m. Theater 3 (The Celeste Bartos Theater), mezzanine, The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building

This panel discussion features artists working in a variety of mediums as they explore Cindy Sherman's influence on contemporary art practice, including issues such as feminism and identity. Participants include painters George Condo and Elizabeth Peyton, and video and performance artist Kalup Linzy. Moderated by Eva Respini, Associate Curator, Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art, and organizer of the retrospective exhibition Cindy Sherman.
Tickets ($10; members and Corporate Members $8; students, seniors, and staff of other museums $5) can be purchased at the lobby information desk, at the film desk, or in the Education and Research Building, and are available on MoMA.org.

Support for this program is provided by Anna Marie and Robert F. Shapiro. 

WEBSITE:
Accompanying Cindy Sherman is a comprehensive website featuring the complete selection of images that appear in the exhibition. MoMA also commissioned exclusive video content for the site—short clips of artists, film makers, art historians, and cultural critics speaking about their favorite work by Sherman. Confirmed participants include artists Marilyn Minter, Marina Abramović, and Robert Longo; Vanity Fair editor Ingrid Sischy; gallerist Helene Wiener; art historian and critic Douglas Crimp; curator Eva Respini; and Director of The Museum of Modern Art, Glenn Lowry. The diversity of participants will underscore the many facets of Sherman's work. The site, www.MoMA.org/cindysherman, launches on February 26, 2012.

AUDIO GUIDE:
An audio program accompanying the exhibition features commentary by curator Eva Respini and curatorial assistant Lucy Gallun, as well as audio clips of Cindy Sherman discussing her work. It is available at the Museum free of charge, courtesy of Bloomberg; on MoMA.org/wifi; and as a podcast on MoMA.org/audio or on iTunes. MoMA Audio is a collaboration between The Museum of Modern Art and Acoustiguide, Inc. Available in English only.

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Public Information:
The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019, (212) 708-9400, MoMA.org
Hours: Wednesday through Monday, 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Friday, 10:30 a.m.-8:00 p.m. Closed Tuesday.
Museum Admission: $25 adults; $18 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.; $14 full-time students with
current I.D. Free, members and children 16 and under. (Includes admittance to Museum galleries and film
programs). Tickets can be purchase online at a reduced rate of: $22.50 adults; $16 seniors, 65 years and over with I.D.; $12 full-time students with current I.D. Target Free Friday Nights 4:00-8:00 p.m.
Film Admission: $12 adults; $10 seniors, 65 

DALLAS, TX - The year 2011 proved to be a great one for Heritage Auctions (HA.com), as the company posted a gross total of more than $806 million, a number that represents the company’s best performance ever.

“The bottom line is that service and value will always sell, and Heritage specializes in the very best of both,” said Greg Rohan, President of Heritage Auctions. “Collectors respond to that. They know us and they know we understand them. The result has been a decade of tremendous growth.”

U.S. Coins continue to be the backbone of the company with the category registering an impressive $196 million auction total, including Weekly US Coin Internet-only auctions, which realized $22 million - a new record for the subset and an 80% increase over 2010 - and Gallery US Coin auctions, which accounted for $5,340,889, another record total for the subset and a 70% increase over 2010.

Heritage’s World Coins category continued to prove itself a juggernaut, with a record total of $39.45 million - an increase of 60% over its 2010 record performance - while the Vintage Comics and Comic Art bore direct witness to the evolution of the category into a true investment quality asset, posting north of $26 million, a 13% improvement over 2010, which had already set the record for any auction house.

“World Coins and Comics are emblematic of Heritage’s continued growth,” said Rohan, “among the several categories that continue to perform well for us. Collectors and investors alike, from some non-traditional corners, are all taking a close look at these categories.”

Heritage Jewelry Auctions continued to see an explosion in sales, ringing up a record $17.4+ million in all (more than double the category’s 2010 record total), Heritage Vintage Sports Collectibles vaulted itself fully double its 2010 total to finish the year at more than $16 million, making it the #1 sports auction house in the U.S.

Fine Wine made its debut at Heritage in 2011 and quickly proved to be a profitable force to be reckoned with as it brought in nearly $11.4 million in total prices realized. Heritage’s continued dominance in Illustration Art was re-asserted by an $11.1 million total, the category’s second best year.

Heritage made the decision in 2010 to spin off its musical instrument auctions from its Music & Entertainment auctions to create a brand new category, which proved to be a smart decision, as collectors lined up for a variety of stringed and other instruments to give the category a $10.5 million debut. The decision also proved a good one for Heritage Music & Entertainment auctions, which, even without Guitars in its total, realized $8.6 million all told, the best year the category’s seen and more than double what it saw in 2010.

One of the year’s most significant changes at Heritage was the acquiring of the assets of Greg Martin Auctions of San Francisco, creating a separate Arms & Armor category for Heritage for the first time. With $9+ million realized in just three auctions, Arms & Armor proved itself a category to watch.

Decorative Arts & Silver also posted its best year ever, with $7.43 million sold at auction, the category’s best year yet by almost double, while Heritage Movie Posters auctions posted an in impressive $6.2+ million total, including $1.8 million in Weekly Internet auctions, a new record for the Web-only offerings and a 15% increase over 2010’s record total. The amount pushed the category lifetime total for Heritage Movie Posters past the $50 million mark since it started in November 2001.

 New York—An impressive selection of American maps led to active bidding by dealers and collectors alike in Swann Galleries’ December 8 auction of Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Historical Prints, Ephemera—and a few records were set along the way.

The sale’s top-selling map was a lovely copy of Fry-Jefferson, A Map of the most inhabited part of Virginia containing the whole Province of Maryland, four sheets, London, 1775, which brought a record $28,800. Also setting auction records were Morden / Berry, A New Map of the English Plantations in America, both Continent and Islands, London, circa 1673, $13,200; and David M. Burr, Map of New Jersey and Pennsylvania Exhibiting the Post Offices, Post Roads, Canals, Rail Roads, &c, hand-colored, Washington, 1839, $4,080.

Other significant maps of American subjects included an early manuscript plat map of Rhode Island’s Conanicut Island, circa 1723, $14,400; Herman Moll, A New and Exact Map of the Dominions of the King of Great Britian on ye Continent of North America, London, circa 1735, $12,000; and William Faden, The Province of New Jersey, Divided into East and West, commonly called The Jerseys, folding map, London, 1777, $14,400.

Atlases and groups of maps also performed well, with a copy of Carey’s American Atlas: Containing Twenty Maps and One Chart, the first American atlas published in America, Philadelphia, 1795, selling for $24,000; and a group of over 22 maps concerning the growth of California during the 1920s and 1930s, achieving a surprising price of $16,800 against an estimate of just $400 to $600.

A beautiful but incomplete copy of David Roberts’s six-volume illustrated masterpiece The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt and Nubia, London, 1842-49, was the highest priced item in the auction, bringing $33,600.

Other notable books with plates included Florence H. Woodward, The Genus Masdevallia, with 87 hand-colored lithographed plates of orchids, London, 1896, $4,800, and a partial copy of Thomas and William Daniell, Oriental Scenery . . . of Hindoostan, with 92 plates, London, 1816, $2,400.

There were several individual hand-colored Audubon plates, among them Barnacle Goose, Plate CCXCVI, from Birds of America, London, 1836, $5,040; in addition to a hand-colored Nathaniel Currier print after Louis Maurer’s Deer Shooting “on the Shattagee,” New York, 1855, $3,690; Edward Sachse’s hand-colored View of Washington City, Baltimore, 1870, $3,600; and a circa 1873 Bird’s Eye View of the City of Houston, Texas, $3,840.

The top-selling item from a small selection of ephemera was a deck of 77 18th century French playing cards in their original box, $2,280.

For complete results, an illustrated color catalogue, with prices realized on request, is available for $35 from Swann Galleries, 104 East 25th Street, New York, NY 10010, and may be viewed online at www.swanngalleries.com.

For further information, and to propose consignments to upcoming auctions of Maps & Atlases, Natural History and Historical Prints, please contact Gary Garland at (212) 254-4710, ext. 17, or via email at ggarland@swanngalleries.com.
 
*All prices include buyer’s premium.
 

Books have been ranked as number 8 in our 2011 list of the world's most popular collecting categories.

Wikicollecting.org has released its annual list of the most popular collecting related hobbies.

The data is based on the collecting interests of 150,000 collectors in 160 countries around the world.

The 20 most popular collecting areas of 2011 are listed as:

1. Postage stamps
2. Antiques
3. Autographs
4. Memorabilia
                    a. Sports memorabilia
                    b. Music memorabilia
                    c. Space memorabilia
                    d. Film memorabilia
                    e. Royal memorabilia                  
5. Coins
6. Trading cards
7. Art
8. Books
9. Classic cars
10. Comic books
11. Medals
12. Watches
13. Breweriana
14. Furniture
15. Silver
16. Records
17. Photography
18. Figurines
19. Cigarette cards
20. Toy soldiers

The full list comprises 75 collecting categories and is available to view at www.wikicollecting.org

-- About Wikicollecting --
Wikicollecting.org is an open-source encyclopaedia covering all areas of antiques and collectibles.

The site features pages contributed by collectors, experts, and professional dealers, as well as collecting clubs and societies. It currently has readers and contributors in more than 160 countries around the world.

Wikicollecting.org welcomes anyone with an interest in collecting, with the common goal of building a free reference tool for future generations of collectors.
 
The site also offers a free listing service to collecting related dealers and businesses, which allows them to maintain and update their own pages, free of charge.

For further information, please contact:
Info@wikicollecting.org

New York, NY, January 2012— Bolstered by its recent political independence, economic prosperity, and maritime supremacy, the Dutch Republic witnessed an artistic flourishing during the seventeenth century, known as the Dutch Golden Age. The Morgan Library & Museum presents over ninety drawings by some of the preeminent artists of the period—among them Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn and his followers Ferdinand Bol and Gerbrand van den Eeckhout; Abraham Bloemaert; Aelbert Cuyp; and Jan van Goyen—in an exhibition titled Rembrandt's World: Dutch Drawings from the Clement C. Moore Collection, on view from January 20 through April 29, 2012.

The Dutch Republic of the seventeenth century was a federation of seven states—Holland, Zeeland, Gelderland, Utrecht, Friesland, Overijssel, and Groningen. The exhibition focuses on artists who worked primarily in their native lands, rather than those whose careers took them to France, Italy, or elsewhere abroad, and highlights the broad spectrum of subjects—portraiture, marine views, landscapes, biblical and mythological narratives, genre scenes, and the natural world—that fueled their creative imaginations. 



"The collection of Clement C. Moore, known as Chips, is a testament to the concentration of talent in the Dutch Republic during its Golden Age" said William M. Griswold, director of The Morgan Library & Museum. "The period is, of course, associated with Rembrandt, but there were many other extraordinary artists working at this time as well. Their exceptional creativity and skill is on display in this exhibition, and we are delighted Chips has chosen the Morgan, not only as the venue for this exhibition, but as the eventual permanent repository of these works, as well."



"I am honored and thrilled that the Morgan has chosen to exhibit and catalogue my collection of Dutch drawings," said Mr. Moore. "These works have been a source of great pleasure for my family and me over many years, and it is my hope others will find them as appealing. They provide us with an image of the legendary Golden Age—a period that notably included the founding of New York by Dutch traders—so an opening here is especially appropriate."




PORTRAITS AND FIGURE STUDIES
Among the finest drawings in the exhibition are portraits and figure studies, including two by Rembrandt. A Beggar, Facing Left, Leaning on a Stick is Moore's most recently acquired Rembrandt, and is also the earliest chronologically, dating to 1628-29. Rembrandt executed the sheet during his Leiden period (1625-31), when he was preoccupied with the theme of beggars. This figure, with his tall hat, ample cloak, and walking stick, was deftly sketched with an economical use of pen and ink. Adjusting the pressure on his pen and with it the width of each stroke—thin for the shading of the figure's face, thick for the darkest side of his hat—Rembrandt worked quickly and confidently to capture the essence of the man, and masterfully suggested the fall of light through a combination of areas of blank paper, such as the hat, and rapid parallel hatching in his face, left leg, and the ground at the left to suggest volume and shadow.
 
Two Men in Polish Dress Conversing demonstrates Rembrandt's powers of observation. An endless variety of people lived in and traveled through the Dutch Republic during this period, and the artist diligently recorded the bustling activity of the world around him. The men represented here are identifiable as Ashkenazi or Eastern European Jews by their long beards and costumes. Their garments, źupans, were typically worn by Polish Jews in the seventeenth century. The man on the left dons a rabbi's hat; the figure on the right, a kolpak, the soft-peaked cap of Polish origin worn by unmarried Ashkenazi men. By the 1640s when Rembrandt created this drawing, he had come to favor black chalk; this work belongs to a group of some sixty-five chalk studies representing single or small clusters of figures shown in everyday pursuits.
 
Hendrick Goltzius was one of the most important Dutch artists of the transitional period between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. His rapidly drawn Portrait of a Smiling Young Boy reflects a departure from the artist's early Mannerist style in favor of greater naturalism following a trip to Italy in 1590-91. His bold, animated pen work masterfully captures the sitter's lively, smiling eyes. The awkwardly drawn hands may constitute an autobiographical allusion: Goltzius's own fingers were badly burned and his hand permanently crippled during childhood.
 

David Bailly is represented by three accomplished works, including his 1624 The Lute Player. This drawing is one of at least three copies that Bailly made after a celebrated painting by Frans Hals (now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris). Minor differences, such as the straggly strands of hair on the lute player's forehead and the position of his little finger on the neck of his instrument, suggest that Bailly used as his model an early copy of the original, perhaps by Frans's brother, Dirck Hals, or his pupil, Judith Leyster. The table, which puts the viewer at a low vantage point, was entirely Bailly's invention.




SEASCAPES

In the seventeenth century, the Dutch Republic dominated the seas and much of the world's trade. The invention of sawmills enabled the construction of an enormous fleet of ships and by 1630 Amsterdam had succeeded Antwerp as the world's most important port. The centrality of water to the Dutch way of life is repeatedly attested to in drawings in the Moore collection, and indeed in countless other images produced during this period.
 

Scenes like Herman Saftleven's View of a Harbor with a Careened Ship embody the bustling energy of seaports where ships were repaired, and fish and wares were sold. At the center of this view is a careened ship, beached at high tide to expose its hull for repair with hot tar, which is seen generating smoke. During the seventeenth century oceangoing vessels would last approximately two years on the open sea before succumbing to worm damage or dry rot.



Willem van de Velde the Elder spent his entire career drawing boats and seascapes, and his accurate recordings of naval scenes remind one of the constant military vigilance necessary to maintain Dutch command of the seas. We know that van de Velde was present as an informal observer at a turning point in the Thirty Years' War in 1639, immortalized in his striking drawing A View of Dunkirk Harbor, Probably During the Blockade by the Dutch. Some thirteen years later when the first Anglo-Dutch War broke out in 1652, van de Velde was hired by the Dutch States-General to officially record the various battles and maneuvers of the Dutch fleet. The Ship Oosterwijk with the Assembled Dutch Fleet of 1664 is one such sweeping firsthand sketch, which he would make from the deck of the vessel before working them up into pen paintings or turning them over to his son to replicate in oil on canvas.
 



LANDSCAPES
We have a better idea of what the Dutch countryside looked like in the early seventeenth century than we do of anywhere else in Europe at the time. River with a Bridge and Fishermen Hauling in a Net, a masterful drawing by Jacob de Gheyn II, is one of the artist's few surviving landscapes. In this sheet, the viewer's eye is drawn into the distance by the simple yet ambitious one-point perspective. The two trees on the right bank, one dead and the other in full leaf, symbolize the contrast between spiritual purgatory and salvation. However, positive motifs, such as the sea's abundance and the fertility of the fields dominate, creating an image of optimism that reflects the spirit of the Golden Age.


Allart van Everdingen's Winter Landscape with Skaters, Three Windmills, and Ship Under Repair epitomizes a quintessential Dutch Golden Age landscape with its depiction of figures engaged in such daily activities as going to market, skating, or hauling in the day's catch; ships sailing in the distance or under repair; and, of course, the ubiquitous windmill.
 

Aelbert Cuyp, best known for his idyllic views of the Dutch countryside, is represented by his luminous Windmill by a River, with a Jetty in the Foreground. The jetty was likely a construct of Cuyp's imagination, added to give depth to the composition. 





GENRE SCENES
Perhaps the most entertaining drawings of the Dutch Golden Age are those that depict scenes from everyday life—eating, drinking, skating, music-making, game-playing, and carousing. Willem Pietersz. Buytewech's exquisitely detailed Fish Market draws us into a bustling scene where the day's catch arrives amid fish sellers' offerings—slithering eels, pike, dried herring, and plaice. The work belongs to a series of four compositions representing the elements, this drawing symbolizing Water.
 

Isaac van Ostade's genre drawings masterfully capture private moments and reveal the artist's empathy for the human condition. In his A Peasant Pouring a Glass of Beer for His Companion, a standing man bends over to refill his partner's glass. In return, she reaches up and tenderly touches his arm, perhaps to thank him or to signal that she has had enough. Ostade's energetic The Artist in his Studio invites us to peer over a painter's shoulder as a potential client watches him work. The play of light at first suggests a nocturnal scene, but the two artificial sources of illumination—either candles or lanterns, one at the painter's feet and the other on the assistants' table—would have augmented the natural daylight in the shadowy interior. 



Among the most amusing scenes is Cornelis Dusart's Shrovetide Revelers Entering a Courtyard. Shrovetide festivities offered an unapologetic excuse for indulgence and foolish behavior before the penitence demanded by the Lenten season. In Dusart's drawing, the entertainment that unfolds before us is so captivating,it is easy to overlook the appalling state of the house, its broken windows, and a spilled basket of coal—not to mention the figures shamelessly urinating, defecating, or drunkenly enjoying their beer.



Gerbrand van den Eeckhout's Young Man Seated on a Barrel, with His Hand Raised to His Head offers an allegory of human frailty or the foible of overindulgence celebrated in Dusart's drawing. Van den Eeckhout's black and white chalk drawings on blue paper have been highly prized since the seventeenth century. A seemingly genteel young man or soldier holds his hand up to shield his eyes from the unrelenting sun, his sensitivity to light perhaps explainable by the contents of the barrel upon which he sits.




ANIMALS AND NATURALIA
Dutch artists had myriad points of access to exotic animals, whether from ships returning from the far corners of the known world, traveling circuses, menageries, street fairs, or markets. Johannes Bronckhorst, who resided in Hoorn, the port of entry for the ships of the Dutch East India Company, had ample opportunity to study the exotic taxidermied birds imported into the country. Bronckhorst accurately rendered the body of his King Bird of Paradise, though he could not have known that it had blue feet or that its two elongated tail wires were decorated with emerald green disk feathers on its tip (the bird's feet and tail feathers were routinely removed by Asian traders, leading to the myth that it had no feet and thus spent its life in perpetual flight).



Cornelis Saftleven's Two Cows by a River with a Church Steeple in the Distance is one of several representations of domestic animals in the exhibition. Before 1600, it was unusual to find cows as the subject of a composition; Saftleven's drawing points to the increasingly important role dairy farming began to play in the Dutch economy over the course of the seventeenth century.

Cow pictures emerged as a genre, and scenes such as this one, which includes two docile animals in an idealized rural landscape, provoked nostalgia for a simple way of life among wealthy Amsterdam collectors.



The Red and White Tulip drawings by Pieter Holsteyn II provide evidence of the enormous popularity and influence of tulips at this time. Coveted collector's items, tulips were status symbols worth literally millions of dollars in today's currency. The surge in tulip prices led to futures markets and speculation, a phenomenon later called tulipmania. So valuable were these bulbs that specialist botanical artists like Holsteyn created elaborate, hand-painted manuscript catalogues in order to market the bulbs to potential clients, and to record each variety's colors. The two sheets on view come from such a disbound album. 




BIBLICAL AND MYTHOLOGICAL SUBJECTS
Of the final two Rembrandt drawings in the exhibition, one is clearly connected with a biblical scene; the other presents challenges for scholars, and its subject remains a matter of debate. Study of a Sick Woman for the 'Hundred Guilder Print' and an Alternative Sketch of Her Head, ca. 1647-49, is likely the first of five or six probable studies for Rembrandt's most celebrated etching, Christ Healing the Sick ('Hundred Guilder Print'), and the last held in a private collection. Rembrandt achieved an extremely expressive drawing despite his sparse use of pen and ink, creating this preliminary sketch of the seated woman who appears at the center of the finished etching. Rarely is there such a clear connection between Rembrandt's drawings and prints.



More elusive is the subject of Rembrandt's St. Peter Preaching (?), a group figure study whose tentative subject has not been identified with absolute certainty. If this is indeed a biblical scene, it is the only one for which Rembrandt used black chalk, a medium he normally reserved for landscapes and group studies. An alternative explanation is that this may, in fact, be an elaborate study of figures in exotic costumes, a theme to which Rembrandt turned frequently. 



Abraham Bloemaert's Two Half-Length Studies of a Young Shepherd and a Study of the Upper Body of a Shepherd was the first major figure study to enter the Moore collection. A devout Catholic, Bloemaert received several important commissions from the church, including his first documented altarpiece, Adoration of the Shepherds, with which these studies are connected.

Another important work by Bloemaert, Danaë Receiving the Golden Rain, represents the type of mythological scene that afforded sixteenth- and seventeenth-century artists an acceptable rationale for depicting the female nude. Dating to 1610, the drawing's subject is the Greek myth in which Jupiter, disguised as a shower of golden coins, gains entry to the bedchamber of Danaë, whose father, King Acrisius, has locked her away to prevent her from conceiving the male child prophesied to kill him. Danaë is impregnated by the coins and bears Perseus, who later fulfills the prophecy by accidentally striking Acrusius with his javelin. 




CATALOGUE

An accompanying, fully illustrated catalogue by Jane Shoaf Turner, head of the Rijksprentenkabinet of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and editor of Master Drawing, includes new research and comprehensive entries on the drawings presented in the exhibition. ($40; available at the Morgan Shop, or online at www.themorgan.org/shop).




PUBLIC PROGRAMS

Rembrandt and the Crying Boy: A Question of Method 
Wednesday, January 25, 6:30 p.m.

Martin Royalton-Kisch, eminent scholar and former curator of Dutch and Flemish drawings and prints at the British Museum, will discuss the attribution of a newly discovered Rembrandt drawing and explore how decisions on authenticity are currently reached in the fraught field of Rembrandt scholarship.

Rembrandt's World: Dutch Drawings from the Clement C. Moore Collection will be open at 5:30 pm especially for program attendees. 

Tickets: $15; $10 for Members 



Rembrandt's World: Dutch Drawings from the Clement C. Moore Collection 
Gallery Talk
Friday, February 10, 7 p.m.

With Esther Bell, Moore Curatorial Fellow, Department of Drawings and Prints

Free



Rembrandt

Friday, March 23, 7 p.m.
(1936, 85 minutes)

Director: Alexander Korda
Charles Laughton stars in this moving, elegant biopic about the Dutch painter. Shot in black and white but with close Rembrandtesque attention to light, this film begins when Rembrandt's reputation was at its height, and tracks his quiet descent into loneliness and isolated self-expression. 

Free



The Lure of the Local in the Dutch Golden Age

with Christopher D.M. Atkins
Tuesday, April 3, 6:30 p.m.
In this lecture, Christopher D.M. Atkins of Queens College and The Graduate Center/The City University of New York will explore why Dutch artists increasingly decided not to travel internationally during a period when their Flemish, French, and Italian counterparts frequently did. Atkins will discuss the depiction of sites and activities culled from Dutch artists' local surroundings, images for which the Dutch Golden Age is so well known.

Rembrandt's World: Dutch Drawings from the Clement C. Moore Collection will be open at 5:30 pm especially for program attendees.

Tickets: $15; $10 for Members




ORGANIZATION AND SPONSORSHIP
This exhibition is made possible in part by the Rita Markus Fund for Exhibitions.

The catalogue is underwritten by The Andrew W. Mellon Fund for Research and Publications.

Public programs are generously supported by The Netherland-America Foundation, Inc.



Rembrandt's World is organized by Linda Wolk-Simon, Charles W. Engelhard Curator and Head of the Department of Drawings and Prints, and Esther Bell, Moore Curatorial Fellow, Department of Drawings and Prints.

The Morgan exhibition program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

The Morgan Library & Museum

The Morgan Library & Museum began as the private library of financier Pierpont Morgan, one of the preeminent collectors and cultural benefactors in the United States. Today, more than a century after its founding in 1906, the Morgan serves as a museum, independent research library, musical venue, architectural landmark, and historic site. In October 2010, the Morgan completed the first-ever restoration of its original McKim building, Pierpont Morgan’s private library, and the core of the institution. In tandem with the 2006 expansion project by architect Renzo Piano, the Morgan now provides visitors unprecedented access to its world-renowned collections of drawings, literary and historical manuscripts, musical scores, medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, printed books, and ancient Near Eastern seals and tablets.



General Information

The Morgan Library & Museum

225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016-3405

212.685.0008

www.themorgan.org


Hours
Tuesday-Thursday, 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; extended Friday hours, 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; closed Mondays, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day. The Morgan closes at 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.

Admission
$15 for adults; $10 for students, seniors (65 and over), and children (under 16); free to Members and children 12 and under accompanied by an adult. Admission is free on Fridays from 7 to 9 p.m. Admission is not required to visit the Morgan Shop.

ORANGE, Calif. - Southern California auctioneer and estate specialist Don Presley is in expansion mode. The floor and storage space at his Orange County gallery will soon increase by 18,000 square feet with the incorporation of recently vacated retail space next door.

“Our previous neighbor needed more room and moved to a larger venue. This worked out great for both of us. My company was also in need of additional space for photography, cataloging and storage, so we annexed the 18,000 square feet available right next door to us. It worked out perfectly,” Presley said.

The Presley facility, located in the city of Orange at 1319 W. Katella Ave., is currently being painted and remodeled. All refurbishments should be completed very shortly.

“This expansion is going to streamline our operation, enable us to accept a larger volume of merchandise and allow my team to work on a timetable that’s two months ahead of each sale,” said Presley. “We’ll also have plenty of room for our new series of monthly Discovery sales, which we will launch on January 21st. These sales will provide an auction outlet for new and used estate furniture, office furnishings and other items that aren’t suitable for our antiques and fine art auctions,” Presley said.

Typically, there will be 500 to 1,000 lots in each of Presley’s Saturday Discovery sales. A live preview will precede each of the sales, and absentee and phone bids will be accepted. “We won’t have Internet live bidding for these sales only because of the nature of the merchandise. Some of the items, like appliances, would be difficult to ship.”

Many box lots will be included in Presley’s new monthly sales. “That’s where you make your discoveries, digging through boxes to see what someone else overlooked. We think bidders and bargain hunters will find these sales interesting and exciting,” Presley said.

For additional information, call Don Presley at 714-633-2437 or e-mail info@donpresleyauction.com. Visit the company online at www.donpresleyauction.com.

IRVINE, Calif. (Jan. 5, 2012) - For those with an interest in antiques, fine arts and decorative arts and interested to become a qualified appraiser, UC Irvine Extension will host a free webinar detailing the techniques and practices of the industry and the requirements to become a professional appraiser. The free webinar, “Appraisal Studies in Fine & Decorative Arts Webinar: Develop Your Career as a Professional Appraiser”, is scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 8, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. PST.

“The Appraisal Studies webinar is a convenient and informational format for those with a love for fine and decorative arts to learn how to take that drive and turn it into a profession they love,” said Kirwan Rockefeller, Ph.D., director of arts and humanities at UC Irvine Extension. “Obtaining or even furthering a career choice fueled by passion can be the driving force for success in such a competitive market when paired with a UC Irvine Extension education and the expertise of the American Society of Appraisers in the Appraisal Studies in Fine and Decorative Arts Certificate Program.”
      
The webinar is geared toward anyone interested in beginning a new career or those already working in the fine and decorative arts field for personal enrichment. Such fields include art gallery personnel, museum docents/volunteers, art dealers, jewelers, auctioneers, estate liquidators or insurance adjusters. Attendees will receive information on how to begin a career through appraisal studies, with emphasis on how the Appraisal Studies in Fine and Decorative Arts Certificate Program can help one to learn the appraising business from UC Irvine Extension’s expert instructors and partnership with the American Society of Appraisers.

The Appraisal Studies in Fine and Decorative Arts Certificate Program at UC Irvine Extension is the result of a partnership with the American Society of Appraisers (ASA), one of the leading professional appraising organizations representing all of the disciplines of appraisal specialists and offers the only university-based program west of New York City in appraisal studies. The certificate program provides students with the highest quality and affordable appraisal training, courses and institutes. Taught by top-notch industry professionals of appraisal leaders, the appraisal certificate also prepares students for eventual membership in the ASA. Learning the appraising business from expert instructors enables students to gain the specialized knowledge and practical hands-on experience to competently produce appraisals for a variety of specific objectives such as insurance coverage, estate tax, damage claims, charitable contributions, sale, dissolution of marriage, equitable distribution and liquidation.

To learn more about UC Irvine Extension’s Appraisal Studies webinar and certificate program to succeed in today's competitive world of art, antiques, fine and decorative arts, please visit http://unex.uci.edu/certificates/arts_culture/appraisals/. Kay Kohara, Program Representative can also be reached by phone or email at (949) 824-5592 or unexarts@uci.edu.
 
About UC Irvine Extension: University of California, Irvine Extension is the continuing education arm of UC Irvine. Through thousands of courses and programs offered on campus, online and on site, UC Irvine Extension helps adult learners reach their career advancement and personal enrichment goals —and is celebrating 50 years of providing universally accessible, university-level learning to local, regional, and  global communities. Learn more at extension.uci.edu, or join us on Facebook at facebook.com/uciextension.


About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is a top-ranked university dedicated to research, scholarship and community service. Led by Chancellor Michael Drake since 2005, UCI is among the most dynamic campuses in the University of California system, with nearly 28,000 undergraduate and graduate students, 1,100 faculty and 9,000 staff. Orange County’s largest employer, UCI contributes an annual economic impact of $4.2 billion. For more UCI news, visit www.today.uci.edu.
 
###

PASADENA, CA; January 4, 2012 - PBS today unveiled a new competition series from the producers of ANTIQUES ROADSHOW: MARKET WARS (w.t.), a 20-episode series, airing summer/fall 2012, that gives audiences a lesson in the bare-knuckles business of scoring a bargain. In each one-hour episode, professional antiques dealers put their reputations on the line — as they’re pitted against the clock, a budget and each other — and embark on nationwide treasure hunts, scouring flea markets and antiques shops for vintage valuables. The goal: to score the biggest profit in each show’s final auction segment.
 
“ANTIQUES ROADSHOW has been the leader in the popular antiques and collectibles genre for a long time,” said Marsha Bemko, ANTIQUES ROADSHOW executive producer. “MARKET WARS turns its lens on the antiques experts themselves and the real, rough-and-tumble competition they face in the marketplace.”

In each episode, four antiques professionals compete head-to-head, foraging for items and taking them to auction. MARKET WARS follows the experts on their pursuits, highlighting the marvels that different areas of the country can offer the intrepid antiques hunter. The expert who makes the highest total profit at auction in each episode is named the winner, earning bragging rights for toppling his peers. With affectionate humor, MARKET WARS follows the combatants, gleaning the best tactics from the battlefield and arming viewers to pursue their own successful treasure hunts.

“PBS continues to implement our primetime strategy to bring viewers new shows paired with other like-minded content,” said John F. Wilson, senior vice president & chief TV programming executive. “We’ve had great success pairing natural history and science programming on Wednesday nights. We’re confident that pairing MARKET WARS and ANTIQUES ROADSHOW will even more firmly anchor Monday nights as a popular viewing destination for exploration and history.”

About WGBH

WGBH Boston is the largest producer of PBS content for TV and the Web, including Antiques Roadshow (PBS’s most-watched program), Masterpiece, Nova, Frontline, American Experience, Arthur, Curious George (the No. 1 show on TV for preschoolers), Martha Speaks and other signature programs “produced in Boston, shared with the world” and enjoyed on platforms from televisions to tablets to mobile devices. WGBH also is a major source of programs for public radio (including The World), a leader in educational multimedia (including PBS LearningMedia, a free online service providing the nation’s educators with curriculum-based digital content to meet 21st-century learners’ needs), and a pioneer in technologies and services that make media accessible to the 36 million Americans who are deaf, hard of hearing, blind or visually impaired. WGBH has been recognized with hundreds of honors: Emmys, Peabodys, duPont-Columbia Awards…even two Oscars. Find more information at www.wgbh.org.

About PBS

PBS, with its nearly 360 member stations, offers all Americans the opportunity to explore new ideas and new worlds through television and online content. Each month, PBS reaches 124 million people through television and 20 million people online, inviting them to experience the worlds of science, history, nature and public affairs; to hear diverse viewpoints; and to take front row seats to world-class drama and performances. PBS’ broad array of programs has been consistently honored by the industry’s most coveted award competitions. Teachers of children from pre-K through 12th grade turn to PBS for digital content and services that help bring classroom lessons to life. PBS’ premier children’s TV programming and its website, pbskids.org, are parents’ and teachers’ most trusted partners in inspiring and nurturing curiosity and love of learning in children. More information about PBS is available at www.pbs.org, one of the leading dot-org websites on the Internet, or by following PBS on Twitter, Facebook or through our apps for mobile devices.

Specific program information and updates for press are available at pbs.org/pressroom or by following PBS Pressroom on Twitter.
Contacts: 
Judy Matthews, WGBH Boston
617-300-5343
judy_matthews@wgbh.org
Carrie Johnson, PBS
703-739-5129
cjohnson@pbs.org





New York—Swann Galleries’ December 1 auction of Printed & Manuscript Americana / Ocean Liner Memorabilia saw an unusually high number of registered bidders. The American Revolution and Civil War sections of the Americana sale attracted the strongest interest, and led to some impressive results.

Rick Stattler, Americana Specialist at Swann, said, “The sale as a whole featured 364 registered bidders, an almost unprecedented number at Swann, but then the 711 lots on offer also approached Swann’s record for a single-day sale. Even more than usual for an Americana auction, the Revolution and Civil War sections seemed to attract the strongest interest. The collection featured several important manuscript and archival lots, which did well almost without exception.”
The sale’s top lot was a large archive of the papers of Brigadier General Joseph Dwight, who led Massachusetts troops during King George’s War. The bulk of this collection consisted of letters addressed to Dwight from his subordinate officers from the summer of 1746 through early 1748. It brought $24,000*.

Also selling for $24,000 was the first newspaper printing of the Bill of Rights, which appeared in the Gazette of the United States, New York, 3 October 1789.

Of the 20 top lots, most went to dealers, some of them likely acting as agents for other parties.  Collectors did take four of the top lots directly, most notably an April 1776 edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense for $16,800 and a 1697 first edition of Hennepin’s Nouvelle Decouverte d'un Tres Grand Pays situé dans l'Amerique for $10,200.

Two important lots were won by institutions: a group of letters by Socialist leader Eugene Debs went to Indiana State University for $6,720; and a large collection of Muhlenberg family correspondence from the 1820s and 1830s went to Dickinson College in Pennsylvania for the same price.

A scarce and important 1872 album of California photographs by Thomas Houseworth, estimated at $2,000 to $3000 due to condition problems, nonetheless brought $21,600 in a fierce battle between eight telephone bidders.

 Record-setting lots included a beautiful four-volume set of Theodore Roosevelt’s Winning of the West, brought $9,600, easily breaking the previous record of $6,600; Ethan Smith’s A View of the Hebrews, which appears infrequently at auction, sold for $1,200, with the previous record being $180 in 1983; and a signed set of Shelby Foote’s trilogy The Civil War: A Narrative brought $1,020, and no other work by the author had ever topped $330 before at auction.

Generating the most interest among the Ocean Liner Memorabilia section of the sale were lots related to the Titanic. Among these were a deck plan of first-class accommodations, December 1911, $7,200; and a landing or custom card issued to Mrs. Cassebeer onboard the Carpathia after being rescued from the Titanic at sea, 10 April 1912, $6,240.

For complete results, an illustrated catalogue (with prices realized on request) is available for $35 from Swann Galleries, Inc., 104 East 25th Street, New York, NY 10010. Catalogue and prices are also available online at www.swanngalleries.com.

For further information, and to propose consignments to upcoming Americana auctions, please contact Rick Stattler by telephone at (212) 254-4710, extension 27, or email: rstattler@swanngalleries.com.
 
*All prices include buyer’s premium.
# # #

For Immediate Release-January 4, 2012

Lloyd Library and Museum (LLM) is pleased to announce: "Turning up the Heat this Winter: Peppers in Image and Word." January 14 through April 13, 2012. Opening reception and lecture-Saturday, January 14, 2012, 4-7 p.m.

This exhibit explores the depictions and descriptions of the chili pepper-Capsicum annum [reproduction at left from LLM's copy of A Curious Herbal by Elizabeth Blackwell, volume 1, plate 1, 1739]-a plant that, over recent years, has experienced a growth in popularity both as a food and medicinal ingredient.  Love peppers or hate them, come to see LLM's new exhibit "Turning up the Heat this Winter: Peppers in Image and Word" to learn about them and taste the heat at a lecture and catered reception on Saturday, January 14, 2012, 4-7 p.m. This event is free and open to the public.

The exhibit will feature books from LLM's vast collection, such as the 1516 edition of Pliny the Elder's (23-79 CE) Natural History, the earliest mention of it in LLM.  From there, the exhibit follows the economic, medicinal, and botanical history of this popular plant through five centuries.  In addition to Pliny's book, some of the earliest depictions of Capsicum in European literature will be on display-featuring herbals from the 16th and early 17th centuries by such notables as Leonhard Fuchs (1501-1566), Carolus Clusius (1526-1609), Matthias de L'Obel (1538-1616), and Rembert Dodoens (1517-1585).  These are interesting volumes, in part because the information on peppers was so limited, and thus a little confused and confusing.  Now, we know much more about chili peppers.  There are whole volumes devoted to the plant, its fruit, uses, and benefits.  Jean Andrews (1923-2010), of the University of Texas at Austin, wrote two notable works on the pepper and became a world-expert on the subject, which will be on display, along with a host of other fascinating works.

W. Hardy Eshbaugh, a world-renowned expert on peppers will deliver a brief but fascinating lecture, "Some Like it Hot: The Little Known World of Chili Peppers" on January 14 at 4:30.  Eshbaugh, Professor Emeritus of Botany at Miami University, received his Ph.D from Indiana University in 1964 and, since then, established a long and distinguished career in Miami University's Botany Department (1967-1998), serving as Chair from 1983-1988.  During his career and
beyond, Eshbaugh attained his reputation as a Capsicum expert.  With his assistance, the accompanying art exhibit will include a variety of images of peppers, including some by Jean Andrews, David Carangilo, Amal Naj, and Jeff Schickowski.  Eshbaugh's photos feature some of his own finds from the field.  In addition, reproductions of Eduardo Fuss's photo art will be featured with the permission of the Zimmerman Library of the University of New Mexico.

The Lloyd Library and Museum, located at 917 Plum Street, downtown Cincinnati, is a local and regional cultural treasure.  The library was developed in the nineteenth century by the Lloyd brothers-John Uri, Curtis Gates, and Nelson Ashley to provide reference sources for Lloyd Brothers Pharmacists, Inc., one of the leading pharmaceutical companies of the period.  Today the library is recognized worldwide by the scientific community as a vital research center. The library holds, acquires, and provides access to both historic and current materials on the subjects of pharmacy, botany, horticulture, herbal and alternative medicine, pharmacognosy, and related topics.  Although our collections have a scientific focus, they also have relevance to humanities topics, such as visual arts and foreign languages through resources that feature botanical and natural history illustrations, original artworks, and travel literature, thereby revealing the convergence of science and art. The Lloyd is open to anyone with an interest in these topics.  Free parking is available for patrons and visitors behind the library building.  For more information, visit the Lloyd website at www.lloydlibrary.org.


Lloyd Library and Museum
917 Plum Street
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202
513-721-3707
www.lloydlibrary.org
Open Monday through Friday 8:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
Open the third Saturday of the month, September through May, 9:00 a.m.
to 4:00 p.m.

Boston, MA - Marvin Getman of Impact Events Group, Lexington, MA. announced the acquisition of the popular Boston Book, Print and Ephemera Show from Bernice Bornstein of Bornstein shows, Peabody MA. Getman also produces the Book, Paper, and Photo Expo held in May in suburban Boston which is sponsored by Massachusetts and Rhode Island Antiquarian Booksellers (MARIAB).
  
Bernice started the Boston Book, Print and Ephemera show 15 years ago as a satellite show to the fall Boston ABAA International Book Fair. Originally produced in a garage next door to the Hynes Auditorium, Bornstein grew the show and moved it to the Radisson Hotel and then to the Park Plaza Castle. This show has become a staple in the Boston Book Market and is very popular among the participants of the annual ABAA Book show, many of whom travel to Boston from all over the country.
  
"Bernice provided a very valuable service to the Antiquarian book community and I was delighted and honored when she approached me about purchasing this well established show." stated Getman. "I look forward to building upon the solid base that Bernice has built."

Getman, having produced many shows in the Boston area over the past 30 years, found a fabulous new venue for the show after learning that the Castle was not available for 2012.  The Back Bay Events Center, also known as The Dorothy Quincy Suite at John Hancock Hall, will be the new home for the show. Getman asserted, "The new home is a gem of a find. In addition to being a quarter mile closer to the Hynes, it was recently renovated and has space for 70 dealers, great lighting, carpeting, and discounted parking."   

Getman, known for his marketing skills, says that he will concentrate his efforts in building the attendance for the show. "This show already has a built-in audience especially in the morning before the ABAA show opens. I am developing a marketing plan to keep the attendance strong all day long, and I've been in touch with several large companies in the vicinity who have agreed to distribute tickets to their employees. Exhibitors consistently tell me that they like my shows for their organization and for the large crowds I attract. I intend to do the same for this show."
 
Contracts for the new Boston Book, Print and Ephemera Show will be available this spring. Last year's dealers will automatically be sent a contract. Other dealers wishing to receive a contract for the 2012 show should contact Getman at mgetman@bostonbookshow.com or call him at 781-862-4039. In 2012 the show will be held November 17 from 8am - 4pm.

More information can be found on the website www.bostonbookshow.com
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AUSTIN, Texas — “The King James Bible: Its History and Influence,” an exhibition at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin, demonstrates that four centuries after its first printing, the King James Bible (1611) remains one of the most influential books in the English language.

Running from Feb. 28 to July 29, the exhibition includes other notable Bibles and examples of modern book design featuring biblical texts, resulting in the most comprehensive display of Bibles and related materials in the Ransom Center’s history.

Featuring more than 220 items from the Ransom Center’s collections, the exhibition also includes materials from the Folger Shakespeare Library of Washington, D.C., and Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford that help reveal how the King James Bible translation came into being.

The language and imagery of the King James translation has had an extensive influence on English-speaking cultures and literature, from John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” to the poetry of Phillis Wheatley to Norman Mailer’s novel “The Gospel According to the Son.”

The language of the King James Bible permeated the Civil War-era writings of Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln and both pro- and anti-slavery advocates.

It also provided the title for Walker Evans and James Agee’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” a landmark work on sharecroppers hit hard by the Depression, and even inspired the tattoos for Robert De Niro’s character, convict Max Cady, in the film “Cape Fear” (1991).

This wide-ranging influence can be seen throughout the Ransom Center’s film, photography, art and literary holdings.

“The language of the King James Bible has become an integral part of our daily speech — so much so that we rarely know we’re using it,” said Danielle Sigler, the Ransom Center’s assistant director and curator for academic programs and one of the exhibition co-curators. “Whether encouraging someone to ‘eat, drink and be merry’ or getting through something by ‘the skin of one’s teeth,’ we are echoing the translators of the King James Bible.”

Since the origin of printing, the Bible has been regarded as the ultimate challenge for artists, designers and printers. Perhaps no single object embodies this better than Johannes Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible, which is on permanent display at the Ransom Center.

Many other monuments of classic fine printing, ranging from an early Nicolas Jenson illuminated Bible to the Christopher Plantin Polyglot Bible to an 18th-century folio Bible printed by John Baskerville, will be featured in the exhibition.

The Ransom Center’s modern printing collections provide colorful and original treatments of biblical passages by well-known book designers and artists, including a suite of prints from Marc Chagall’s “Exodus,” the massive Oxford Lectern Bible designed by Bruce Rogers, plates from art deco books by François-Louis Schmied and the entire set of Jacob Lawrence’s large silkscreen prints for “Eight Passages” from the book of Genesis.
 
This exhibition and related materials were developed by the Harry Ransom Center, Folger Shakespeare Library and Bodleian Library. This exhibition has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the support of Margaret Hight.

“The King James Bible: Its History and Influence” can be seen in the Ransom Center Galleries on Tuesdays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended Thursday hours until 7 p.m. On Saturdays and Sundays the galleries are open from noon to 5 p.m. The galleries are closed on Mondays.

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In Illuminations: The Private Lives of the Medieval Kings BBC Four will tell the story of the Medieval monarchy as preserved through stunning illuminated manuscripts from the British Library’s Royal Manuscripts collection which contains some of the most priceless documents in our national history. Some of these manuscripts were commissioned by the Medieval Kings to burnish their legacies. Others were captured as war booty, and handed down from one dynasty to the next. Together they make up a fascinating record of the role of the king and the role of the country as it became a major power at the heart of Europe. This new 3x60 series presented by renowned art historian Dr Janina Ramirez, and produced by Oxford Film & Television will explore the extraordinary art and culture of the period. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b019h3g2
 
Many important illuminated Royal manuscripts will be captured on film for the first time as part of the BBC's ongoing collaboration with the British Library and in conjunction with the Library’s latest exhibition, Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (www.bl.uk/royal). Dr Ramirez will decode and contextualise the manuscripts and in doing so will bring the monarchy of the Middle Ages back to life with the help of Library experts and series consultant Dr Scot McKendrick, Head of History and Classics at the British Library and lead curator of the exhibition. Many of these treasures have not been seen for hundreds of years so their secrets are fresh to the modern eye.

For Dr Scot McKendrick: "There is no doubt that this collection held by the British Library provides us all with unique opportunities to explore in-depth the lives of our Kings from the medieval period. The beauty and ingenuity of these manuscripts, that have stood the test of time, also tells us a great deal about a relatively forgotten period of our history. We are delighted to be telling this fascinating story through the British Library’s exhibition and through this mesmerising series with BBC Four."

The series runs chronologically beginning with the unification of England under King Athelstan in the 10th Century, covering the 100 Years War with France, and ending with the brutal magnificence of Henry VIII. Spanning 800 years, the British Library’s Royal Manuscripts collection holds a clear message: a medieval king had to project a powerful identity to keep his place at home and to win abroad, and these amazing documents capture the dynastic struggles each ruler faced. From the rueful footnote detailing Edward II’s demise ‘I am called the tumbledown king and all the world mocks me’, to Henry VIII’s scribbled love notes to Anne Boleyn in the margins of his Book of Hours, we see a succession of kings battling to shape an unruly nation and battling sometimes for their lives.

Across the series Dr Ramirez will discover some of the most remarkable art works in our history. These were the elite artefacts of their day made by the premier artists. Embellished with gold, painted in jewel-like colours, they took months, even years to produce, and were priceless beyond compare. One of the books she encounters, the Liber Regalis has powerful contemporary relevance because it has been used in every Coronation service since 1380, including that of our present Queen. Dr Ramirez will argue that some of these pieces deserve to be ranked with the Tower of London or Westminster Abbey as treasures of our cultural heritage and Royal legacy - they are as stunning and as important.

Richard Klein, Controller of BBC Four, commented: "The story of the Medieval Kings was captured through beautiful manuscripts that remain as vibrant today as when they were first penned. BBC Four will recreate that world, drawing on Dr Janina Ramirez' in-depth expert knowledge, to decode the manuscripts. It is a privilege to be able to offer viewers the first chance to see these manuscripts in all their glory on television through our collaboration with The British Library. "

"The story of the Medieval Kings was captured through beautiful manuscripts that remain as vibrant today as when they were first penned. BBC Four will recreate that world, drawing on Dr Janina Ramirez' in-depth expert knowledge, to decode the manuscripts. It is a privilege to be able to offer viewers the first chance to see these manuscripts in all their glory on television through our collaboration with The British Library. "

The BBC creates partnerships with the arts sector that go beyond broadcast, from sharing expertise to widening public engagement in UK arts. BBC Four’s relationship with the British Library is part of an on-going programme of collaborative work agreed in 2009 by Mark Thompson and Dame Lynne Brindley. The relationship’s aims include developing new ways of integrating access to nearly a million hours of BBC TV and radio content and more than 150 million British Library items - which will significantly increase access to research material for the benefit of researchers and the wider public.

Illuminations: The Private Lives of Medieval Kings is a BBC arts programme commissioned on behalf of BBC Four Controller Richard Klein by Commissioning Editor for Arts, Mark Bell. The series is produced by Oxford Film and Television, Executive Producer is Nick Kent.

The three-part series will be shown weekly from Monday 9 January 2012, 9.00pm.
 

DENVER (January 3, 2012) - The Museum of Contemporary Art Denver (MCA Denver) today announces the exhibition, More American Photographs, opening March 1, 2012 with more than 100 works presenting some of the best-known examples from the Farm Security Administration (FSA) alongside recently commissioned work from 12 contemporary artists.

Inspired by the FSA’s 1930’s and 1940’s program to document the Great Depression’s effects on America’s landscape and people, More American Photographs offers a portrait of America today in the wake of the Great Recession.

Incorporating FSA works owned by the Library of Congress, this exhibition vividly and poignantly discloses the diverse effects of the recent economic calamity: environmental disasters, factory-ghost towns, the collapse of the housing boom and a lack of economic mobility.

The exhibition’s 12 contemporary artists include Walead Beshty, Larry Clark, Roe Ethridge, Katy Grannan, William E. Jones, Sharon Lockhart, Catherine Opie, Martha Rosler, Collier Schorr, Stephen Shore, Alec Soth and Hank Willis Thomas. Many of these artists, some of whom do not typically work in a documentary style, have emulated the same straightforward and unglamorous style of photorealism the FSA photographers pioneered in the 1930s. Such historical examples from Esther Bubley, Sheldon Dick, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Gordon Parks, Marion Post Wolcott, Louise Rosskam and Ben Shahn will also be on view.

The exhibition’s title refers to Walker Evans’ American Photographs, one of the most powerful photography books ever produced, originally conceived as a catalogue to accompany Evans’ solo show at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1938.

The exhibition is curated by Jens Hoffmann, director of the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts at the California College of the Arts, San Francisco (CCA Wattis).  It was first exhibited at CCA Wattis from October 2—December 17, 2011, and following its presentation in Denver, will be traveling to the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, from January 26—April 7, 2013.  Subsequent tour venues to be announced.

The presentation of the exhibition at MCA Denver is sponsored in part by MCA Denver’s Director’s Vision Society members and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.  We would like to further thank the citizens of the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District.

Currently on View

West of Center: Art and the Counterculture Experiment in America, 1965-1977, on view through February 19, 2012.

Thinking About Flying, on view through April 30, 2012.


About MCA Denver

MCA Denver is a non-collecting institution acting as an incubator for art and ideas, artistic exchange, and dialog. As Denver’s first institution devoted entirely to contemporary art, MCA Denver inaugurated its new environmentally sustainable facility, designed by David Adjaye, on October 28, 2007. The 27,000 square foot space, located in the Lower Downtown area, received the distinction of Gold level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). MCA Denver marks David Adjaye’s first public building in the U.S. as well as his first contemporary art museum worldwide. In 2009, MCA Denver merged with The Lab at Belmar.

MCA Denver presents exhibitions of artworks by regional, national, and international artists.

Museum Location, Hours and Ticket Prices

MCA Denver is located at 1485 Delgany on the corner of 15th Street and Delgany, Denver, CO.  The telephone number is 303 298 7554.  Museum hours are Tuesday through Thursday 10AM to 6PM, Friday 10AM to 10PM and Saturday and Sunday 10AM to 6PM. The Museum is closed on Monday.  General admission to the Museum is $10, senior and student tickets are $5. MCA Denver offers $1 off admission to visitors who come to the Museum via public transportation. Children under the age of 6 are admitted free.

# # #

National Book Auctions, located in Ithaca, NY, will host a Sunday, January 8th auction featuring a broad range of rare antique and vintage books, as well as a fine collection of deluxe, limited bindings and an array of ephemera lots. Of particular note are substantial collections of printings by The Limited Editions Club, Easton Press and The Franklin Library including hundreds of signed first editions and signed limited editions, most of which are housed in handsome, deluxe leather bindings. The books in these collections are impressive both for their quality and condition.

Important antique books in this auction include atlases and other early works. Featured is Vincenzo Corrado’s landmark cookbook entitled “Il Cuoco Galante,” printed in 1778 and Paulinus Bartholomaeo’s Orientalist compilation printed from 1790 through 1793, offering seminal works on Sanskrit Indian culture.  Atlases include Jeremiah Greenleaf’s 1842 “New Universal Atlas” and Mitchell’s 1853 printing by the same title.  A number of these early titles feature important illustrations and plates such as those found in our offering of Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s 1821 “Monumenti Antichi Inediti.”

Modern works offered during this auction include first editions and a great quantity of author-signed titles by prominent writers.  Offered are first editions of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” and “The Old Man and the Sea,” along with a first American printing of Anthony Burgess’ “A Clockwork Orange.”  Signed books include landmark titles such as H. L. Mencken’s “Treatise on Right and Wrong” and “Newspaper Days.”  Other signed titles featuring major writers include those of Mario Puzo, Anne Rice, John le Carre, Michael Crichton, Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury and Umberto Eco, to name just a few.

Found throughout this auction are pleasing groups of ephemera.  Offered are single items and groups of material such as decorative antique and vintage magazines, artwork, antique ephemera, advertising-related items and photographs.

National Book Auctions is a public auction service specializing in books, ephemera, and art. National Book Auctions is a targeted service offering experience and expertise unique to marketing antique and modern books and ephemera for consignors and collectors alike. Preview for the upcoming Sunday, January 8th auction is at 10 a.m. and the live auction starts at noon. For more information or to consign collectible material please contact David Hall, Business Manager, at 607-269-0101 or email mail@nationalbookauctions.com.

Philadelphia, PA December 28, 2011--Drawing on books, pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, prints, photographs, and ephemera in the Library Company's collection, guest curator Wendy Woloson explores underground urban commerce in early America in our upcoming exhibition "Capitalism by Gaslight: The Shadow Economies of 19th-Century America." The exhibition focuses on the ways many Americans earned their livings outside the spheres of wholesale and retail commerce, conducting economic transactions in illicit and semi-legal ways.

Crime was certainly nothing new to Americans, and reports of highway robberies and stolen goods appeared in newspapers from their first issues on colonial soil. Yet the profound and relatively rapid shifts in the country's economic structure and demographic patterns after the Revolution contributed to the flourishing of both legal and illegal commerce. Woloson explores these changes using the Library Company's rich collections of Americana.

An interactive portion of the exhibition features electronically displayed pamphlets that visitors can page through, as well as a recipe book containing instructions for making one's own whiskey at home,. Visitors will leave the Library Company with a small reminder of the show, a trade card with a biography of someone who operated in the commercial underworld.

From pick-pocketing to gambling, counterfeiting to prostitution, "Capitalism by Gaslight" describes the myriad ways people participated in an earlier, shadowy realm of commerce that required a surprising degree of creativity, cunning, and financial acumen. This exhibition will be on display from Monday, January 17, through Friday, August 24, 2012.

About the Library Company of Philadelphia
The Library Company of Philadelphia is an independent research library concentrating on American history and culture from the 17th through 19th centuries. Free and open to the public, the Library Company houses an extensive non-circulating collection of rare books, manuscripts, broadsides, ephemera and works of art. The mission of the Library Company is to preserve, interpret, make available, and augment the valuable materials within our care. We serve a diverse constituency throughout Philadelphia and the nation, offering comprehensive reader services, an internationally renowned fellowship program, an online public access catalog, and regular exhibitions and public programs. Located at 1314 Locust Street, Philadelphia, it is open to the public free of charge from 9:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Monday through Friday. The Library Company can be found online at www.librarycompany.org.

The Library Company of Philadelphia
Lauren Propst
Publicity, Events, and Program Coordinator
email: lpropst@librarycompany.org
phone: 215-546-3181

Announcing the Seventh Edition of A Pocket Guide to the Identification of First Editions, 2012

Compiled since 1999 when the Sixth Edition went to press, the revised content of the Seventh Edition will include 2342 items of new information: previously-unlisted publishers from 1850 to 2011, changes and revisions to already-listed publishers from the Sixth Edition, as well as newly discovered publishers since 1999.

As a point of comparison, the Seventh Edition will list 5835 publishers. The Sixth Edition listed in 3642.

With the demise of Zempel & Verkler’s Guide, last updated in 2001 and now out of print, our Seventh Edition becomes the only available guide to this scholarship and the most up-to-date.

For practicality and field utility, we have used a lighter, stronger paper to keep the bulk of the book approximately the same as the Sixth Edition.

Prepaid orders will be accepted beginning at once, for shipping in mid-January 2012.

To place an order, go to www.firsteditionguide.com

This is an all-new web site so if you are a returning customer, you will need to set up a new account with a new password. The new site is safe & secure, fully tested and ready to accept your orders. It is currently in Beta mode, but fully functional for ordering. Look for improvements as we go along.

Resellers will be asked for pertinent tax resale certificate numbers where they are issued in their states. If your state does not issue a tax resale certificate, enter this number: FR135798642G.

Payment is through PayPal using any major credit card or bank account. This makes our site doubly safe as we do not require you to enter credit card information with us. And your purchase is backed by both PayPal and your credit card issuer. If you prefer to pay by check, please complete the order, print the invoice and send it with your check.

Individual copies are $18.95 plus $2.50 S&H worldwide. Discount structure has been revised to reflect small publisher short discounts: resale begins at 5 copies [5-9 - less 30%], 10-25 [less 35%], 26-49 [less 40%], and 50 or more [less 45%].

With all good wishes for better books at better prices for dealers & collectors alike,

Bill McBride
Publisher

Historical Note: The Seventh Edition was compiled with the research assistance of my son, Ross McBride, a now-fourth generation bookseller. His grandfather Everett Whitlock, great uncle Gilbert Whitlock, great uncle Reverdy Whitlock and great grandfather C. E. H. Whitlock, all on his Mother’s side, were booksellers. C. E. H. founded Whitlock’s, Inc, New Haven, in 1900 and was succeeded by Reverdy through 1990, ; Everett & Gilbert operated The Whitlock Farm Booksellers, Bethany, since ca 1940.  There are also reports that another ancestor operated a used book business in New York City in the 1820s. And I’m his Dad, founder of The Jumping Frog, Hartford, in 1983 and still at it.

--
The Jumping Frog

www.thejumpingfrog.com
80,000 items in Fixed Price formats
www.firsteditionguide.com
Identification guides for book collectors
www.archivesofadvertising.com
Over 100 CD-ROMs on the history of American advertising
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See what we're selling right now on ebaY

ebaY Seller Name thejumpingfrog

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New York, NY, December 21, 2011—This winter The Morgan Library & Museum will present a wide-ranging group of exhibitions, including sketches, studies, and pastels by Dan Flavin in the first-ever retrospective of his works on paper; drawings by Rembrandt and artists of the Dutch Golden Age; and an innovative look at the ways artists, writers, and composers have used animal imagery in their work. For further information or images, please contact Patrick Milliman or Alanna Schindewolf. 



Rembrandt's World: Dutch Drawings from the Clement C. Moore Collection

January 20-April 29, 2012


Bolstered by its recent political independence, economic prosperity, and maritime supremacy, the Dutch Republic witnessed an artistic flourishing during the seventeenth century. Popularly known as the Golden Age of Dutch art, the period produced some of the world's greatest artists—among them Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn and his followers Ferdinand Bol and Gerbrand van den Eeckhout; Abraham Bloemaert; Aelbert Cuyp; and Jan van Goyen. Beginning on January 20, The Morgan Library & Museum presents over ninety drawings by these artists and others from this celebrated time in an exhibition titled Rembrandt's World: Dutch Drawings from the Clement C. Moore Collection. On view through April 29, 2012, works in the exhibition will be shown as a group publicly for the first time.

This exhibition is made possible in part by the Rita Markus Fund for Exhibitions.

The catalogue is underwritten by The Andrew W. Mellon Fund for Research and Publications.

Public programs are generously supported by The Netherland-America Foundation, Inc.


Dan Flavin: Drawing 

February 17-July 1, 2012


Best known for his fluorescent light installations, Dan Flavin was also an avid draftsman. This first retrospective of his drawings will include over one hundred sheets representing every phase of his career: early abstract expressionist watercolors of the 1950s, studies for light installations, portraits and landscape sketches, and pastels of sailboats from the 1980s. In addition, the exhibition will feature nearly fifty works from Flavin's personal collection of drawings, including nineteenth-century American landscapes by Hudson River School artists, Japanese drawings, and twentieth-century works by artists such as Piet Mondrian, Donald Judd, and Sol LeWitt.

This exhibition is supported in part by a grant from the Dedalus Foundation, Inc.


Major support for the catalogue is provided by Lannan Foundation.


In the Company of Animals: Art, Literature, and Music at the Morgan

March 2-May 20, 2012


Drawing from the breadth of the Morgan's collection, this exhibition will explore the ways in which animals have served as inspiration for artists, writers, and composers throughout history.



Ancient seals, drawings, prints, books, and medieval, music, and literary manuscripts will illustrate the use of animals as symbols, teachers of moral lessons, talking characters, and subjects of scientific study and artistic inspiration. 

Included in the exhibition are works by John James Audubon, William Blake, Albrecht Dürer, T. S. Eliot, David Hockney, Ted Hughes, George Orwell, Sergei Prokofiev, Peter Paul Rubens, E. B. White, and Virginia Woolf, among many others.





Ongoing

Robert Burns and "Auld Lang Syne"

Through February 5, 2012



Every December 31, tens of millions of people raise their voices with friends and family in a chorus of "Auld Lang Syne," bidding farewell to the past year and looking forward to a promising new one. But how did a traditional Scots folk song—with lyrics that many people scarcely understand—emerge as one of the world's most enduring popular songs? With manuscripts, rare printed editions, and audio selections, this focused exhibition explores the origins of a song that began as an old Scots poem and air and evolved into a globally shared expression of friendship and longing.

This exhibition is made possible by a generous gift in honor of Mr. Thomas Burns Reid and Mrs. Mary Theresa Reid.


The Morgan exhibition program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

The Morgan Library & Museum

The Morgan Library & Museum began as the private library of financier Pierpont Morgan, one of the preeminent collectors and cultural benefactors in the United States. Today, more than a century after its founding in 1906, the Morgan serves as a museum, independent research library, musical venue, architectural landmark, and historic site. In October 2010, the Morgan completed the first-ever restoration of its original McKim building, Pierpont Morgan's private library, and the core of the institution. In tandem with the 2006 expansion project by architect Renzo Piano, the Morgan now provides visitors unprecedented access to its world-renowned collections of drawings, literary and historical manuscripts, musical scores, medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, printed books, and ancient Near Eastern seals and tablets. 



General Information

The Morgan Library & Museum

225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016-3405
212.685.0008

www.themorgan.org


Hours
Tuesday-Thursday, 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; extended Friday hours, 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; closed Mondays, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day. The Morgan closes at 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.

Admission
$15 for adults; $10 for students, seniors (65 and over), and children (under 16); free to Members and children 12 and under accompanied by an adult. Admission is free on Fridays from 7 to 9 p.m. Admission is not required to visit the Morgan Shop.

PRESS CONTACTS
Patrick Milliman
212.590.0310
pmilliman@themorgan.org

Alanna Schindewolf
212.590.0311
aschindewolf@themorgan.org

LOS ANGELES—The Getty Research Institute (GRI) announced today two complementary acquisitions concerning the artist and photographer Man Ray (b. Emmanuel Radnitzky, American, 1890-1976). 



“These archival materials, photographs, and published works are important additions to the collections at the Getty Research Institute,” said Thomas Gaehtgens, director of the Getty Research Institute. “Taken together with the substantial holdings of the artist’s work in the Getty Museum’s Department of Photographs, they make the Getty the premier North American repository for collections on Man Ray.”



Adding to the GRI’s already significant Man Ray holdings, these two acquisitions, from different private sources, unearth unique and rarely studied material on the artist. One comprises an archive of manuscripts, correspondence, publications, photographs, ephemera, and art works concerning the artist and his wife, Juliet Man Ray, which were assembled by their longtime friends Michael and Elsa Combe-Martin. The agendas from 27 years of the artist’s career, covering 1923-40, 1951-58, and 1971, are the highlight of this collection. The illustrated agendas or calendar books that were kept by the expatriate artist during the 1920s and 1930s in Paris, when he was associated with the Dada and Surrealist groups, document his near-daily encounters and appointments with friends and colleagues such as Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, André Breton, and Lee Miller. Including professional appointments, tasks, details of shoots, and circumstances of printing, they offer a fascinating view of Man Ray’s prolific activities as a photographer as well as intriguing glimpses of his personal life.



“Nearly every day Man Ray met with interesting people, made observations about the world around him and created art,” said Marcia Reed, chief curator at the Getty Research Institute. “The personal diaries, ephemera, and photographs in these collections span four decades of his artistic life, creating an unrivaled opportunity to learn more about Man Ray and his circle.

”

The agendas are joined by 51 vintage and modern photographic prints by Man Ray, dating from the 1920s to the 1970s, of prominent people including T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Elsa Schiaparelli, Virginia Woolf, Paul Eluard, and Marcel Duchamp on his death bed, as well as photographs of Man Ray alone or with Juliet, and with artists such as Max Ernst and Pablo Picasso. The collection also includes objects made by Man Ray, such as a wooden cigar box with a drawing of a bird, given to the Combe-Martins on New Year’s 1969; a miniature portrait of a lady with a moustache added by Man Ray; and a brass seal of embossed lips. Disembodied lips appear as a motif in Man Ray’s paintings, and the agendas also include drawings of lips.



The second acquisition is a special-edition portfolio of photographs, La Traversée du Grand Verre, by the Italian photographer Gianfranco Baruchello (b. Rome, 1924). Created by Baruchello in 1995, the faux-bois and embossed leather portfolio designed by Jean-Luc Mercié holds eight black and white photographs of Man Ray’s close friend, artist Marcel Duchamp, inspecting his monumental work, The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1966. This portfolio is accompanied by a unique illustrated Pepys Westminster diary that Man Ray purchased in London in 1953 and used until 1959.



The diary includes handwritten comments in which the artist speculates on various aspects of the art world, with highly pertinent and revealing remarks about his great friend Duchamp. Baruchello’s portfolio holds an additional photograph of Duchamp dedicated to the collector Daniel Filipacchi.



Man Ray used the diary to jot down notes and thoughts, including many aphoristic texts that showcase his wit and his musings on life and art. For example, Man Ray wrote, “there are two reasons for disliking a work—first because it is not understood, second because it is understood.” He also once mused, “I shall always oppose the cauliflower with the artichoke. The cauliflower is like a brain. The artichoke is a green rose—with a heart.

”

These acquisitions join a significant number of Man Ray’s letters, manuscripts, and other materials already in the GRI’s collection as well as more than 300 photographs, including rayographs and solarized prints, from the 1910s through the 1960s by Man Ray in the Getty Museum’s collection—one of the most significant collections of Man Ray’s photography outside France and a core element of the Getty’s first photography acquisitions.




About Man Ray


Man Ray was an American photographer, painter and filmmaker who lived and worked in France for much of his life. He was born Emmanuel Radnitsky in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1890 and grew up in New Jersey, becoming a commercial artist in New York in the 1910s. He began to sign his name Man Ray in 1912, although his family did not change its surname to Ray until the 1920s. He initially taught himself photography in order to reproduce his own works of art, which included paintings and mixed media. In 1921 he moved to Paris and set up a photography studio to support himself. There he began to make photograms, which he called "Rayographs." In the 1920s, he also began making moving pictures. Man Ray's four completed films—Return to Reason, Emak Bakia, Starfish, and Mystery of the Chateau of Dice—were all highly creative, non-narrative explorations of the possibilities of the medium.



After the onset of World War II, Man Ray returned to the United States and lived in Los Angeles from 1940 until 1951. He was disappointed that he was recognized only for his photography in America and not for the filmmaking, painting, sculpture, and other media in which he worked. In 1951 Man Ray returned to Paris, where he concentrated primarily on painting until his death in 1976.

Amy Hood
Getty Communications
(310) 440-6427
ahood@getty.edu

Asheville, NC--December 14, 2011. Biblio.com, one of the world's leading marketplaces for new, used and rare books, announced today that it has launched a new tool to help booksellers and customers negotiate prices on select fine and collectible books.

The new program is called Make-an-Offer. With hundreds of booksellers already participating in the launch of this new tool, customers can browse several thousand books listed on Biblio.com and engage in a direct negotiation without the pressure or crowd of an online auction.

“Biblio was inspired to create this new tool by the way the negotiations occur between customers and booksellers in brick and mortar shops and antiquarian book shows," says Stephen Bakes, Director of Biblio's Bookseller Relations. "The ability for a bookseller to offer special pricing on a book for that particular customer is often the difference between a potential customer silently walking away from a book and a bookseller earning the trust of a new customer."

The process is designed with customer usability in mind. Customers click on the "Make An Offer" button where applicable, and can name their price and a time-frame in which the bookseller can then accept, reject or counter the offer. Both the customer and the bookseller are notified by email throughout the transaction. Biblio.com can offer support and assistance when necessary, but, Bakes notes, this is rarely an issue. The bookseller and customer can quickly come to an agreement or walk away.

"Biblio's Make-an-Offer brings internet book sales one step closer to face-to-face transactions," says Stephen Bakes, Director of Biblio's Bookseller Relations.

Biblio.com

Biblio.com is one of the world's leading sources for used, new and rare books. Established in 2003, Biblio.com has grown to become one of the largest global book marketplaces, with over 60 million books for sale from 6000 bookstores and booksellers in countries around the world. Biblio.com is wholly owned and operated by Biblio, Inc., a privately held company with a commitment to a triple bottom line. For more information, please visit http://www.biblio.com.
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Syracuse University Library is pleased to announce the acquisition of the personal papers of the flamboyant and trend-setting architect Morris Lapidus. Lapidus, who died in 2001, is perhaps best known for hotels like the Fontainebleau, Americana, and Eden Roc in Miami Beach, buildings which embodied the growth of leisure in American life during the 1950s and 1960s. The Fontainebleau has served as a backdrop for variety of iconic scenes in American film, including the James Bond thriller "Goldfinger" (1964). Most of Lapidus’ buildings exhibited a mélange of historical styles—French provincial, Italian, and Baroque—and anticipated the post-modernism of later architects.

Lapidus was born in Odessa, Russia in 1902, but his family immigrated to the United States soon thereafter. As a wide-eyed youth, he marveled at the splendor of Coney Island and he would later impart a similar spirit of excess to his work as an architect. That spirit would place him at odds with his function-minded modernist peers. However, contrary to the editor’s choice of title for his 1996 autobiography, Too Much is Never Enough, Lapidus was interested less in hedonism than he was in a “quest for emotion and motion in architecture.”

Frustrated by his sometimes antagonistic relationship with the architectural establishment, Lapidus destroyed many of his firm’s records when he retired in 1984. However, he retained a core collection of especially valuable papers that he entrusted with his last collaborator and confidant, architect Deborah Desilets.  The archive includes a large collection of photographs dating to the 1920s, conceptual drawings, manuscript drafts of his written works, and correspondence with his long-time friend, mystery writer Ellery Queen.

Desilets approached Syracuse, which has held a small Lapidus collection since 1967, and a gift of the material was finalized in December. Speaking of her decision to place the archive with Syracuse, Desilets says, "The archive is an extremely important missing link in the discourse on Lapidus’ influence on twentieth century architecture. I am thrilled to place it in such a distinguished research institution, where it will be available for use by generations of students and scholars."

In Syracuse’s Special Collections Research Center, the Lapidus archive will reside in one of the most important mid-century modern collections in the country. Among the other architects represented are Marcel Breuer, William Lescaze, and Richard Neutra, as well as designers like Russel Wright and Walter Dorwin Teague.

The university is also home to a top-ranked School of Architecture. Faculty member Jon Yoder offered this assessment of the Lapidus archive’s value for teaching and research: “The recent proliferation of architect-designed boutique hotels, coupled with the pervasive disciplinary focus on architectural effects, suggests that Lapidus was indeed one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century.  This acquisition of his personal archive comes as welcome news to designers and scholars who are finally beginning to reassess the lavish contributions of this much-maligned architect across a surprisingly broad spectrum of design disciplines.”

For more information, please contact Sean Quimby, Senior Director of Special Collections at 315.443.9759 or smquimby@syr.edu.

[ITHACA, NY] National Book Auctions, located in Ithaca, NY, hosted a Sunday, December 4th auction featuring a broad range of rare antique and vintage books, as well as a fine array of atlases and ephemera. Another highlight of this auction was a large, handsome personal library of scholarly books relating to ocean liner history, interior design, art history and gardening, impressive for both its quality and condition. This 465-lot auction also featured a number of antique titles dating back to the 1600’s and other important early printings, many of which were housed in fancy leather bindings.

An 1844 printing of H. S. Tanner’s “A New Universal Atlas” fetched a hammer price of $3198.00 (including buyer’s premium). This scarce edition of this landmark atlas is beautifully illustrated with a hand-colored frontispiece showing comparative lengths and heights of rivers and mountains as well as numerous hand-colored lithographed maps.

Realizing a hammer price of $1920.00 (including buyer’s premium) was a printing of Pariser’s “Mondphotografien”. This publication is a folio volume of eleven mounted original photographic plates of the lunar surface, dated from 1894 to 1902.  Each mounting sheet bears a caption in French, indicated the time and date that the photo was captured.

A first edition of Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” achieved a hammer price of $720.00 (including buyer’s premium). This printing of Twain's classic work was re-cased in a beautiful, deluxe full dark navy morocco binding with raised bands and gilt tooling.

Bringing a hammer price of $522.75 was a first edition of “Relations of the Most Famous Kingdomes and Common-wealths Throughout the World”, translated from the work of Giovanni Botero in 1630. Botero’s work marks the beginning of international demographic studies, and was also highly influential over the next generation of political and economic thinkers.

National Book Auctions is a public auction service specializing in books, ephemera, and art. National Book Auctions is a targeted service offering experience and expertise unique to marketing antique and modern books and ephemera for consignors and collectors alike. Preview for the upcoming Sunday, January 8th auction is at 10 a.m. and the live auction starts at noon. For more information or to consign collectible material please contact David Hall, Business Manager, at 607-269-0101 or email mail@nationalbookauctions.com.

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NEW YORK—The Autographs auction at Swann Galleries on November 3 saw active bidding for scarce and fascinating items from writers and artists, as well as material related to world leaders, scientists and performers.

Marco Tomaschett, Autographs Specialist, said, “There was much interest and strong bidding for this sale’s most extraordinary material, as well as smaller items, resulting in a 92 percent sell-through rate. Many of the top European autographs went to buyers in Europe, suggesting that some are taking advantage of the favorable exchange rate.”

The top lot was a bound volume containing over 120 illustrated letters by Frederick Stuart Church, many containing his charming depictions of polar bears, lions and other animals, written to financier Grant B. Schley, Carnegie Hall, 1913-17. It sold for $31,200*.

Also containing numerous illustrations was a guestbook for the Isola Bella Restaurant in London, 1919-33, containing hundreds of items signed or signed and inscribed, including entries by Theodore Dreiser, T.S. Eliot, Mary Pickford, and W.B. Yeats, $15,600.

The highest selling literary lot was a group of four typed letters signed and an initialed postcard by Ezra Pound, concerning private publication of his translations of Provençal poet Arnaut Daniel, London, 1917-18, $28,800.

Also from the writers portion of the sale were an autograph letter signed by Samuel Johnson to Hester Lynch Thrale, concerned for the health of his friend Henry Thrale, Ashbourne, 17 June 1779 $19,200, and a related item, an 1815 autograph letter unsigned by the now Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, to physician James Fellowes, on behalf of Mrs. Lutwyche, $6,000; as well as an Immanuel Kant autograph inscription, unsigned, a dedication to his one-time student Carl Gottlieb Fischer, in Latin, circa December 1793, $6,480; a Mark Twain autograph manuscript, unsigned, a draft of a brief article for Harper’s Weekly, December 1908, $5,040; and an autograph manuscript, unsigned by Jean-Paul Sartre, consisting of fragmentary notes, likely from his unpublished 1965 Cornell lecture, in French, circa 1964, $4,800.

Science-related items were a Charles Darwin autograph letter signed to an unnamed recipient, in which he offers to send a copy of his Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Beckenham, December 1872, $4,080; an autograph note signed by Sigmund Freud, a bill for 23 hours of services to one of his last patients, Vienna, 31 October 1933, $3,840; and a photo of Albert Einstein and his wife Elsa, signed by both and dated by Albert, 1931, $5,280.

Other notable signed photographs included a photograph of Leon Trotsky’s son Sergei Sedov, signed and inscribed by Trotsky to American writer and activist Waldo Frank, in French, 1 March 1937, $6,000; a standing portrait of Winston Churchill, $6,000; and a stunning full-length photo of Maria Callas, dated and signed, 1966, $4,800.

The auction also featured a signed program from the ceremony of the Oslo Accords, with signatures by William J. Clinton, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, Washington, 1993-94, $5,520. A related item was a typed letter signed by Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow concerning the formation of the London Zionist Political Committee, July 1917, $6,000.

For complete results, an illustrated catalogue, with prices realized on request, is available for $35 from Swann Galleries, Inc., 104 East 25th Street, New York, NY 10010, or online at www.swanngalleries.com.

For further information, and to propose consignments to upcoming Autographs auctions, please contact Marco Tomaschett at (212) 254-4710, extension 12, or via email at mtomaschett@swanngalleries.com.

*All prices include buyer’s premium.

The Tibor de Nagy Gallery is pleased to present an unprecedented exhibition of original artworks by poet Elizabeth Bishop and works from her personal collection. This marks the gallery’s second exhibition of the poet’s work; the first was presented in 1996. The show will also include Bishop’s desk from Brazil, where one imagines she wrote some of her important late poems, along with vitrines containing books, photographs, and smaller objects that she collected over the years on her travels.

One hundred years since her birth, and just over thirty years since her death, Bishop is now considered among the most important American poets of the Twentieth Century. Until now, the one facet of her life that has not been explored fully is the transformative role that the visual arts played in her creative output over her lifetime. Bishop made her own art, mostly in the form of intimate watercolors, gouaches, and drawings. She collected art during her years in Brazil, and was also given (and acquired) pieces by her family and closest artist friends. Like her poems, her own artworks possess an unpretentious earthiness combined with an acute eye for detail of everyday life. She made her art quietly, privately, and gave many of them away to friends over the years. The works in this exhibition were all in her collection at the time of her death.

The exhibition will evoke the poet’s private, domestic world. It will comprise rarely exhibited original works by the artist, including enchanting watercolors and gouaches, as well as two enigmatic box assemblages that are indebted to Joseph Cornell. In addition, the exhibition will include a selection of works by other artists: two paintings by the primitive painter Gregorio Valdes, an early Calder print, a relief painting by John Ferren, among others. There will also be two family portraits and a landscape that she inherited, which she writes about in her poems and prose pieces.

The gallery is publishing a 48 page hardbound book with texts by noted writers Dan Chiasson, Joelle Biele and the Pulitzer prize winning writer Lloyd Schwartz.

The exhibition is presented in association with James S. Jaffe Rare Books, LLC.

For further information and visuals please contact the gallery at 212.262.5050 or info@tibordenagy.com.

New York—Scarce items made their auction debut, while original illustrations and signed first editions of notable titles drew interest at Swann Galleries’ auction of Art, Press & Illustrated Books; and 19th & 20th Century Literature on November 8.

Christine von der Linn, Swann’s art book and modern literature specialist, said, “I was happy to see activity in all sections of the sale; for every successfully sold item, there were numerous under bidders. The exhibition was jam-packed with collectors and also dealers en route to the Boston Book fair.”

The top lot was a wonderful association copy of Andy Warhol’s 25 Cats Name Sam and One Blue Pussy, with 18 lithographs, New York, 1954, which sold for $45,600*. This copy—one of fewer than 150 produced—was signed and inscribed “Merry Christmas” by Warhol to Bob Cato, the award-winning graphic designer who worked with Warhol at Harper’s Bazaar, where Cato was Alexey Brodovitch’s assistant.

Other modern art highlights included a signed copy of David Hockney’s Paper Pools, with a lithograph, London, 1980, $10,800; Lysistrata with six etched plates by Picasso, and signed by the artist, New York, 1934, $6,480; and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, with an etched frontispiece and 12 colored plates by Salvador Dalí, one of 2500 numbered and signed copies, New York, 1969, $5,280.

An original ink and watercolor drawing by Beatrix Potter also sold well, bringing a record $14,400. The image, Mrs. Rabbit with basket and umbrella in the forest, was a redrawing of the illustration published in The Tale of Peter Rabbit, signed and dated August 1927.

Appearing for the first time at auction were The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, hand-illuminated and calligraphed manuscript by Alberto Sangorski, London, 1905, $6,480; and an original pen-and-ink drawing of a nude by Austrian illustrator Frans von Bayros, circa 1915, $6,000, which was one of approximately 20 items in a section of curiosa.

Selling on the 55th anniversary of the year it was published was a review copy of the first edition of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems, signed by Ginsberg on the title-page and again on the publisher’s review slip, San Francisco, 1956, $5,760—a record for a signed copy. Also marking a milestone anniversary was a signed and inscribed first edition of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, New York, 1961, $5,280.

Other 20th century literary classics included number 349 of 750 copies of James Joyce’s Ulysses, on handmade paper, Paris, 1922, which, despite condition issues, brought $14,400; a first edition of William Faulkner’s first novel, Soldier’s Pay, New York, 1926, $7,200, and his better known The Sound and the Fury, first edition, New York, 1929, $5,040.

From the 19th century were a complete set of Charles Dickens’s Christmas Books, five volumes including A Christmas Carol, first editions, London, 1843-48, $6,480; as well as a set of Emily Dickinson first editions: Poems, Poems Second Series, and Poems Third Series, Boston, 1890-96, $10,200.

For complete results, an illustrated auction catalogue, with prices realized on request, is available for $35 from Swann Galleries, Inc., 104 East 25th Street, New York, NY 10010, or online at www.swanngalleries.com.

For further information, and to consign items to Swann’s upcoming auctions of Art, Press & Illustrated Books, and 19th & 20th Century Literature, please contact Christine von der Linn at 212-254-4710, extension 20, or via e-mail at cvonderlinn@swanngalleries.com.

NEW YORK—Nearly 300 items will be offered in the Fine Books & Manuscripts auction,  December 15 at Bonhams in New York. Being one of the last auctions of this year, and adding to holiday anticipation, the sale boasts several Christmas-related items among its offerings, including: early printed books and illuminated manuscripts, travel literature and maps, science and natural history, art, children’s books, literature, history, Americana, music and theater.

Christina Geiger, the Fine Books and Manuscripts Director, and Matthew Haley, the department specialist, state about the sale, “We in the Book Department are excited about rounding out our best year ever with some Christmas cheer. With the auction on December 15, collectors don't have to wait till the night before Christmas to get in the holiday spirit!"

The holiday theme can be seen in our Arts and Literature section with two delightful original illustrations for different editions of Clement Moore’s 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, one of which is by Arthur Rackham (pre-sale estimates $600-800, $8,000-12,000); a set of the five Christmas books by Charles Dickens, bound in full crimson morocco (pre-sale est. $2,000-3,000); as well as songwriter Jerome Kern’s copy of the first edition of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol (pre-sale est. $4,000-6,000).

The highlights of the travel section of the sale are the maps and atlases: a fine and rare set of five woodcut maps by Heinrich Bünting, including the so-called “cloverleaf” world map (pre-sale est. $25,000-35,000); a Spanish edition of Abraham Ortelius’s Theatrum orbis terrarium, dating from 1602 and containing 118 double-page engraved mapsheets (pre-sale est. $100,000-150,000); and a 1535 atlas by Ptolemy, with 50 maps of the ancient and modern world (pre-sale est. $25,000-35,000).

In the Science and Natural History section of the auction, on offer is the royal octavo edition of John Audubon’s Birds, the most extensive American color plate work of the time, bound with Audubon’s Quadrupeds (pre-sale est. $80,000-120,000). Other highlights in the section include rare letters and manuscripts by Hermann Oberth and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, men considered to be among the founding fathers of rocketry and space flight.

An exciting highlight for comic books collectors is the first edition of the first American comic book (1842), virtually unknown and in original wrappers (pre-sale est. $10,000-15,000); Joseph Heller’s writing desk and lamp (pre-sale est. $1,500-2,000); the first edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses (pre-sale est. $20,000-30,000); an autographed letter by Thomas Jefferson to James Dinsmore, the craftsman responsible for the woodwork for Monticello’s famous dome (pre-sale est. $25,000-35,000); and a rare collection of working musical manuscripts by Miles Davis (pre-sale est. $2,500-3,500).

The Fine Books & Manuscripts items will be on public display in New York beginning Saturday, December 10 through Thursday, December 15. The auction will begin at 1 pm on December 15 in the New York location of Bonhams at 580 Madison Avenue.

New York—On Thursday, December 15 Swann Galleries will offer an unprecedented single-owner sale of The Complete Poster Works of Roger Broders, the celebrated travel poster artist whose name is synonymous with French Art Deco. Not only is this the first time that a collection of Broders’s work, including previously unknown variants and non-travel images, has come to auction, it is the first time the complete works of any poster artist have been offered at one time.
 
“Being surrounded by all of these stunning posters was glorious and uplifting,” said Nicholas D. Lowry, Swann President and Director of the Poster Department, “It is like seeing France as it hasn’t been seen since the 1920s. To see them in person, all in once place, is an exceptional opportunity for anyone who appreciates vintage posters.”

Best known for the 65 images he created for the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée Railway (PLM), Broders also designed posters for car companies, lotteries and other railway lines. The 100 lots in this sale are presented chronologically by printing date, and offer a view into how Broders’s work evolved from 1920 to 1935, when he stopped designing posters.

Among the most sought-after examples of his work are images depicting glamorous men and women enjoying the beaches and nightlife of the Cote d’Azur. These include views of languid sunbathers in La Plage de Calvi Corse, 1928 (estimate: $8,000 to $12,000); Antibes, circa 1928, with a variation advertising a local casino in Juan-les-Pins (each $10,000 to $15,000); and Agay, 1928 ($5,000 to $7,500), and smartly dressed visitors enjoying the views in Vichy / Comité des Fêtes, circa 1928 ($15,000 to $20,000) and Dunkerque, circa 1930 ($20,000 to $30,000).

Sports-themed images include hikers in Le Mont-Blanc / Chamonix, circa 1924 ($5,000 to $7,500); a female golfer in Vichy, 1928 ($8,000 to $12,000); Golf de la Soukra Tunis, 1932 ($4,000 to $6,000); and tennis enthusiasts in St. Honoré les Bains, circa 1928 ($5,000 to $7,500); Lys-Chantilly, circa 1928 ($3,000 to $4,000); and Monte-Carlo, circa 1930 ($15,000 to $30,000).

Broders also created several iconic ski posters, such as Winter Sports in the French Alps, circa 1929, promoting the Mont-Blanc railway, the highest altitude railway in France ($8,000 to $12,000); Les Sports d’Hiver dans les Vosges, circa 1930, in which a skier goes so fast his clothing becomes a blur ($7,000 to $10,000); Les Sports d’Hiver / St. Pierre de Chartreuse, 1930, depicting a crowd watching a bobsled team whoosh downhill ($8,000 to $12,000); a blonde woman—based on Broders’s wife—on the slopes in Le Hohwald, circa 1930 ($3,000 to $4,000); and Chamonix Mt. Blanc, 1930, depicting an ice hockey game at the site of the first Winter Olympics, held in 1924 ($6,000 to $9,000).

There are stunning landscape posters, employing Broders’s signature ability to capture depths-of-field, including sunlit views of the ships docking in Marseille, circa 1922 ($3,000 to $4,000), and 1929 ($7,000 to $10,000); the snow-covered peaks of La Chaine du Mont-Blanc, 1924 ($4,000 to $6,000); the palm trees and sailboats of Sainte-Maxime, 1928 ($5,000 to $7,500); and an incredible find, a group of 17 printer’s proofs of his poster for Jura. Environs de Pontarlier, which offer insight into the complex nature of lithographic printing, 1930 ($3,000 to $4,000).

Broders also designed posters for Baghdad, Florence, India and Rome, as well as non-travel specific advertisements for Peugeot, with Gatsby-esque couples riding with the top down, 1923 ($2,000 to $3,000); and Loterie des Régions Libéréres, 1934 ($1,000 to $1,500).

The auction will begin at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, December 15. The items will be on public exhibition Saturday, December 10, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Monday, December 12 through Wednesday, December 14, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Thursday, December 15, from 10 a.m. to noon.
 
    A fully illustrated color catalogue with information on bidding by mail or fax is available for $35 from Swann Galleries, Inc., 104 East 25 Street, New York, NY 10010, and may be viewed online at www.swanngalleries.com.

    For further information, and to make advance arrangements to bid during the auction, please contact Nicholas Lowry at (212) 254-4710 ext. 53, or via e-mail at posters@swanngalleries.com.

Live online bidding is also available via Artfact.com.

New York—Swann Galleries’ auction of Important Photobooks & Photographs on Tuesday, December 13 features beautiful and poignant images and books ranging from the earliest photographs to works by artists living and working today.

The sale opens with a fine assortment of cased images and prints from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which includes Andrew J. Russell’s magnificent United States Military Rail Road Photographic Album, with 107 albumen prints depicting the railroads, battlefields and landscapes of the Civil War, 1863-64 (estimate: $50,000 to $75,000); a group of 10 plates of birds from Eadweard Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion, collotypes, 1887 ($5,000 to $7,500 for the set); and a first edition of Edwin Hale Lincoln’s lavishly illustrated Wild Flowers of New England Photographed from Nature, a complete set with 400 platinum prints, and one of about 50 copies of the self-published work, 1910-14 ($40,000 to $60,000).

Scarce early examples of photographic literature include Alfred Stieglitz’s Camera Notes, Volumes III-V, the official organ of the Camera Club of New York, 1899-1900 ($6,000 to $9,000); individual copies of Stieglitz’s Camera Work, including the Steichen Supplement, 1906 ($7,000 to $10,000); and a deluxe edition of Manuel Alvarez Bravo’s Fotografias, signed by the artist, and with two (of three) silver prints, Mexico, 1945 ($18,000 to $22,000).

Among the compelling celebrity portraits are Berenice Abbott’s Portrait of James Joyce, silver print, circa 1926, printed 1950s ($12,000 to $18,000); Bravo’s André Breton, silver print, 1938, printed 1970s ($5,000 to $7,500); Edward Steichen’s Carl Sandburg posing with a cigar, silver print, circa 1936, printed 1950s ($3,000 to $4,500); Arnold Newman’s Pablo Picasso, Cannes, France, silver print, 1956, printed 1960s ($3,000 to $4,500); Bert Stern’s Marilyn Monroe (Crucifix), mural-size chromogenic print, 1962, printed 1992 ($15,000 to $25,000); and Dennis Hopper’s Irving Blum and Andy Warhol Filming, New York City, 1964, printed 1970s ($4,000 to $6,000).

An extraordinary item related to Warhol’s films is Jack Smith’s The Beautiful Book, with 19 erotic photographs of subjects including Warhol superstars Mario Montez and Francine Francine, one of a planned edition of 200, of which 60 were actually produced, 1959 ($30,000 to $45,000).

A section devoted to the work of legendary New York press photographer Weegee offers a self portrait of the photographer resting on a bed in the back of Police Headquarters, titled My studio, circa 1939 ($2,500 to $3,500); Human cannonball (woman being fired from a cannon), 1943 ($3,000 to $4,500); and a signed first edition of Naked City, 1945 ($500 to $750).

Other notable New York City views are Helen Levitt’s New York (Boys playing over doorway), circa 1942, printed circa 1980 ($6,000 to $9,000); Margaret Bourke-White’s Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor, 1952, printed 1997 ($4,500 to $6,500); Walker Evans’s New York City Demolition, Upper Third Avenue, 1962 ($5,000 to $7,000); André Kertész’s Untitled (puddle, New York), 1967 ($4,000 to $6,000); Harry Callahan’s Untitled (World Trade Center), 1974 ($8,000 to $12,000); and Sheila Metzner’s New York, illustrated with 10 hand-coated platinum prints, one of 35 copies by Twenty-First Editions, numbered, signed and issued with a platinum print of The Brooklyn Bridge, 2001 ($12,000 to $18,000).

Other highly sought after books include deluxe 21st Editions works by Tom Baril, Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison, Sally Mann, and others; the Aaron Siskind portfolio Viterbo Broom, with 18 abstract photographs and a handwritten title page with an inscription to a friend, 1967 ($25,000 to $35,000); Lee Friedlander’s Self Portrait, with an original photograph, signed and inscribed to Marvin Israel, 1970 ($5,000 to $7,500); Duane Michals’s Homage to Cavafy, with 10 silver prints, 1978 ($10,000 to $15,000); and a deluxe edition of Paul Graham’s A-1, The Great North Road, signed and with an original photograph, 1983 ($15,000 to $20,000).

Individual contemporary images of note include Peter Beard’s Fayel Tall / El Molo Bay, Lake Rudolf, mixed media silver print with applied blood and a feather, 1987, printed 1998 ($20,000 to $30,000); Herb Ritz’s Brigitte Nielson, Malibu, 1987 ($8,000 to $12,000); and Sally Mann’s Emmet, Jessie and Virginia, 1989 ($10,000 to $15,000).

The auction will begin at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, December 13.

The photographs and books will be on public exhibition at Swann Galleries Thursday, December 8 and Friday, December 9, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, December 10, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Monday, December 12, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Tuesday, December 13, from 10 a.m. to noon.

An illustrated catalogue with information on bidding by mail or fax, is available for $35 from Swann Galleries, Inc., 104 East 25 Street, New York, NY 10010, or online at www.swanngalleries.com.
 
For further information, and to make advance arrangements to bid by telephone during the auction, please contact Daile Kaplan at (212) 254-4710, extension 21, or via e-mail at dkaplan@swanngalleries.com.

Live online bidding is also available via Artfact.com.

NEW YORK, NY--Nine institutions in New York City and Westchester have been awarded grant funding to support a range of digitization projects designed to expand access to important collections of historical and rare materials. Recipients of the 2011 Digital METRO New York (DMNY) grants, totaling over $78,000, were announced today by the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO).
 
Libraries, archives, and other research organizations selected to receive METRO digitization grants this year include the American Jewish Historical Society, the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Center for Jewish History, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Frick Art Reference Library, Brooklyn Museum, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the New York Botanical Garden. Awardees were chosen based on a rigorous application and review process designed to identify initiatives that would have the strongest impact on research and access to vital materials from important collections in the New York area.
 
“This year’s digitization grant recipients truly represent the diversity of METRO’s membership, and I am confident that their collaborative projects will enhance the growing collection of online resources in our area,” said Jason Kucsma, METRO’s Executive Director.
 
DMNY funding is available to eligible members of METRO through a competitive application and project review process. The projects selected for the 2011/2012 grant cycle reflect the breadth and depth of special collections in the metropolitan New York region. Following are the libraries and projects selected for 2011 METRO collaborative digitization grants:
 
    •    Early New York Synagogue Archives; the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, American Jewish Historical Society, Center for Jewish History
    •    Art Resources from the Mid-20th Century: Digitized Highlights from the Libraries of Hilla Rebay and Juliana Force; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art
    •    Documenting the Gilded Age: New York City Exhibitions at the Turn of the 20th Century (Phase 2); Frick Art Reference Library, Brooklyn Museum
    •    Views of Bronx Park: Collaborative Project to Digitize the Postcards of the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Garden; Wildlife Conservation Society, New York Botanical Garden
 
“With METRO’s support, the Guggenheim and Whitney Museums will be able to make unique historical resources held by both of our institutions widely available for the first time,” said Francine Snyder, Project Manager for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum collaboration with the Whitney Museum of American Art.
 
“Providing online access to these historically significant materials will allow scholars, theologians, sociologists, urban demographers, genealogists and historians to study synagogue life and the life of the Jewish community in New York City before and during a key time period of great Jewish immigration to the United States and in modern American history,” said Naomi Steinberger, Project Manager for the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary’s collaboration with the American Jewish Historical Society and the Center for Jewish History.
 
Since 2005, METRO’s DMNY program has distributed over $530,000 to help fund 37 projects at more than 49 METRO member institutions. Managed by METRO, Digital Metro New York supports the implementation of digitization projects among METRO member libraries and archives. METRO lends vital additional support for digitization projects through specialized education and training programs and opportunities for “digitally ready” libraries to share expertise and best-practice digitization strategies.
 
METRO’s digitization program is supported by funds from the New York State Regional Bibliographic Database Program. For more information about METRO’s involvement in digitization projects, visit http://bit.ly/dkbS1k.
 
About METRO
 
The Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) is a non-profit organization working to develop and maintain essential library services throughout New York City and Westchester County. METRO's service is developed and delivered with broad input and support from an experienced staff of library professionals, the organization's member libraries, an active board of trustees, government representatives and other experts in research and library operations.
 
As the largest reference and research resources (3Rs) library council in New York State, METRO members reflect a wide range of special, academic, archival and public library organizations. In addition to training programs and support services, METRO also works to bring members of the New York City and Westchester County library communities together to promote ongoing exchanges of information and ideas.

SOTHEBY'S LONDON is delighted to announce the sale of a selection of exceptional works in its English Literature, History Private Press, Children’s Books & Illustrations auction on Thursday, 15 December 2011. The sale, which comprises 163 lots, is expected to raise in excess of £1.5 million. The headline lot is an autograph manuscript of the previously unknown The Young Men’s Magazine, Number 2, written by a 14-year-old Charlotte Brontë, in miniature format. Estimated at £200,000-300,000, it is one of only a handful of such manuscripts remaining in private hands. Also featured is a first deluxe edition of Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone which includes 10 full-colour, specially commissioned illustrations by Thomas Taylor, the first artist to give shape to the boy wizard. The sale has several works of international significance, including an archive of literary manuscripts by Naguib Mahfouz, probably the most significant Egyptian novelist of the 20th Century.

Peter Selley, Sotheby‟s Senior Director and Senior Specialist in the Books and Manuscripts Department said: “This is a wonderfully diverse sale, which offers historic collecting opportunities, including the most important Brontë manuscript to be offered at auction for a generation. Previously unknown to scholars and of huge literary significance, it sheds new light on Charlotte Brontë’s inspirations and the fantasy worlds inhabited by the Brontë siblings. Another imaginary realm which has captivated millions of readers is that of J.K. Rowling, and the sale features perhaps the ultimate bespoke Harry Potter novel. The unique copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher‟s Stone includes 10 wonderfully fresh illustrations, offered with the original watercolours, by Thomas Taylor, who created the first ever depiction of the young wizard.”

The unpublished manuscript by Charlotte Brontë, The Young Men’s Magazine, Number 2 (illustrated right), reveals a plot line which is a precursor to one of the most famous scenes in Jane Eyre. Estimated at £200,000-300,000, it is the most important Brontë manuscript to have appeared at auction in more than thirty years and has never before been seen by scholars. Set in „Glass Town‟, the earliest fictional world that the four Brontë siblings created, and written by a fourteen-year-old Charlotte in miniature magazine format, the manuscript is dated August 1830 - 17 years before the celebrated author wrote Jane Eyre.

Offered for sale for the first time, a unique copy of the first 1999 deluxe edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling, is estimated at £30,000-50,000 (pictured, page one). The bespoke, extra-illustrated edition is not only signed by the author but also includes 10 specially commissioned full-colour plates by the original Harry Potter illustrator, Thomas Taylor. The consignor asked Taylor to create the images in 2002 for his own library. The scenes were chosen for their significance and to provide an even spread of illustrations throughout the narrative. They were originally intended to be bound into a copy of the book, but proving too thick, were instead reproduced on fine wove paper and sumptuously bound by Asprey. Thomas Taylor provided the first-ever depiction of Harry Potter for the cover of Rowling‟s debut novel in 1997. After it was published the image achieved world-wide fame and Taylor‟s original watercolour was sold at Sotheby‟s London in July 2001 for £85,750.
 
A highly significant archive of literary manuscripts by Naguib Mahfouz, probably the most significant Egyptian novelist of the 20th Century, is estimated at £50,000-70,000. Best known for his 1950s works the Cairo Trilogy and the Children of Gebelawi, in 1988, Mahfouz became the only Arab writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Mahfouz‟s style developed throughout his career and those changes are reflected in this rich and diverse group of literary manuscripts which includes material from both the beginning of his career in the 1930s, to his death in 2006. To Sotheby‟s best knowledge this is the first manuscript material by Mahfouz to appear at auction.
 
A unique edition of Queen Victoria’s biography by Agnes Strickland, Queen Victoria from Her Birth to Her Bridal (Henry Colburn, 1840), inscribed with notes in the Queen‟s hand, is estimated at £10,000-£15,000. Queen Victoria was deeply unimpressed with the biography by the well-known Victorian author of Lives of the Queens of England. When a copy of the overtly effusive and sentimental work was presented to her, the Queen made her true feelings known. She made caustic marginal comments on 120 pages of the book, then had it returned to the author. In many cases Queen Victoria marked specific paragraphs with a vertical line and added a terse “not true”, “quite false”, and even “not one word of truth” in the margin. In others she made specific factual corrections to names, dates and places. Strickland, appalled at the royal response, made every effort to halt further distribution of the book, and to buy any remaining copies in bookstores and destroy them. This book is offered for sale for the first time, by Agnes Strickland‟s direct descendants. In 1932 the family (then living in Canada) received a request from King George V to see the book. It was duly despatched to England and is offered for sale in the brown paper wrapping in which it was posted back to the family from Windsor Castle.
 
A collection of books and effects, formerly the property of Yvonne Cloetta, the long-time companion of Graham Greene, is estimated to reach a total in excess of £40,000. Mme Cloetta was Greene‟s last great love and the centre of his emotional life for his last three decades. The author moved to Antibes in the early 1960s to be near her home in Juan Les Pins. He never formally divorced his wife Vivien, and Yvonne never left her husband, but the extent of the collection and the tenderness of its inscriptions, reveals the depth of their relationship: “If I were to live my life again, there is only one thing I would want unchanged: meeting you, knowing you, and loving you,”
 
Graham Greene wrote to Yvonne in 1978. The collection, comprising correspondence, inscribed first editions of Greene‟s novels, a portrait of the author and his camera, will be sold in 16 separate lots.

The very rare first separate English edition of one of the best-loved poems in the English language, Rudyard Kipling’s IF, is estimated at £8,000-£12,000. The work, which is consistently voted as “The Nation‟s Favourite Poem”, was first published in 1910, but it was the appearance of this first edition in the month of the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, which brought it to the attention of a wider public. There is believed to be only one copy recorded in any institution worldwide: that in the collection of one of Kipling‟s early biographers the Canadian barrister and industrialist James McG. Stewart, who bequeathed it to Dalhousie University Library in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

A charming original ink drawing of Piglet, stranded in a tree during a flood, by E.H. Shepard is estimated at £30,000-50,000. The work, which here has Shepard‟s minor gouache corrections, was reproduced as a full-page illustration in Chapter IX of A.A. Milne‟s Winnie the Pooh, published in 1926. Shepard entitled the drawing “Rescue of Piglet” before quoting Milne‟s text: “It is a little anxious… to be a very small animal entirely surrounded by water.”

Another famous literary pig to feature in the sale is the beloved Wilbur. Maggie Kneen’s complete set of 21 fine pencil and watercolour drawings for Some Pig! by Charlotte’s Web author E. B. White (pictured left), is estimated to fetch £4,000-£6,000.

A unique leather-bound boxed set of Stieg Larsson’s internationally bestselling and award-winning Millennium Trilogy (pictured right) comprises The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, along with the original letter of rejection sent to a young Larsson in 1972 by the Joint Committee of Colleges of Journalism. Larsson kept this letter among his personal possessions until his death, and it reveals an original pencil portrait by the author himself. Stieg Larsson‟s drawing skills are well documented, but his drawings have not previously been published. The document has been donated by the author's family specifically to be included with the boxed set estimated at £10,000-12,000. The sale will benefit Expo, the anti-discrimination foundation set up in 1995 by Larsson and his peers. Larsson served as president of the foundation as well as editor-in-chief of Expo magazine until his death in 2004. 

30 November 2011 - Sotheby’s is delighted to announce that it will hold an auction of property from the estate of celebrated New York philanthropist and patron of the arts, Brooke Astor. The sale, which will take place on 19 April 2012, will comprise jewelry and fine & decorative art from Mrs. Astor’s Park Avenue apartment as well as her Westchester estate, Holly Hill, and is estimated in excess of $5 million*.

In keeping with her unwavering commitment to numerous New York institutions and causes, Mrs. Astor selected a number of charitable organizations to benefit from her estate including: The New York Public Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Pierpont Morgan Library, The Animal Medical Center of New York and New York City Schools, in addition to various charities in Maine. Further information about the contents of the auction will be distributed by Sotheby’s in early 2012.

DALLAS, TX - Heritage Auctions has announced that, effective Jan. 1, 2012, the structure of its Buyer’s Premium (BP) will be changing in several of its categories. While 13 of the company’s 33 categories will remain at 19.5% or 15%, the rest of the Heritage categories will implement the change.

“We make very careful and considered decisions at Heritage, and this was not one that we came to lightly,” said Greg Rohan, President of Heritage Auctions. “Heritage is a major player on the world auction stage, and our BP rates will now be competitive with the rest of the world’s key auctioneers.”

In the categories of American Indian Art, American Art, European Art, Furniture & Decorative Arts, Illustration Art, Jewelry, Lalique & Art Glass, Luxury Accessories, Modern & Contemporary Art, Music & Entertainment, Natural History, Photography, Pre-Columbian, Rare Books, Silver & Vertu, Texas Art, Timepieces, Vintage Guitars and Western Art, buyers will pay a BP of 25% of the hammer price on the first $50,000 of each lot purchased, 20% on the portion between $50,000 to $1,000,000 and 12% on any amount more than $1,000,000.
The minimum BP of $14 per lot will also continue to apply.

There will be no change in Buyer’s Premium for US Coins, World Coins, Currency, Wine and Arms & Armor, which remain at 15% or for Americana & Political, Civil War & Militaria, Comics & Comic Art, Historic Manuscripts, Movie Posters, Space Exploration, Vintage Sports Collectibles and Texana auctions, which remain at 19.5%. In Gallery Auctions, meaning those auctions with sealed bids, mostly bulk numismatic material at Heritage, the BP will also remain at 19.5%.

LONG BEACH, CA - ABC has announced that it will air The Great Big American Auction, starring Ty Pennington of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, one of America's leading reality TV personalities, and featuring exclusively Heritage Auctions’ experts, auction services and staff, in a very special television first made-for-TV auction event, at 10 p.m. (ET) on Thursday, Dec. 8.
 
The special was produced by Cineflix (Auction) Inc. for ABC. Executive Producers are Lisa Levenson, Ty Pennington, Joe Houlihan and Simon Lloyd.

Ty Pennington has been transforming people’s homes and lives for several years now as the host of ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and has now found an exciting new way to change lives by turning their memorabilia and assorted hidden finds into treasures worth life-changing amounts of money.
 
After scouring flea markets, cellars, attics and yard sales to find one-of-a-kind items whose owners have no idea of their real value, Pennington, with a team of experts from Heritage Auctions, tags the best items and brings them to The Queen Mary oceanliner in Long Beach, CA for The Great Big American Auction. The exceptional collectibles range from first edition classic comic books to rare American currency to an early 20th century baseball icon’s checkbook, and much more in-between, all chosen for their rarity, value and the uniqueness of the consignor’s story.
 
“It’s a great thrill to be part of this major network, prime time show, to work with Cineflex and ABC and a star the magnitude and class of Ty Pennington,” said Greg Rohan, President of Heritage Auctions. “We went to great lengths with our staff and experts to make sure that all these unique items have great stories and that they live up to Heritage’s exacting consignment standards. We hope that everyone will enjoy the show as much as we enjoyed being a part of it.”
 
Objects originally bought for mere dollars, or literally plucked right out the trash will go for thousands of dollars as their lucky owners' lives are changed for the better.
 
The Great Big American Auction will air on THURSDAY, DEC. 8 AT 10 P.M. (ET) on The ABC Television Network.
 
Heritage Auctions is always seeking “consignments with a story” for possible future TV projects. If you think you might have a unique item and a unique story, email to TVShow@HA.com.
 
Heritage Auctions, headed by Steve Ivy, Jim Halperin and Greg Rohan, is the world’s third largest auction house, with annual sales more than $700 million, and 600,000+ online bidder members. For more information about Heritage Auctions, and to join and gain access to a complete record of prices realized, along with full-color, enlargeable photos of each lot, please visit HA.com.
                        
Want to get the up-to-the-minute updates and breaking news stories about Heritage Auctions? Get them as they happen at: www.Twitter.com/HeritageAuction; Facebook: www.HA.com/Facebook.To view a compete archive of Heritage press releases go to: HA.com/PR. To link to this press release on your blog or Website: HA.com/PR-2133.

WELLESLEY, Mass. - The Davis Museum at Wellesley College will open an exhibition that explores the French roots of American Lithography on Wednesday, March 14, 2012.  With a French Accent: French and American Lithography Before 1860 will include about fifty French and American prints from the collection of the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts.  On view through June 3, 2012 in the Morelle Lasky Levine '56 Works on Paper Gallery, the exhibition is free and open to the public. 



The exhibition With a French Accent and an accompanying publication uncover several themes: the important of French technology, the circulation and reproduction of French imagery, stylistic contributions of French lithographic artists, and the reproduction of American genre paintings by French publishers for distribution in Europe and the United States.
 

Among the prints on display will be John Rubens Smith’s portrait of his wife printed by Barnet & Doolittle about 1821.  The two partners studied lithography in Paris before trying to establish a firm in New York.  A lithograph, Piercing the Ears, published in New York in 1825 by Anthony Imbert, reproduced a lithograph by Léopold Boilly from his series, Les Grimaces, published in Paris from 1823-1828.  The Philadelphia firm Cephas G. Childs and Henry Inman also reproduced French prints.



Several French print publishers, Bailly and Ward, Turgis, and Goupil distributed prints in the United States through their shops in New York.  A dozen of their prints will be on display.  Several French lithographic artists settled in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston bringing new styles of drawing on stone to the American public.  For example, Francis D’Avignon was particularly adept at drawing portraits after photographs and Charles Crehan’s portrait of Jenny Lind is freely drawn with carefully delineated facial features.  William Schaus, Goupil and Company, and Michael Knoedler all published prints lithographed in Paris after American genre and history paintings by artists such as William Sidney Mount, Lily Martin Spencer, Junius Brutus Stearns, F. O. C. Darley, George Caleb Bingham, and Richard Caton Woodville.

The exhibition was curated by Georgia Brady Barnhill, Director of the Center for Historic American Visual Culture, and Lauren B. Hewes, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Graphic Arts, both of the American Antiquarian Society, based on research supported by funds from The Florence Gould Foundation of New York.



The American Antiquarian Society (AAS) is an independent research library founded in 1812 in Worcester, Massachusetts. The library’s collections document the life of America’s people from the colonial era through the Civil War and Reconstruction.  Collections include books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, broadsides, manuscripts, music, graphic arts, and local histories.



EXHIBITION EVENTS


Opening Celebration

Wednesday, March 14 | 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

The Davis Lobby and Galleries

Free


Join us in celebrating this groundbreaking collaboration between the Davis and the American Antiquarian Society, as With A French Accent opens to the public.



Symposium: French and American Lithography: History and Practice

March 31, 2012

Collins Cinema

Free


Co-hosted by the Davis and the American Antiquarian Society, this symposium explores transnational interconnection, particularly the impact on American lithography of artistic exchange between France and the United States through the 19th and 20th centuries and into contemporary practice. This daylong event at Wellesley College features a range of talks by exhibition curators Georgia Brady Barnhill and Lauren B. Hewes, and visiting scholars Marie-Stephanie Delmaire and Catherine Wilcox-Titus, and lithography demonstrations by a visiting artist and a master printer. This event as been generously supported by Jay and Deborah Last, by Wellesley College Friends of Art, by Grace Slack McNeil Program for Studies in American Art.  Registration information may be found on the Davis Museum’s website: web.wellesley.edu/web/Events or by calling 781.283-2373.



DAVIS MUSEUM GENERAL INFORMATION


Location: Wellesley College, 106 Central St., in Wellesley, Mass. 

Museum Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 11 am-5 pm, Wednesday until 8 pm, and Sunday, noon-4 pm.  Closed Mondays, holidays, and Wellesley College recesses.

Admission is free and open to the public.
Telephone: 781-283-2051

Website: www.davismuseum.wellesley.edu

Parking: Free and available in the lot behind the museum. Additional parking is available in the Davis Parking Facility. 
Tours: Led by student tour guides and curators. Free. Call 781-283-3382

Accessible: The Davis, Collins Café and Collins Cinema are wheelchair accessible and wheelchairs are available for use in the Museum without charge. Special needs may be accommodated by contacting Director of Disability Services Jim Wice at 781-283-2434 or jwice@wellesley.edu.



ABOUT THE DAVIS MUSEUM


One of the oldest and most acclaimed academic fine arts museums in the United States, the Davis Museum is a vital force in the intellectual, pedagogical and social life of Wellesley College.  It seeks to create an environment that encourages visual literacy, inspires new ideas, and fosters involvement with the arts both within the College and the larger community.



ABOUT WELLESLEY COLLEGE & THE ARTS


The Wellesley College arts curriculum and the highly acclaimed Davis Museum and Cultural Center are integral components of the College’s liberal arts education.  Departments and programs from across the campus enliven the community with world-class programming - classical and popular music, visual arts, theatre, dance, author readings, symposia and lectures by some of today’s leading artists and creative thinkers - most of which are free and open to the public. 



Located just 12 miles from Boston and accessible by public transit, Wellesley College’s idyllic surroundings provide a nearby retreat for the senses and inspiration that lasts well after a visit.



Since 1875, Wellesley College has been a leader in providing an excellent liberal arts education for women who will make a difference in the world.  Its 500-acre campus near Boston is home to 2,400 undergraduate students from all 50 states and 75 countries.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  
Media Contacts: Nina J. Berger
781-283-2034, nberger@wellesley.edu
Sofiya Cabalquinto
781-283-3321, scabalqu@wellesley.edu



ITHACA, NY] National Book Auctions, located in Ithaca, NY, hosted a Sunday, November 20th auction featuring a broad range of rare antique and vintage books, as well as a fine array of artwork, maps, and ephemera. Highlights of this auction included several personal libraries of scholarly books relating to art, theology and a private collection of works by Anthony Burgess. This 422-lot auction also featured antique engravings with architectural content, Victorian chromo-lithographic items, and a collection of Asian art and artifacts.

A British first edition volume of Anthony Burgess’s “A Clockwork Orange” fetched a hammer price of $2583.00 (including buyer’s premium). In 1998, the Modern Library ranked “A Clockwork Orange” 65th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. This 1962 dystopian novella contains an experiment in language: the characters often use an argot called "Nadsat", derived from Russian.

A lot containing two albums of antique Victorian chromolithographs reached an impressive hammer price of $3690.00 (including buyer’s premium). The albums contain a beautiful assortment of items, including vividly colored trade cards and advertisements.

Realizing a hammer price of $1291.50 (including buyer’s premium) was a first edition printing of “La Pirotechnia o Sia Trattato Dei Fouchi D'artificio” by Giuseppe Antonio Alberti Bolognese. This 1749 printing is the first Italian work on recreational fireworks. This volume is lavishly illustrated with fold-out plates showing a variety of fireworks.

An antique bronze Chinese Buddhist statue of Kwan Yin achieved a hammer price of $1140 (including buyer’s premium). Also known as the Goddess of Mercy, Kwan Yin is one of the most universally beloved of deities in the Buddhist tradition. This statue depicts Kwan Yin sitting cross-legged on a lotus blossom, which is an iconic symbol of Buddhist purity.

National Book Auctions is a public auction service specializing in books, ephemera, and art. National Book Auctions is a targeted service offering experience and expertise unique to marketing antique and modern books and ephemera for consignors and collectors alike. Preview for the upcoming Sunday, December 4th auction is at 10 a.m. and the live auction starts at noon. For more information or to consign collectible material please contact David Hall, Business Manager, at 607-269-0101 or email mail@nationalbookauctions.com.

Kestenbaum & Company will conduct an auction of Fine Judaica on Thursday, December 8 at 3:00 pm. The sale will be held at the company’s gallery at 242 West 30 Street in New York City. Buyers will be afforded an opportunity to select from an extensive selection of Printed Books, Manuscripts, Autograph Letters & Graphic Art. Featured in the sale will also be Rare Books from Jews’ College Library, London.

The Americana section of the sale boasts an item of great significance in the history of American Jewry: Speeches on the Jew Bill in the House of Delegates in Maryland, 1829.  This important text gave Jews residing in that state full civil rights that had up until that point been denied them. The pre-auction estimate is $15,000-20,000 (Lot 16). Further lots of interest include the very first publication of the American Union for Reform Judaism, Cincinnati, 1873, estimate $5,000-7,000 (Lot 25); an Address on the Death of Abraham Lincoln given by prominent Philadelphia Rabbi Sabato Morais displaying the grief that Jews shared upon the president’s assassination, Philadelphia, 1865, estimate: $4,000-6,000 (Lot 26) and a printed invitation addressed to Rabbi Morais from then President of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes to meet with him, Philadelphia, circa 1877, at an estimate of $2,000-2,500 (Lot 24). An important autograph letter, signed by Union Major General Benjamin F. Butler, portrays the Military Governor of New Orleans’ notorious anti-Semitism, dated October 23, 1862, estimate $6,000-9,000 (Lot 253).

Among the books of Hebraica being offered, the star lot is an excellent copy of Masecheth Bava Bathra, one of the most scarce and important tractates of Bomberg’s celebrated Talmud edition, Venice, 1521 at a pre-sale estimate of $100,000-120,000 (Lot 226). Further significant lots include a first edition, in very fine condition, of the Shela’h Siddur, Amsterdam, 1717, estimate $35,000-40,000 (Lot 175); an important Bible edition, Derech Ha’kodesh, prepared by Elias Hutter, Hamburg, 1587, estimate $5.000-7,000 (Lot 49) and a first edition of Tobias Cohn’s comprehensive illustrated Hebrew scientific encyclopedia, Ma’aseh Tuvia, Venice 1707-8 at an estimate of 3,000-5,000 (Lot 83). Other categories of Hebrew books include Kabbalistic texts and a number of important printed Chassidic books such as the first Tanya printed in America with manuscript corrections in the hand of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Brooklyn, 1953, at an estimate of $5,000-7,000 (Lot 77).

Notable selections among the Passover Hagadahs include the first Reform Hagadah, London, 1842, estimate $4,000-5,000 (Lot 113) and a Hagadah in Judeo-Tatar, Piotrkow, 1904, at an estimate of $1,500-2,000 (Lot 115). A mint copy of the celebrated David Moss Hagadah, Verona, 1987, one of 500 numbered copies, is also up for auction.  This beautifully designed book is truly a phenomenal bibliophilic achievement. The estimate is $12,000-15,000 (lot 126).

The Printed Books section spans the globe with a diverse range of texts relating to the socio-economic status of Jews in England, Australia, India, Russia, South Africa, Sweden, France and Asia. Of special interest is a highly unusual volume printed from wood-blocks on rice paper entitled Facsimiles of the Hebrew Manuscripts Obtained at the Jewish Synagogue in K’ae-Fung Foo, Shanghai, 1851, estimated at $8,000-10,000 (Lot 80). Also of note is an exotic Judaic school textbook printed in 1915 in Beru, located in the Pacific Islands, and composed in the Gilbertese language, estimated at $1,000-1,500 (Lot 199). The section also includes notable books relating to the Jews in Syria, Libya, Persia and Baghdad.

An important highlight among other historic books is the second edition of Confusión de Confusiones, by Joseph Penso de la Vega, one of the foremost writers and thinkers among the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam, in which he theorizes, describes and defines the operations of the Stock Market, Breslau, 1919, estimate $1,500-2,000 (Lot 202). A singular Zionist item issued immediately following the Balfour Declaration is a Programme of a Jewish Demonstration to Thank His Majesty’s Government for Their Declaration in Favour of the Establishment in Palestine of a National Home for the Jewish People, London, 1917, at an estimate of $1.000-1,500 (Lot 237). Other Zionist books include the first American edition of Theodor Herzl’s Der Judenstaat-The Jewish State, New York, 1904, estimate $2,000-3,000 (Lot 235), as well as the first American Yiddish edition, Der Idenshtat, New York, 1917, estimate $1,200-1,800 (Lot 236). Holy Land related texts include Plate Books such as Willem & David Goeree’s Mosaize Historie der Hebreeuwse Kerke, an attractive four volume set of a study of Jewish antiquities, Amsterdam, 1700, estimate $3,000-5,000 (Lot 107); Dutch traveller and painter Cornelis de Bruyn’s Reizen… Delft, 1698, estimate 2,000-3,000 (Lot 152) and Views in Palestine from the Original Drawings of Luigi Mayer, London, 1804, at an estimate of $4,000-5,000 (Lot 153).

Within the Manuscripts section of the auction, a highly attractive festival Prayer-Book according to the custom of Avignon, 1689, estimate $10,000-15,000 (Lot 268) is featured. Other noteworthy highlights include a group of medieval Hebrew illuminated manuscript fragments from the Workshop of the Lisbon Bible, late fifteenth century, estimate $12,000-18,000 (Lot 301); a manuscript dated 1750 listing those Jews privileged by King Frederick II of Prussia with the right to reside in Berlin, estimate $10,000-15,000 (Lot 269) and a Judeo Persian manuscript of the Ethics of the Fathers, Persia, 1913-1924, estimate $3,000-4,000 (Lot 288).  The section also includes eye-catching illuminated Ketubot from Bulgaria and Italy.

Autograph Letters by illustrious Jewish spiritual leaders include missives by Maharam Schick, The Komarner, Reb Chaim Brisker, The Grand Rabbis of the Vishnitz Chassidic dynasty, The Yenukah of Stolin, Rabbis Aaron Kotler and Moshe Feinstein. One standout lot is an important letter from R. Moses Sofer, the “Chatham Sofer” which includes a response to a Halachic question concerning inheritance matters, Pressburg, 1834, at an estimate of $45,000-50,000 (Lot 311).

The catalogue cover lot is an extraordinary illuminated manuscript composed on a large vellum sheet, depicting King Nebuchadnezzar's dream from the Book of Daniel and explaining it in exhaustive detail in Hebrew. The King's vision is a revelation of the future history of the world and of events that must precede the dawn of the Messianic Age. No other Jewish depiction of this biblical key to world history is known. The pre-auction estimate is $20,000-30,000 (Lot 322).

A number of fine paintings round out the sale including an Austrian landscape by Isidor Kaufmann (Lot 334); a poignant painting of a Sabbath Eve scene by Marcin Gottlieb, younger brother of the celebrated Maurycy (Lot 333); a pen and ink drawing of Charlie Chaplin by Marc Chagall dated 1929 (Lot 331), and drawings by Issacher Ryback (Lots 337 & 338). Other art (including illustrated books) sure to garner interest include works by Ilya Schor, Saul Raskin, Mane-Katz, Herman Struck, Max Spilhaczek, Ze’ev Raban, Arthur Szyk, Imre Amos, Otto Eichinger and Abraham Rattner. The sale concludes with a fine photograph by Roman Vischniac.

For  further  information  relating  to  bidding  or  any  other  queries,  please  contact Jackie  Insel at  212-366-1197.

EAST HANOVER, NJ - DECEMBER 2 & 3, 2011: Garry Austin of Austin’s Antiquarian Books & Tina Bruno of Flamingo Eventz, LLC have reached an agreement for Flamingo to assume management and operation of this very popular and long-running show. Now in its 20th year, this has become one of the important Metro NY/NJ shows under Mr. Austin’s guidance.

Both parties emphasize that there will be no disruptions in operation of the show as a result of this arrangement - booth assignments will be retained and Mr. Austin will remain as an exhibitor and consultant at the show. Ms. Bruno emphasized that all the familiar and expected Flamingo features will be added, such as enhanced advertising, social media contacts, reduced youth admission fees, and Book, Paper & Antique Appraisals by John Bruno and guest appraisers on Sunday from 1-3pm at $5/item.

At the 20th Annual New Jersey Book & Ephemera Fair you'll find collectible books, autographs, maps, prints, photographs, postcards, magazines, advertising, and more! It’s all happening Friday, December 2 5-9pm and Saturday, December 3, 2011, 10am-4pm at The Ramada Hotel & Conference Center on Rt 10 in East Hanover, NJ Exhibitors from throughout the Northeast will be offering an exciting array of printed text, images, specialists displaying children's books, fine & decorative arts, modern literature, local history, Americana, technology, science, music, social reforms & labor history, religion, and so much more!

Exhibitors include: Austin's Antiquarian Books, Wilmington, VT; Bartleby's Books, Washington, DC; Better Book Getter, New York, NY; Bill Hutchison, Mendenhall, PA; Brian Cassidy, Bookseller, Takoma Park, MD; Brooklyn Books, Brooklyn, NY; Butternut Valley Books, Gilbertsville, NY; Charles Lloyd Rare Books, Howell, NJ; Colophon Books, Layton, NJ; Dubois Rare Books, New York, NY; Edward N. Bomsey Autographs, Annandale, VA; First Place Books, Walkersville, MD; Gary White - Bookseller, Montrose, NY; James Arsenault & Company, Arrowsic, ME; Jeff Bergman Books, Fort Lee, NJ; Kings Arms Rare Books, Williamsburg, VA; Melrose Books & Art, Melrose, MA; Mori Books, Milford, NH; Mosher Books, Ephrata, PA; Nicholas Riccio Rare Books & Prints, Florham, NJ; Old Book Shop, Morristown, NJ; Peter Luke Old & Rare Books, New Baltimore, NY; Shelter Island Antiques & Art, Shelter Island, NY; Stan Gorski - Books, Doylestown, PA; The Archive, Lansdale, PA; The Card Shark, Perth Amboy, New Jersey, NJ; The John Bale Book Company, Waterbury, CT; The Zussman Collection, Brigantine, and NJ; Thomas R. Farley, West Orange, NJ. These and many other other fine Exhibitors will be found at this exceptional show.

Date: December 2 & 3, 2011.
Location: The Ramada Inn & Conference Center, 130 Rt. 10 W, East Hanover, NJ 07936.
Hours: Friday 5-9pm / Saturday: 10am-4pm.
Admission: Adults: $6, Youths 12-21: $3, under 12: free w/paid Adult.
Directions: Check our website, FlamingoEventz.com, for full details, merchandise samples, discount coupons and easily downloaded maps.
Miscellaneous: Appraisals Saturday 1-3pm, $5/Item. Restaurant on-site. Plenty of Free Parking.

Background: Flamingo Eventz, LLC presents the finest, most innovative, and respected Book & Ephemera Fairs, Formal Antiques Shows, and Antiques Appraisal Events in the Northeast. They have over 25 years experience as antique dealers and over 17 years experience as professional event promoters. They are members of the Antiques & Collectibles National Association, and John Bruno is an antiques appraiser and television personality who appears on numerous shows discussing and appraising antiques.

Editors: For further information, photographs, descriptions, or dealer biographies, please contact: TINA or JOHN BRUNO at FLAMINGO EVENTZ, LLC.
Office: 603.509.2639 / E-Mail: FlamingoEventz@metrocast.net / Web: FlamingoEventz.com

On 13th December 2011 Sotheby’s Fine Books and Manuscripts sale in New York will include The Jean-Vounder Davis Collection of the Raymond Chandler Library -a unique group of books from the collection of one of America’s greatest detective fiction writers. Many of the titles are personalized by the author and offer a fascinating insight to his closest relationships. The writer rarely inscribed his works and this is by far the most important Chandler collection to have appeared on the market.

After Raymond Chandler’s death all of these books, manuscripts, and screenplays entered the library of his secretary and fiancé Jean Vounder-Davis, whose daughter has consigned the collection. Despite a 30 year age gap, Jean cared for the author keeping him healthy, sober, and focused on his writing. In turn he helped to care for her children, becoming their legal guardian.

The group is led by a remarkable double presentation copy of The Big Sleep - Chandler’s momentous first novel - that is inscribed to his beloved wife, Cissy (est.$80/120,000). Raymond Chandler met Cissy Pascal in 1919 after his return from the war. The dominant figure in his life, she would go on to become the crucial force that propelled him into writing. Twenty years his senior, Cissy was married when she met Chandler; however she divorced her husband and married the writer in 1924. In the 1930s Chandler lost his job as an oil company executive as a result of his heavy drinking and promiscuity. This led him to pursue a writing career which started with the publication of The Big Sleep in 1938. The landmark book introduced the character of Philip Marlowe, profoundly changing American detective fiction. This first edition is inscribed: “For my Cissy / Who wants something / much better, but was / pleased even with this / Raymond / La Jolla Jan 1939 / Riverside Feb 1939.”

Chandler’s personal copy of The Big Sleep is also included in the sale with the inscription: “For me / without my compliments / Raymond Chandler / Riverside Feb 1939” (est. $60/80,000). The novel was written over three months in the summer of 1939, with the absence of a clean ending in which justice was served, setting it apart from much detective fiction of the day.

A dedication copy of the first edition of Chandler’s novel Playback has been inscribed to Jean Fracasse, who would later revert to her maiden name of Jean Vounder-Davis. It references the support the author showed his friend during her divorce: “To / Jean / With Love and dedication, and having given me / the opportunity to be her / bulwark and defender / against and odious and /entirely unwarranted attack. / I still am. I always shall / be Ray / La Jolla August 1958” (est. $10/15,000). In addition, the novel is dedicated to Jean along with Chandler’s agent Helga Greene with whom the author would become romantically involved. Even when he was in a relationship with Helga, Chandler continued to provide for Jean Fracasse and her children, even signing over the Commonwealth rights of this book to her. The auction also offers a remarkable insight into two of Chandler’s literary friendships. He met Ian Fleming in 1955 during a dinner at Stephen Spender’s home in London where the James Bond author admired the depth which Chandler had written into his creation, Philip Marlowe. The meeting came at a time when Fleming was considering ending the Bond series, feeling he had reached an impasse with the character. Chandler seems to have reinvigorated his friend, with the subsequent Bond novels displaying the kind of rich character development he associated with Philip Marlowe.

A first edition of Goldfinger is a superb example of the friendship between the two authors and is inscribed: “To Ray / with much affection / from / Ian” (est. $60/80,000). In his first edition copy of From Russia With Love
Chandler has graded the previous Bond titles, ironically, From Russia With Love receives only a B unlike Moonraker and Live and Let Die which are both awarded an A (est. $10/15,000).

In a copy of Three of a Kind, the author James Cain thanks Chandler for his work on the Double Indemnity movie script (est. $15/20,000). Chandler did not enjoy the experience, but the film would go on to earn seven Oscar nominations. His personal copy of the Three of a Kind script is also included in the sale (est. $8/12,000). When he started working on the script Chandler had little idea how the screenwriting process worked, however after a difficult start the working relationship between Chandler and Cain would go on to produce one of the most important works of film noir.

The sale will also feature Chandler’s legendary script for The Blue Dahlia (est. $7/10,000). In 1944 the makers of The Blue Dahlia were thrown into a panic as their lead actor Alan Ladd faced the possibility of a second Army tour of duty. Chandler therefore was brought in quickly to begin adapting his unfinished Dahlia story. With this accelerated schedule, Chandler went to the film makers claiming that the only way he would be able to finish the script was if he were allowed to work from home and relapse into drinking. The studio agreed both to this and his request for two limousines to be available to him at all times along with six secretaries in three shifts of two.

Chandler’s last film project was working on the script of Strangers on a Train for Alfred Hitchcock (est. $7/10,000). Chandler was soon replaced after Hitchcock overhead Chandler describe him as a “fat bastard” but enough of his material was used that he was credited as the lead writer.
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London - Christie’s is pleased to announce the upcoming auction An Iberian Private Collection with Part I: Important Gold Boxes & Objects of Vertu on 8 December 2011 and Part II: Furniture, Silver, Jewellery, Paintings, European, Chinese and Islamic Ceramics on 9 December 2011. This eclectic collection, which spans the 16th to the 21st century, reflects the exquisite taste of a passionate collector and includes exceptional golden splendors which will appeal to both serious collectors and individuals looking for luxurious gifts in the festive season.

This superb collection was formed over five decades by a visionary connoisseur, known for his refined taste and expertise and a prominent figure in the art world since the 1960s. The sale is led by precious materials, notably gold which is present in all forms, from raw nuggets, gold leaf and ingots to elegant jewellery, engraved gold boxes and chased ornaments. Nearly 250 gold boxes and objects of vertu form Part I of the sale, with opulent and sophisticated designs, outstanding provenance and craftsmanship by the most renowned goldsmiths. Fine silver pieces, Chinese and European porcelain, Islamic Iznik ceramic and luxurious French and Iberian furniture are amongst the many other highlights of this collection which is remarkable in its breadth, diversity and quality. The two-part sale is estimated to achieve in the region of £2.5 million and comprises over 600 lots, with estimates starting from under £1,000. Top highlights include:

Miniatures and Gold Boxes
A George II gold snuff-box by Francis Harrache (1738-1754) is an elegant example of guilloché or engine-turning engraving (estimate: £50,000-70,000). Very much in the French taste and unlike other gold boxes by Francis Harrache, this example was produced in 1757; it is a timeless classic.

A fine Louis XV enamelled gold snuff-box by Jean Fremin (1738-1786), Paris, epitomises the skill and craftsmanship of the Parisian goldsmiths that were working during the reign of Louis XV. Created in 1759/1760, it is enamelled with a parrot, an example of the popularity that exotic birds in decorative scenes enjoyed on gold boxes during the 1750’s and early 1760’s (estimate: £200,000-300,000).

Chinese and European Ceramics
A large Chinese export Monogrammed part-dinner service from the late Qianlong period, circa 1785-1795, reflects the quality of the porcelain on offer. It includes various tureens, sauce boats, and a large series of plates, decorated in blue enamel and gilt with the monogram JLF in a shield (estimate: £20,000-30,000).

Furniture
A George III brass mounted satinwood amaranth and painted sideboard, with its mirrored back, rich shimmering satinwood surface and elegant lines would be a superb dining room piece set with decorative silver, porcelains or glassware. Of the late 18th century, possibly by George Simson, it is estimated at £20,000 to £30,000.

Silver
A Portuguese Silver Flagon is a rare and large example of Portuguese silver from the 17th century - amphora-shaped and with the front engraved with a coat of arms within foliage mantling (estimate: £50,000-80,000).

A Portuguese silver-gilt salver, circa 1530-40 (illustrated right) comes from the de Sousa family of Prado, descendants of an illegitimate son of King Alphonso III of Portugal (estimate: £70,000-100,000). The coat of arms and feet probably date from the 18th century.

Old Master Picutres
Peaches, grapes, nectarines, strawberries, cherries, corn, a pomegranate and other fruit hanging from a blue ribbon in a niche is an opulent still-life by important Antwerp artist Joris van Son (1623-1667). The poet Cornelis de Bie described its fruits as so naturalistic that they would tempt a pregnant woman - alluding to the symbolism of fecundity and prosperity evoked by the painting (estimate: £20,000-30,000.

Auction: An Iberian Private Collection: Part I: Important Gold Boxes & Objects of Vertu & Part II: Furniture, Silver, Jewellery, Paintings, European, Chinese and Islamic Ceramics on 8 & 9 December 2011
 
Viewing days: Christie’s London, 8 King Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 6QT, 2-8 December 2011 
 

PARIS Nov 23 - When Medieval and Renaissance art dealer Sandra Hindman of Galerie Les Enluminures in Paris purchased the “Hours of King Francis I” at the widely publicized July 7, 2010 sale of illuminated manuscripts and printed books forming part of the Arcana Collection (Part I) at Christie’s in London she was convinced that the manuscript was much more important than the auction catalogue or previous articles acknowledged.  Her instincts were right and now the Paris and Chicago-based gallery has sold the manuscript for an undisclosed price to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

At the Christie’s auction, the Hours of King Francis I, previously on deposit at the British Library, fetched £337,250 (about $540,000), against a low estimate of £ 300,000.
 
Hindman says, “King Francis I, the patron of the royal manuscript, was the quintessential Renaissance monarch, the founder of the Louvre, and the patron of Leonardo da Vinci.   My colleague Ariane Bergeron-Foote (archiviste-paléographe) and I knew that by virtue of its art and patronage this lavishly illustrated Book of Hours ranked high among the great treasures of illumination.”

“Auction houses do their best to understand each piece of art they sell but no one had really applied the weeks and months of research needed to expand on the corpus of knowledge about this particular Book of Hours. We decided we would do that and we launched a full-scale investigation.”

In Latin, the Hours of Francis I (Book of Rome) is an illuminated manuscript on parchment that includes 18 large miniatures and one historical initial by the Master of Francois de Rohan (Paris, active c1525-1546).

“Early on we confirmed that this was the only extant Book of Hours with a contemporary illumination actually made for King Francis I - an element not stressed in the auction catalogue,” Hindman says.

Hindman and Bergeron-Foote next set out to explain more fully why the King’s portrait faces such a rare text, the prayers to an unusual saint, Saint Marcoulf.  Veneration before Saint Marcoulf enabled the King to cure a rare skin disease among his subjects.  Hindman and Bergeron-Foote found that the prayers were probably written specifically for the King and appear only for the second time in this manuscript.  They further uncovered records of the King exercising these miraculous powers in his public appearances just around the time that the manuscript was illuminated.

“Most extraordinary, however,” Hindman says, “Is that as we combed the published literature and the archives, we discovered a key document that records that the “escripvain du roy” (or “king’s scribe) Jean Mallard was paid for writing a Book of Hours for Francis I at the end of 1538, when he delivered it to the king to be illuminated.  Following a disagreement with King Francis I, Mallard left France shortly thereafter to join the employ of King Henry VIII of England.  Scrupulous comparison between Mallard’s signed Psalter of Henry VIII, dated 1540, and the Hours of Francis I reveals close similarities in script, decoration, and even layout. The Hours of Francis I thus turns out to be a sort of sister manuscript of the celebrated royal Psalter of Henry VIII, penned by the same hand.”

Hindman adds that, “For the twenty years I have been in business I have always sought to apply the best expertise I can to unearth new information about the prized artworks I acquire.  I’m trained as an art historian and worked all my life as a professor, after all, and that’s what we do:  thoroughgoing research.  Now I apply the same principles to my business.  My willingness to invest my staff’s time, and to retain outside experts when  needed, truly adds to the relationships I have built with major museums, libraries, universities and private clients.  We rarely sell a work of art before ‘getting to the bottom of the story’ as it were.”

Photographs from the Francis I Book of Hours are currently available using the technology of “Turning the Pages” on the website of Les Enluminures:  http://www.medievalbooksofhours.com.

New York, NY, November 22, 2011—Each New Year's Eve, millions raise their voices in a chorus of "Auld Lang Syne," standing with friends and looking back with nostalgia on days past. But how did a traditional Scots folk song—with lyrics that many people scarcely understand—emerge as one of the world's most enduring popular songs? It was Robert Burns (1759-1796), the great eighteenth-century Scottish poet, who transformed the old verses into the version we know today. Robert Burns and "Auld Lang Syne" at The Morgan Library & Museum untangles the complex origins of the song that has become, over time, a globally shared expression of friendship and longing. On view from December 14, 2011 through February 5, 2012, the exhibition features rare printed editions, a manuscript of the song in the poet's own hand, and selections from the Morgan's important collection of Burns letters—the largest in the world.



The Scots words for "old," "long," and "since" combine to form a phrase that translates loosely as "time gone by," "old time's sake," or, in some contexts, "once upon a time." But the old Scots phrase so gracefully evokes a sense of nostalgia that it has been embraced throughout the English-speaking world. Burns, who reworked the song for publication, declared that "a sprinkling of the old Scotish has an inimitable effect." While the song has become indelibly associated with New Year's Eve, it remains an anthem of friendship and remembrance. 



"There are some works of art that have become so much a part of our collective consciousness that we forget that they did not emerge fully formed," said Christine Nelson, the Morgan's Drue Heinz Curator of Literary and Historical Manuscripts and Head of Interpretive Strategy. "'Auld Lang Syne' is just such a work. We are pleased to be able to look back at the early history of this familiar song by presenting selections from two of the Morgan's great collections: the Robert Burns letters and manuscripts purchased by Pierpont Morgan in 1906, and the recently acquired James Fuld Collection of printed music."



Exhibition highlights

Like many traditional songs, "Auld Lang Syne" has a tangled history. The words and melody we sing today have roots in an old Scottish ballad and dance tune, but went through various incarnations before finally coming together in 1799 in A Select Collection of Original Scotish Airs for the Voice. This important edition, published by George Thomson with major contributions by Robert Burns, is on view along with earlier volumes that trace the evolution of what has become one of the world's most popular songs.



The centerpiece of the exhibition is a celebrated letter that Burns wrote to Thomson in 1793, filling page after page with comments on some seventy-four traditional songs. "One song more," Burns told Thomson, "& I have done. Auld lang syne—the air is but mediocre; but the following song, the old song of the olden times, & which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript, untill I took it down from an old man's singing; is enough to recommend any air." Burns then wrote the now-famous words in his own hand.



In another important letter on view, written in 1788 to his friend Frances Dunlop, Burns made his first documented reference to the song. Mrs. Dunlop had recently seen a dear friend after a long separation. "We met as we parted after an interval of forty-five years," she told Burns. He replied with these lines: "Apropos, is not the Scots phrase, 'Auld lang syne,' exceedingly expressive. There is an old song & tune which has often thrilled thro' my soul." Over two hundred years later, we still associate the song with old friends and bittersweet nostalgia.


Though Burns preferred to minimize his contribution and claim that he did nothing more than copy a traditional song, even George Thomson, who was the first to publish "Auld Lang Syne" as we know it, felt that "the Song affords evidence of our Bard himself being the author." Indeed, Burns devoted the last ten years of his short life to collecting old verses for publication in two major compilations of Scottish song, and he freely revised and "mended" as he saw fit, even composing new poetry to accompany traditional tunes.



The exhibition presents versions of "Auld Lang Syne" that predate the Burns version. On view, for example, is what is believed to be the earliest surviving manuscript rendering of a ballad beginning Should old acquaintance be forgot, written in a nobleman's commonplace book from the 1660s. The "old acquaintance" of this ballad is a faithless lover ("the most disloyall maid that ever my eye hath seen") rather than a beloved old friend. Though the first line is familiar, the rest of the text bears little resemblance to the enduring version that Burns gave us over a century later.


The tune we now call "Auld Lang Syne," too, has a complex history. On view is a mid-eighteenth-century compilation that includes "The Miller's Wedding," a strathspey (a type of Scottish dance) that includes a hint of the tune we now call "Auld Lang Syne." In 1792, James Johnson published the now-familiar tune in his collection The Scots Musical Museum—but it accompanied the words of a song called "O Can Ye Labor Lea, Young Man," not "Auld Lang Syne." In fact, when the Burns version of "Auld Lang Syne" was published for the first time in 1796, in a later volume of the Museum, the words were paired with an altogether different tune.


It was George Thomson who first brought the words and music together in his Select Collection of Original Scotish Airs in 1799, after Burns's death. It was not unusual to pair verses with whatever popular tune provided a good metrical fit, so it was simple for Thomson to make the switch. Burns was not Thomson's only prominent collaborator; Thomson also engaged such prominent composers as Joseph Haydn and Ludwig van Beethoven to compose new musical settings of Scottish songs for voice, piano, violin, and cello. The exhibition features an important manuscript, in Beethoven's own hand, of three of the settings that Thomson commissioned from the great German composer over the course of about a decade. Beethoven would later supply Thomson with a new setting for "Auld Lang Syne."
 

Since his death in 1796, Burns has remained wildly popular, and countless literary pilgrims have made their way to southwestern Scotland to pay him tribute. The exhibition includes, for example, a handful of pressed wildflowers gathered by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne during an 1857 visit, as well as a charming letter that John Keats wrote to his teenage sister during the 1818 trip that inspired his sonnet "On Visiting the Tomb of Burns." The original handwritten journal of the great Scottish poet and novelist Sir Walter Scott is shown open to this heartfelt tribute: "Long life to thy fame and peace to thy soul, Rob Burns. When I want to express a sentiment which I feel strongly, I find the phrase in Shakespeare or thee." And a copy of the 1787 edition of Burns's poems, lavishly rebound during the twentieth century and incorporating a bejeweled portrait of the author, is shown as a more recent example of "bardolotry." 



Multimedia

The exhibition includes an audio guide (accessible on complimentary listening devices available at the Morgan's information desk) that allows visitors to listen along as they look at rare printed musical scores that trace the evolution of the tune of "Auld Lang Syne." An online multimedia exhibition features a dozen printed editions and manuscripts, allowing web visitors to follow the early history of both the words and music of the song.



"Auld Lang Syne" in popular culture

During the 1920s and 1930s, the great bandleader Guy Lombardo adopted "Auld Lang Syne" as his signature song. Since then, many popular films that have featured the song at key moments in the action. In Frank Capra's classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946), George Bailey's brother memorably leads friends, family, and neighbors in the song to mark the moment when George (Jimmy Stewart) reclaims his appreciation for life. In Waterloo Bridge (1940), the glamorous Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor dance by candlelight to a wordless version of the song. In Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally (1989), two good friends admit their love for each other as strains of the song play at the culmination of a New Year's Eve party. When Harry (Billy Crystal) wonders what the song means, Sally (Meg Ryan) declares, simply, "It's about old friends," echoing Robert Burns's famous letter to Frances Dunlop, which is on view in the exhibition. And in the 2008 film Sex and the City, Mairi Campbell and Dave Francis of The Cast perform the song as it was first published in 1796—with Burns's words set to a now unfamiliar tune.



The Morgan's Scottish holdings

The Morgan Library & Museum is the most important repository of Scottish literary manuscripts and letters outside of Scotland. Holdings include a manuscript of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the hand of Robert Louis Stevenson; half the surviving manuscripts of the novels of Sir Walter Scott (including Ivanhoe and Guy Mannering) as well as the whole of his personal journal; and over 120 letters of Robert Burns which incorporate manuscripts of at least one hundred poems. The Morgan's Burns collection includes the two principle series of his surviving letters: those to the music seller and editor George Thomson, and those to Frances Anna Dunlop, a widow with whom Burns enjoyed a long correspondence.



The James Fuld Music Collection

In 2008 the Morgan purchased the James Fuld Collection, considered to be the finest private collection of printed music in the world. It includes thousands of first editions of classical and popular music from the eighteenth century to the present by American and European composers, in addition to legendary rarities such as the first issue of "The Star Spangled Banner." Mr. Fuld had a particular fondness for "Auld Lang Syne" and collected important early editions of the work as well as precursors to the song as we know it today.



Organization and Sponsorship

This exhibition was made possible by a generous gift in honor of Mr. Thomas Burns Reid and Mrs. Mary Theresa Reid. 

Robert Burns and "Auld Lang Syne" is organized by Christine Nelson, the Morgan's Drue Heinz Curator of Literary and Historical Manuscripts and Head of Interpretive Strategy.

The Morgan exhibition program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.


"Auld Lang Syne"

The Burns version,
from the Morgan manuscript

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o' lang syne!

For auld lang syne, my Dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

We twa hae run about the braes,
And pu't the gowans fine;
But we've wander'd mony a weary foot,
Sin auld lang syne.

We twa hae paidlet i' the burn,
Frae mornin' sun till dine:
But seas between us braid hae roar'd,
Sin auld lang syne.

And there's a hand, my trusty feire,
And gie's a hand o' thine;
And we'll tak a right gude-willie waught,
For auld lang syne.

And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I'll be mine;
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
The Burns version,
with Scots words translated

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o' lang syne!

For auld lang syne, my Dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

We two have run about the hills,
And pulled the daisies fine;
But we've wander'd many a weary foot,
Since auld lang syne.

We two have paddled in the brook,
From mornin' sun till dinnertime:
But seas between us broad have roar'd,
Since auld lang syne.

And there's a hand, my trusty friend,
And give us a hand o' thine;
And we'll take a right goodwill draft,
For auld lang syne.

And surely ye'll buy your pint-cup,
And surely I'll buy mine;
And we'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.


Public Programs


Gallery Talk

Friday, December 16, 7 p.m.

Robert Burns and "Auld Lang Syne"

With Christine Nelson, Drue Heinz Curator of Literary and Historical Manuscripts

Free 



Concert

Tuesday, January 24, 7:30 p.m.
*
Days of Auld Lang Syne: Euan Morton Sings Songs of Scotland
On the eve of Burns Day (the poet's birthday), noted singer and actor Euan Morton (Taboo, Measure for Pleasure, Sondheim on Sondheim) presents a wide-ranging program of classical and contemporary songs in celebration of Scotland, including works by the beloved songwriter and poet Robert Burns. Pianist and composer Bryan Reeder accompanies Morton in a performance not to be missed.

Tickets: $25 for Non-Members; $20 for Members; (Tickets go on sale December 1, www.themorgan.org/public)


*The exhibition Robert Burns and "Auld Lang Syne" will be open at 6:30 pm especially for concert attendees. 



The Morgan Library & Museum

The Morgan Library & Museum began as the private library of financier Pierpont Morgan, one of the preeminent collectors and cultural benefactors in the United States. Today, more than a century after its founding in 1906, the Morgan serves as a museum, independent research library, musical venue, architectural landmark, and historic site. In October 2010, the Morgan completed the first-ever restoration of its original McKim building, Pierpont Morgan's private library, and the core of the institution. In tandem with the 2006 expansion project by architect Renzo Piano, the Morgan now provides visitors unprecedented access to its world-renowned collections of drawings, literary and historical manuscripts, musical scores, medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, printed books, and ancient Near Eastern seals and tablets. 



General Information

The Morgan Library & Museum

225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016-3405

212.685.0008

www.themorgan.org
Hours
Tuesday-Thursday, 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; extended Friday hours, 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; closed Mondays, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day. The Morgan closes at 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.


Admission

$15 for adults; $10 for students, seniors (65 and over), and children (under 16); free to Members and children 12 and under accompanied by an adult. Admission is free on Fridays from 7 to 9 p.m. Admission is not required to visit the Morgan Shop.

New York—On Thursday, December 8, Swann Galleries will hold an auction of Maps & Atlases, Natural History & Historical Prints, and Ephemera, which features maps of American interest from a private collection, a fine assortment of atlases and other maps, books with plates and individual decorative graphics, and a selection of ephemera ranging from bookmarks to playing cards to table games.

Highlights among the American map collection include some significant 18th-century examples, such as Robert Morden, A New Map of the English Empire in America, London, circa 1700 (estimate: $10,000 to $15,000); Herman Moll, A new and Exact Map of the Dominions of the King of great Britain on ye Continent of North America, London, circa 1735 ($10,000 to $15,000); Fry-Jefferson, A Map of the most inhabited part of Virginia containing the whole Province of Maryland, London, 1775 ($12,000 to $18,000); and William Faden, The Province of New Jersey, Divided into East and West, based on the Ratzer survey and considered one of the most important general maps of New Jersey during the revolutionary period, London, 1777 ($15,000 to $25,000).

From the 17th century are the very rare first issue of Giovanni Battista Nicolosi, Mexicum In hac forma in lucem edebat, Rome, 1660, with the Rio Grande called Rio Escondido and without Lake Ontario named or shaded; and Willem Blaeu, Nova Totius Terrarum Orbis Geographica, Amsterdam, 1635 ($10,000 to $15,000).
Among the map highlights in the rest of the sale are an early manuscript plat map of Rhode Island’s Conanicut Island, circa 1723 ($5,000 to $7,500); Philip Lea, A new Map of New England - New York - New Jarsay - Pensilvania - Maryland and Virginia, London, circa 1715-20 ($6,000 to $9,000); John Melish, Map of Pennsylvania . . . Corrected and Improved to 1826, a large engraved wall map, Philadelphia, 1826 ($12,000 to $18,000); and S. Augustus Mitchell, Map of Mexico, including Yucatan & Upper California . . . 1847, Philadelphia, 1846 ($3,000 to $4,000).

A choice selection of atlases includes Heinrich Scherer, Geographia Naturalis sive Fabrica Mundi sublunaris ab Artifice bound with Geographia Hierarchica sive Status Ecclesiastici Romano-Catholici per Orben Universum, Munich, 1710 and 1703, with many maps of significant American interest ($10,000 to $15,000); the first American atlas published in America, Mathew Carey’s American Atlas: Containing Twenty Maps and One Chart, Philadelphia, 1795 ($15,000 to $25,000); and H.S. Tanner, A New Universal Atlas, first edition, Philadelphia, 1836 ($6,000 to $9,000).

A diverse selection of book with plates offers Audubon’s The Quadrupeds of North America, three volumes containing 155 lovely hand-colored plates, New York, 1854 ($4,000 to $6,000); Robert Furber’s The Flower-Garden Displayed, with 12 hand-colored plates representing the months of the year, London, 1732 ($5,000 to $7,500); and David Roberts’s The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia and Egypt and Nubia, two titles in sixe volumes, lacking six plates from the latter, London, 1842-49 ($15,000 to $25,000); and several volumes on costume and natural history.

The decorative graphics section contains individual Audubon plates, botanicals, and Currier & Ives lithographs.

The sale concludes with approximately 30 lots of ephemera, which include playing cards, table games, trade catalogues and wine labels.

The auction will begin at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, December 8. The works will be on public exhibition Saturday, December 3, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Monday, December 5 through Wednesday, December 7, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Thursday, December 8, from 10 a.m. to noon.

 An illustrated catalogue with information on bidding by mail or fax is available for $35 from Swann Galleries, 104 East 25th Street, New York, NY 10010, or online at www.swanngalleries.com.

For further information, and to arrange in advance to bid by telephone during the auction, please contact Gary Garland at (212) 254-4710, extension 17, or via email at ggarland@swanngalleries.com.

Live online bidding is also available via Artfact.com.
###

Treasure Hunting through Attic Trash? Historian Says Pan the Paperwork for Gold

From PBS’ “Antiques Roadshow” to A&E’s “Storage Wars,” reality TV has capitalized on our fascination with discovering treasure in household junk.

It happened to historian Michael Mendoza, whose patient culling through boxes of old papers was rewarded when he found a Civil War veteran’s personal account of his experiences. The 17-page letter was so rich in detail, Mendoza (www.dentedcanenterprises.com) used it as the basis of his first novel, "Glorious Reality of War."

Mendoza owned an antiques store in 1997 when 95-year-old Alice Bowersock died in San Diego, Calif., he says. He acquired her estate: furniture, knickknacks, and stacks of boxes full of photographs, insurance policies and letters.

Most people, Mendoza notes, might trash the papers right off the bat.

“Don’t,” he says. “Toss or sell the knickknacks, and keep the paper. It can be invaluable.”

Collectors value ephemera because such paper records are unique and irreplaceable, he says, so he pored through the boxes page by page, finding birth and death records, paintings and prints, old books.

“And then I saw the letter - a documented firsthand experience of the Civil War. It was written in 1925, typed on 8½-by-14-inch paper,” Mendoza says. “Reading it, I got a real good sense of who (the writer) was.”

Charles Wesley Rickard was 64 when he wrote the letter to his daughter, Alice, who had asked him to write about his war experience.

He was a 15-year-old Iowa farm boy, he wrote, when “a great desire came over me to go to the war. My parents were loathe to give their consent, and so I made life miserable for them until they finally gave in.”

In 1862, he enlisted as a Union fifer because he was too young to serve as a private. “I had never seen a fife before,” Rickard wrote. “But I could use a rifle, and I was bound to go as something.” When the fighting began, he was in the thick of it.

Three years later and all of 18 years old, he remembers noting how very young the new replacement troops looked.

Mendoza kept Rickard’s letter and sold off some of the memorabilia.

“I knew the value was more in presenting it as a historical fiction novel,” he says.

Finding inspiration for a novel may not equate to striking it rich for everyone, but people willing to invest time in sorting through old family papers stand to profit, Mendoza says.

“Many things are valuable on their own, like first editions of classic books,” he says. “But don’t forget the family records. Even if you’re not into genealogy, you should save those, because once you throw them away, they’re lost to the next generation.”

Mendoza offers these tips for dealing with old paperwork:

Don’t throw it away simply because it’s damaged. Mendoza found a first-edition copy of “Gone with the Wind” that was so waterlogged, it was destroyed. “I sold it for $80,” he says, “and that was cheap.”

Put together items on the same topic to improve chances of selling to collectors. Collectors like to buy in lots, Mendoza notes. They’d rather have a whole bunch of things than just one. Among Alice Bowersock’s belongings, Mendoza found photographs and documents from her father’s time helping to build the Panama Canal. Mendoza pulled all the canal material together and sold it to a collector.

Store papers in an open zipper bag in a dry place. If the paper is very valuable, invest in bags designed for that purpose. Otherwise, zipper baggies from the grocery store do fine. Don’t seal them, though, because if there’s no air circulation, the paper might stick to the plastic.

Digitize everything. Scanning your documents and photographs allows you to study them without damaging them.

For the record - Mendoza is still going through Alice Bowersock’s boxes.

About Michael Mendoza

Michael Mendoza holds a master’s degree in American history and is an adjunct instructor for Central Texas College. He lives in Santee, Calif., and plans a sequel to “Glorious Reality of War.”

If you would like to run the above article, please feel free to do so. I am able to provide images if you would like some to accompany it. If you’re interested in interviewing Michael Mendoza for a feature/Q&A, let me know and I’ll gladly work out details. Lastly, please let me know if you’d be interested in receiving a copy of his book, Glorious Reality of War, for possible review.

Ginny Grimsley
National Print Campaign Manager
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Ty Pennington finds a new way to change lives as he brings people's hidden treasures to "The Great Big American Auction," Thursday, December 8, on the ABC Television Network.

Ty Pennington has spent years making dreams come true by transforming people's homes. Now the host of ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" has found an exciting new way to change people's lives -- by helping them turn their collectibles and hidden finds into treasures.

In "The Great Big American Auction," Pennington travels the country scouring flea markets, cellars & attics, yard sales and back alleys to find one-of-a-kind items whose owners have no idea of their real value. With exceptional collectibles ranging from a first edition classic comic book to a pristine and extremely rare Abraham Lincoln $500 bill from the late 19th century, Ty and his team of experts from Heritage Auctions unearth an amazing array of extraordinary finds. The best items from around the country are tagged and brought to "The Great Big American Auction," where a room full of potential buyers outbid each other in a suspenseful standoff. Random objects originally bought for mere dollars will go for hundreds of thousands, as their lucky owners' lives are forever changed. Let the bidding begin, on "The Great Big American Auction," THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8 (10:00-11:00 p.m., ET) on The ABC Television Network.

"The Great Big American Auction" is produced by Cineflix (Auction) Inc. for ABC. Executive producers are Lisa Levenson, Ty Pennington, Joe Houlihan and Simon Lloyd.

Cineflix is a leading international media company that brings together global broadcast and production partners, major talent, and key executives to create top quality original content produced and distributed for television and other platforms. Currently producing more than 400 hours per year of multi-genre television for international broadcasters, and with a rapidly expanding library of 2500 hours, Cineflix is a recognized leader with offices in Montreal, Toronto, London, New York, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Dublin.

A TV parental guideline will be assigned closer to airdate.

[ITHACA, NY] National Book Auctions, located in Ithaca, NY, will host a Sunday, December 4th auction featuring a broad range of rare antique and vintage books, as well as a fine array of atlases and ephemera. This auction will also contain a large, handsome personal library of scholarly books relating to ocean liner history, interior design, art history and gardening. The books in this collection are impressive both for their
quality and condition.

Many of the atlases being offered are important titles from the arena of nineteenth century cartography. Leading the list is H. S. Tanner’s “A New Universal Atlas Containing Maps of the Various Empires, Kingdoms, States and Republics of the World,” printed in 1844.  Additional notable atlases include William M. Bradley and Company’s 1896 “Atlas of the World for Commercial and Library Reference” and several Mitchell publishings.

Featured books include a number of antique titles dating back to the 1600’s and other important early printings, many of which are housed in fancy leather bindings.  Highlights include William Bosworth’s “Chast and Lost Lovers,” printed in 1651 and the 1760 printing of Plautus’ “Comoediae.”  Additionally offered is an interesting atlas volume including original antique photographic plates of the lunar surface, taken from Paris as part of a scientific study.

Offered over a number of lots will be a personal collection of vintage and antique literary and historical titles from the state of New Hampshire. Antique titles include local histories, while many of the literary and other titles are author-signed. Landmark literary works include a handsomely bound first edition of Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and many lots which offer original works by noted nineteenth and twentieth century poets.  Several of these lots also include titles which are author-signed.

Found throughout this auction will be pleasing groups of ephemera, including many lots of antique postcards. The postcard collection is highlighted by a quantity of examples from Cuba, which are offered over several lots.

National Book Auctions is a public auction service specializing in books, ephemera, and art. National Book Auctions is a targeted service offering experience and expertise unique to marketing antique and modern books and ephemera for consignors and collectors alike. Preview for the upcoming Sunday, December 4th auction is at 10 a.m. and the live auction starts at noon. For more information or to consign collectible material please contact David Hall, Business Manager, at 607-269-0101 or email mail@nationalbookauctions.com.

(Palm Beach, FL) - One of the most anticipated events of the season, the Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show will make its annual return to the Palm Beach County Convention Center on Presidents’ Day weekend, February 17-21, 2012. With the collections of more than 180 international exhibitors to choose from, the 2012 show will boast an enviable selection of art, antiques and jewelry and will draw tens of thousands of private collectors, museum curators, investors and interior designers who are eager to view and purchase some of the most unique and coveted treasures in the world.
 
Items at the show will span every genre, including fine art, antique and estate jewelry, furniture, porcelain, Asian art, American and European silver, glass, textiles, sculpture and more, ranging from the antiquities to the 20th century. Guests will have access to aisle after aisle of extraordinary collections offered by returning exhibitors such as Arader Galleries, Betteridge Jewelers, Camilla Dietz Bergeron, Danish Silver, Drucker Antiques, Erik Thomsen Asian Art, Fred Leighton, French Country UK, Gavin Spanierman, Hancocks, Hyland Granby Antiques, Lillian Nassau, M.S. Rau Antiques, Macklowe Gallery, Mark J. West, Michael Pashby Antiques, T.K. Asian Antiquities and Vallejo Gallery.
 
 “What makes this year’s Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show so unique is the amount of high-caliber exhibiting dealers and the diversity of the art, antiques and jewelry that they bring,” said Scott Diament, President and CEO of the Palm Beach Show Group.
 
An exclusive Opening Night Preview Evening benefiting Hope for Depression Research Foundation will kick off the show on Friday, February 17. Hope for Depression Research Foundation was founded in April 2006 by Audrey Gruss in memory of her mother, Hope, who suffered from clinical depression. The organization’s mission is to fund innovative, international research into the origins, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of depression and its related mood and other emotional disorders with the ultimate goal of finding a cure.
 
Further enhancing the show, a daily educational lecture series will feature industry experts offering their extensive knowledge on a variety of captivating topics. Free and open to the public, the lectures will be headlined by industry experts such as Edward Faber of Aaron Faber Gallery New York and John Atzbach of John Atzbach Imperial Russian Antiques & Art.
 
The 9th Annual Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show will take place February 17-21, 2012 at the Palm Beach County Convention Center located at 650 Okeechobee Boulevard. Hours are Saturday, February 18, Sunday, February 19 and Monday, February 20 from 11:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m., and Tuesday, February 21 from 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. Tickets are $15 daily and $25 for a 4-day pass. For more information, please visit www.palmbeachshow.com or contact the Palm Beach Show Group’s director of public relations, Chrissy Lambert, at (561) 822-5440.
 
CALENDAR LISTING

WHAT:                       
Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show
One of the most anticipated events of the season, the Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show will make its annual return to the Palm Beach County Convention Center on Presidents’ Day weekend, February 17-21, 2012. With the works of more than 180 international exhibitors to choose from, the 2012 show will boast an enviable selection of art, antiques and jewelry and will draw tens of thousands of private collectors, museum curators, investors and interior designers who are eager to view and purchase some of the most unique and coveted treasures in the world.

WHEN:                       
February 17-21, 2012
                       
HOURS:          
Friday, February 17---------------Opening Night Private Preview Party benefiting Hope for Depression Research Foundation
Saturday, February 18----------11am-7pm
Sunday, February 19----------- 11am-7pm
Monday, February 20-----------11am-7pm
Tuesday, February 21-----------11am-6pm

WHERE:           
Palm Beach County Convention Center
650 Okeechobee Boulevard
West Palm Beach, Florida, 33401

ADMISSION:           
$15 daily, $25 for a 4-day pass

FOR MORE INFORMATION:  
Call 561.822.5440 or visit www.palmbeachshow.com

(WASHINGTON, DC) The O.B. Hardison Poetry Series presents the annual Emily Dickinson Birthday Tribute at Folger Shakespeare Library on Monday, December 5 at 7:30pm. This year’s guest poet is Aracelis Girmay, who will read from her own work and from selections of Dickinson’s poetry. In language rich with detail, blinding with imagery, and worldly in breadth, Girmay, who shares a birthday with Emily Dickinson, brings her keen focus to this celebrated Folger tradition. Tickets are $15 for adults and $7.50 for students and may be purchased at the Folger box office, 202.544.7077, or online at www.folger.edu/poetry.

The Poetry Center at Smith College describes Aracelis Girmay as “a powerful, inventive poet, writer, and educator who is not afraid to take on any subject, … and who brings to her poems not only high seriousness and passion but a sustaining voice of hope.” Girmay’s multicultural heritage—she is of Eritrean, Puerto Rican, and African American descent—gives her a unique perspective which transcends ethnic boundaries.

Aracelis Girmay is the author of the collage-based picture book changing, changing. Her first book of poems, Teeth, was nominated for a Connecticut Book Award. Most recently, her poetry collection Kingdom Animalia was awarded the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award. She has served as the visiting writer in the MFA program at Queens College, and she is on the faculty of Drew University’s low-residency MFA program in Poetry. She is also an assistant professor of poetry at Hampshire College, where her office is in the Emily Dickinson Hall.

The reading is co-sponsored with the Poetry Society of America and includes the reading, a moderated conversation with Poetry Society of America Executive Director Alice Quinn, and a wine reception featuring black cake made from Dickinson’s own recipe.

DATE & TIME: Monday, December 5 at 7:30pm

LOCATION: Folger Shakespeare Library, 201 East Capitol Street, SE, Washington, DC

TICKETS: $15 adults / $7.50 students; purchase at the Folger box office, 202.544.7077, or www.folger.edu/poetry.
METRO: Capitol South (blue/orange lines), 4 blocks; Union Station (red line), 7 blocks

PARKING: Street parking in neighborhood.
#      #      #

PASADENA, Calif. -- From February 10 - 12, 2012, Southern California will become the rare book capital of the world as thousands of book lovers, U.S. and international dealers and scholars converge for the 45th California International Antiquarian Book Fair at the Pasadena Convention Center.  Recognized as one of the world's largest and most prestigious exhibitions of antiquarian books, the Book Fair gives visitors the opportunity to see, learn about and purchase the finest in rare and valuable books, manuscripts, autographs, graphics, prints, maps, photographs and more.

Featuring the collections and rare treasures of more than 200 booksellers from the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America (ABAA) and the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers (ILAB), the Book Fair will feature volumes from five centuries of printing, as well as original manuscripts that predate Gutenberg.  Books will cover every imaginable area of interest -- from the history of travel and exploration, early science and medicine to classic literature, modern first editions, children's and illustrated books, and the arts. Items range in price from a few dollars to more than six figures.

"It's impossible to walk through the aisles of the Book Fair without being wowed by the visual beauty and cultural significance of the volumes on display," said Michael R. Thompson, Book Fair Chair of the Southern California Chapter of the ABAA, which organizes the event.  "First time visitors are amazed that they can browse, touch and even go home with items that they imagine could only be found in a museum or special collections library."

The Book Fair will feature a special exhibit entitled "A Love Affair with Books: Personal Stories of Noted Collectors."  This colorful, wide-ranging exhibit examines the avid pursuits of rare book collectors past and present-- from legendary library builders to Southern California book lovers like actress Sarah Michelle Gellar. The Book Fair also includes seminars on the basics of collecting as well as various themed topics.  Sunday, February 12 is Discovery Day, which gives attendees the opportunity to present up to three items to experts for free examination.
 
Book Fair hours are Friday, February 10 from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday, February 11 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday, February 12 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Pasadena Convention Center, located at 300 East Green Street, Pasadena, CA.    Tickets on Friday, February 10 are $25 and provide three-day admission.  Proceeds from Friday tickets will benefit the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Tickets purchased on Saturday or Sunday are $15 and include return entry throughout the remainder of the Book Fair.

For more information, visit www.labookfair.com or call 800-454-6401. Connect with the Book Fair at http://twitter.com/labookfair or http://www.facebook.com/LABookFair.

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New York—Swann Galleries auction of Early Printed, Medical & Scientific Books on October 17 featured religious texts, classics, law books, works on anesthesia & general medicine, as well as a selection of books of Iberian interest.

The top lot, a volume of polyphonic masses by Cristóbal de Morales entitled Missarum liber primus, brought $33,600*. It was the first time this book, a second edition of the first of two volumes, printed in Lyon in 1546, had been offered at auction.

Another auction first was an edition of the Biblia sacra, a Latin bible printed in Salmanca, 1555. This first attempt to publish the Vatable Bible in Spain was suppressed by the Inquisition, and the book, which sold for $28,800, is one of only four known copies.

Other early printed highlights included Jacobus Philippus de Bergamo’s world chronicle, Supplementum chronicarum, Venice, 1490, $10,800; The Byble, edited by John Rogers under the pseudonym Thomas Matthew, London, 1549, $8,400; Officium beatissime virginis Marie con li officij ordinati de ciaschun tempo, Venice, circa 1525, a volume of prayers to the Virgin in a contemporary Venetian binding, $10,800; John Milton, Paradise Lost…Second Edition, London, 1674, $5,520; and Engelbert Kaempfer, The History of Japan, second edition, two volumes, London, 1728, $8,400.

A run of illuminated manuscript leaves offered 14th-century vellum leaves from an illuminated Latin antiphonary with historiated initials, which brought up to $5,520 each; and a painting by the so-called Spanish Forger on a portion of 15th-century vellum choir-book leaf, late 19th-early 20th century, $6,000.

There was a large offering of medical & scientific books in the sale as well, including works by Sigmund Freud, Marie Curie, and Benjamin Franklin. Franklin’s Some Account of the Success of Inoculation for the Small-Pox in England and America, with contributions by William Heberden, set an auction record, bringing $15,600.

Also noteworthy were The Grete Herball, a fragment of the first edition of the first illustrated English herbal, Southwarke, 1526, $4,560; Claudius Galenus, Omnia opera, 9 (of 10) volumes in 5, the first edition to include contributions by Andreas Vesalius, Venice, 1541-42, $5,040; as well as Vesalius’s Opera omnia anatomica & chirurgica, two volumes, the only collected edition, Leiden, 1725, $5,520.

An illustrated catalogue, with complete prices realized, is available for $35 from Swann Auction Galleries, 104 East 25th Street, New York, NY 10010, and may be viewed online at www.swanngalleries.com.

For further information, and to consign to upcoming auctions of Early Printed, Medical & Scientific Books, please contact Tobias Abeloff at 212-254-4710, extension 18, or tabeloff@swanngalleries.com.

*All prices include buyer’s premium.

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London - Christie’s Victorian & British Impressionist Art sale will offer 90 paintings and works on paper at auction on 15 December 2011, by a variety of artists ranging from the Pre-Raphaelites to the British Impressionists, including Millais, Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Cowper, Munnings, Clausen and de Glehn, for an overall estimate in excess of £4.5 million.

The sale is led by the masterly panorama Derby Day (illustrated above) by William Powell Frith, RA (1819-1909), which is the first original working of the famous Derby Day painting, the masterpiece of the artist at Tate Britain. Fresh to the market, this significant picture has been recently rediscovered in New England, North America where it hung on the walls of an unlocked beach house for the past 50 years - it is estimated at £300,000 to £500,000. Based on photographic studies by Robert Howlett, the Tate picture was so popular that it had to be protected by a specially installed rail and a police officer when it was initially shown at the Royal Academy of Arts. Frith rejected constrained academic high art in favour of genre painting and specialised in narrative subjects and panoramic depictions of the Victorian life. This richly detailed composition shows the crowds attracted to the Derby races at Epsom Downs and includes a complex series of vignettes representing a cross-section of British society: from the aristocratic family in the carriage with its footman laying down the picnic to the card sharps and tricksters besides the tents. The Royal Academician had the idea for the picture following a visit at the Derby in May 1856 where the picturesque crowd of race-goers gave him a taste of the diversity of his contemporaries and the desire to portray everyday life. The final subject took him several years of research, exhaustive preparatory studies and three completed sketches to achieve what is now known as the artist’s undisputed masterpiece.

Another important highlight of the sale is Frank Cadogan Cowper’s (1877-1958) Our Lady of the Fruits of the Earth, 1917 (illustrated right), the artist’s classic representation of the Madonna and Child, blending Renaissance and Pre-Raphaelite imagery into a memorable English icon in the national colours of red, white and blue, and sold in the original Italianate altarpiece frame. Painted at the height of the Great War, the religious and universal theme made it a symbol of life and hope at the time and has been popular as a Christmas card reproduction ever since. Estimated at £150,000 to £250,000, it comes directly from the Estate of Countess Margareta Douglas.

The Pad Groom (estimate: £120,000-180,000 - illustrated left) is a fine example of the signature equine portraiture mastered by Sir Alfred James Munnings, P.R.A., R.W.S. (1878-1959). It depicts the “little dapper second horseman” Mr. Dale, who was a groom to the oldest Master of Hounds in England at the time. Coincidentally, the romantic and summery A Girl Reading by Dame Laura Knight (1877-1970) painted at a time when the artist described her pictures as “an expression of joie de vivre”, portrays the artist’s friend Florence Carter Wood, who married Munnings in 1912, only to tragically commit suicide two years later (estimate: £100,000-150,000 - illustrated below center). One of the most impressionistic works in the sale and ever painted by the artist, Jane Emmet de Glehn by a stream, Val d’Aosta (estimate: £80,000-120,000 - illustrated below left), is a romantic vision of the wife and muse of the artist Wilfred Gabriel de Glehn, R.A. (1870-1951), in the Italian meadow where the family was holidaying in August 1907 with fellow artist John Singer Sargent. Other significant sale highlights include two delicate portraits by Sir John Everett Millais, Bt., P.R.A. (1829-1896). The first is Mrs Sebastian Schlesinger, 1876 (estimate: £80,000-120,000), a very beautiful American and reputedly a muse to the couturier Charles Frederick Worth, and the other Miss Gertrude Vanderbilt, 1888, (estimate: £200,000-300,000 - illustrated below right), the thirteen-year old Vanderbilt heiress commissioned by her family from the artist. Gertrude would later become a serious artist and sculptor and found the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

Pre-Raphaelite works in this sale are led by the Portrait of Annie Miller, 1866 (illustrated left) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882) which quietly displays the great beauty of the artist’s mistress. The drawing - which once belonged to Audrey Withers, the editor of Vogue UK from 1940 to 1960, who gifted it to the present owner - is estimated at £80,000 to £120,000. A Prelude by Bach, 1868 (estimate: £150,000-200,000 - illustrated right) by Simeon Solomon (1840-1905), is one of the artist’s most important works to have remained in private hands and a work of exquisite harmony which embodies the ideals of beauty of the Victorian era. The Aesthetic Movement is a recurrent theme throughout the sale, reflecting the recent Cult of Beauty exhibition at the V&A - now at the Paris Musée d’Orsay - and pioneered by artists such as Morris, Millais, Leighton, Rossetti and Solomon.

Auction: Victorian & British Impressionist Art, Thursday, 15 December, 2011
Viewing: Christie’s London King Street, 11-14 December, 2011

About Christie’s
Christie’s, the world's leading art business had global auction and private sales in the first half of 2011 that totaled £2.0 billion/$3.2 billion. In 2010 it achieved global auction and private sales of £3.3 billion/$5.0 billion. Christie’s is a name and place that speaks of extraordinary art, unparalleled service and expertise, as well as international glamour. Founded in 1766 by James Christie, Christie's conducted the greatest auctions of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, and today remains a popular showcase for the unique and the beautiful. Christie’s offers over 450 sales annually in over 80 categories, including all areas of fine and decorative arts, jewellery, photographs, collectibles, wine, and more. Prices range from $200 to over $100 million. Christie’s has 53 offices in 32 countries and 10 salerooms around the world including in London, New York, Paris, Geneva, Milan, Amsterdam, Dubai and Hong Kong. More recently, Christie’s has led the market with expanded initiatives in emerging and new markets such as Russia, China, India and the United Arab Emirates, with successful sales and exhibitions in Beijing, Mumbai and Dubai.
*Estimates do not include buyer’s premium. Sales totals are hammer price plus buyer’s premium and do not reflect costs, financing fees or application of buyer’s or seller’s credits. 

The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change (The King Center) and Syracuse University announce The King Center Audio and Visual Digitization Project, a collaboration that will ensure that the slain civil rights leader’s legacy will be preserved for generations to come. Working with the Atlanta-based King Center, SU will preserve and digitize some 3,500 hours of audio and video footage of King.

“I am pleased to announce that The King Center has joined with Syracuse University for The King Center Audio and Visual Digitization Project,” says Martin Luther King III, president and CEO of the center. “This endeavor will enable people to see and hear my father deliver his message as he did more than 50 years ago, and preserve it for generations to come. With the generous support and encouragement of my dear friends Sam and Carol Nappi, and the technical expertise of the University, we are continuing to fulfill the mission of The King Center as the official living memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and ensuring that his work toward freedom, justice and equality is as relevant today as ever.”

The King Center archive is the largest repository of primary source material on King and America’s civil rights movement in the world. Its collections include footage that few, including some members of the King family, have ever seen or heard. The center houses a number of unique holdings, like raw footage from various productions over the years. A 16 mm film of King speaking in Syracuse in July 1961 was also discovered. The speech explores many of the themes that would emerge in his landmark 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. The film at The King Center appears to be the only extant copy. There are also a large number of unlabeled reels and canisters that may contain undiscovered footage.

To execute the project with the technical expertise of the Syracuse University Library, SU trustee Sam Nappi and his wife, Carol, have given their financial support to realize this venture.  “This project is very special to me and Carol. It is a humbling experience to help preserve the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and empower The King Center to extend its mission to a new generation. It is also gratifying to join with my friend, Martin Luther King III, and Syracuse University to exclusively digitize and preserve historic audio and film of Dr. and Mrs. King,” says Sam Nappi, who is also a King Center trustee.

Challenges always present themselves in the preservation of historical media of the kind housed at The King Center, established by King's widow, Coretta Scott King, in 1968. At almost 50 years old, even under the best care, excessive exposure to light, humidity and inconsistent temperature levels can be factors that contribute to the degradation of original media materials. The SU campus is home to the Belfer Audio Archive, now the fourth largest sound archive in the United States. The specially designed, climate-controlled facility makes SU a leader in the preservation of historical recorded sound.

The partnership was set in motion during an April meeting when Martin Luther King III and U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young visited the SU campus. It was then that Suzanne Thorin, dean of libraries and University librarian, and Sean Quimby, senior director of the Special Collections Research Center, introduced the guests to some of the library’s most valued possessions, including letters written by
Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington and Malcolm X. They also played an audio file of veteran journalist Mike Wallace interviewing King. The conversation shifted very quickly to the world of media preservation.

The Nappis’ gift will be used to construct and staff a moving-image preservation laboratory in SU Library. Quimby will lead the three-year project and supervise a team that includes a media archivist, digitization technicians and student interns. According to Quimby, “We intend to build upon our existing expertise in preserving and digitizing historical sound recordings.” The library’s Belfer Audio
Archive is among the nation’s pre-eminent sound archives and pioneered the preservation and digitization of Edison wax cylinders. The library team will catalog, repair and digitize a wide array of media, including reel-to-reel audiotape, 16 and 35 mm film, and a variety of obsolete video formats, for listening and viewing at The King Center.

"There is a proud tradition of inclusiveness and social justice at Syracuse University," says Thorin. "Our partnership with The King Center honors that tradition. I am excited that our library has been selected for such an important task."

The Special Collections Research Center of Syracuse University Library collects primary source material in a variety of media, including manuscript, print, illustration, photography, recorded sound and moving image, which support and enhance research and scholarship. Collections range in date from cuneiform tablets dating to 2000 BC to the “born-digital.”

The King Center envisions a world where the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr., are embraced by men and women of all colors and creeds, and regardless of culture or political philosophy. It is devoted to ensuring that his work toward freedom, justice and equality continues in the 21st century. Realizing that dream will require a new generation of change makers devoted to principles of nonviolence and personal empowerment, as well leaders from across sectors who believe, as King did, that poverty, injustice and war must be rendered
obsolete.

Sean M. Quimby
Senior Director of Special Collections
Special Collections Research Center │ Belfer Audio Archive
Syracuse University Library
t. 315.443.9759 │w. scrc@syr.edu

Amherst, MA - (November 7, 2011) The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is pleased to announce “Phantom Tollbooth Day,” in honor of the 50th anniversary of the publication of the classic children’s book, and the recent release of Carle trustee Leonard S. Marcus’ The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth, an insightful addition to the uproarious classic.  Both Norton Juster and Leonard Marcus will be here to discuss and sign their books The Carle will also have related activities in the art studio and a special storytime in the reading library featuring picture books by Juster, including The Odious Ogre (2010), his most recent collaboration Jules Feiffer, the illustrator of The Phantom Tollbooth.  All are welcome and encouraged to attend this all-day event on November 20th, 2011.
 
This pun-filled day coincides with Growing Every Which Way But Up: The Children’s Book Art of Jules Feiffer, The Carle’s newest exhibition featuring the artwork of The Phantom Tollbooth’s multi-talented illustrator.  Leonard S. Marcus, the guest curator for the exhibition, said in an article he wrote for the fall edition of Fine Books and Collections Magazine, “Tracing the arc of Feiffer’s latest creative adventure has for me, as the Carle exhibition’s curator, been an exciting chance not only to share with museum-goers some of contemporary children’s literature’s most keenly irreverent graphics, but also to show that ‘kids’ book illustration can be just as poignant--and pert--as the many and varied other forms of narrative art that Feiffer has practiced so brilliantly over the years.”  The exhibition features artwork from Feiffer’s collaborations with Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth (1961), and the more recent picture book, The Odious Ogre (2010),  along with Feiffer’s own picture books, including Bark, George (1999), among many others.
 
Program Schedule

12:00 - 5:00 pm Playing with Words and Pictures in the Art Studio

12:15 Film

1:00 - 2:00 pm Conversation with Norton Juster and Leonard S. Marcus including a screening of the trailer for the upcoming Phantom Tollbooth documentary. Book signing to follow

2:00 pm Storytime in the Reading Library featuring books written by Norton Juster

3:00 pm Film

About the Museum:
Together with his wife Barbara, Eric Carle, the renowned author and illustrator of more than 70 books, including the 1969 classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar, founded The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art as the first full-scale museum in this country devoted to national and international picture book art, conceived and built with the aim of celebrating the art that we are first exposed to as children. Through the exploration of images that are familiar and beloved, it is The Museum’s goal to provide an enriching, dynamic, and supportive context for the development of literacy and to foster in visitors of all ages and backgrounds the confidence to appreciate and enjoy art of every kind.


The Museum—which houses three galleries dedicated to rotating exhibitions of picture book art, a hands-on Art Studio, a Reading Library, an Auditorium, a Café, and a Museum Shop—is located at 125 West Bay Road, Amherst, MA. Museum hours are Tuesday through Friday 10 am to 4 pm, Saturday 10 am to 5 pm, and Sunday 12 noon to 5 pm. Admission is $9 for adults, $6 for children under 18, and $22.50 for a family of four. For further information and directions, call 413-658-1100 or visit The Museum’s website at www.carlemuseum.org.

DALLAS, TX - Five architectural drawing tools once belonging to President Thomas Jefferson - framer of America’s Constitution and its third President - are expected to bring $45,000+ altogether on Dec. 1, as the top lots in Heritage Auctions’800+ lot Americana & Political Memorabilia Signature® Auction.

The Jefferson items are just the tip of the iceberg in an auction brimming with important Presidential and Presidential-related memorabilia, including the last rocking chair John F. Kennedy was known to have sat in, the day before his tragic assassination (estimate: $25,000+); a pair of glass decanters owned by George Washington (Estimate: $8,000+) as well as a portrait cameo brooch of President Zachary Taylor, owned by Taylor and consigned by a direct descendant (Estimate: $4,000+)

This is the first time the Jefferson items have been offered to the public - they descended through Jefferson’s family, then through the family of America’s fifth President, James Monroe, before coming to Heritage Auctions for the Dec. 1 event.

“Jefferson was a true Renaissance man besides being a brilliant writer and political mind,” said Tom Slater, Director of Historical Auctions at Heritage. “Among his myriad talents he was a skilled self-taught architect, best known for designing his famous Virginia home, Monticello, along with an unaccepted, anonymously submitted design of what would become the White House. It’s entirely conceivable that he used these very instruments on those, and his many other great designs.”

The pieces - a Parallel Rule Drafting Instrument (Estimate: $10,000+), a Steel and Brass Compass (Estimate: $10,000+), a Brass Diameter Measure Drafting Tool (Estimate: $10,000+), a Turn-down Joint Compass (Estimate: $10,000+) and a Plain Divider Technical Drawing Instrument (Estimate: $5,000+) - have been consigned by descendants of America’s fifth President, James Monroe.

“The Monroe and Jefferson families were closely intertwined in Virginia society and politics, and the Monroes became the custodians of various items originally owned by Thomas Jefferson,” said Slater. “A number went to Monticello and other Virginia museums, but this choice grouping remained in private hands, which has afforded us this amazing opportunity to bring it to auction. The provenance is rock-solid and unimpeachable.”

The John F. Kennedy grouping in this auction is also particularly strong, with the last rocking chair JFK ever sat in - as mentioned above - in a Houston hotel a mere 24 hours before his death, topping the grouping. It carries a pre-auction estimate of $25,000+.

“The Kennedy party stopped the day before the assassination at the Rice Hotel in Houston,” said Slater. “In anticipation, and knowing Kennedy’s preference for a stiff-backed rocking chair, the manager had one installed in the President’s room.”

In his classic book, Death of a President, author William Manchester describes Kennedy reading over papers while seated in this very rocker a day before he fell victim to his assassin’s bullet.”

The Kennedy grouping also includes some 20 lots consigned by the heirs of JFK’s aunt and godmother, Loretta Kennedy Connelly, perhaps most significantly the actual shoulder patch from JFK’s World War II PT 109 uniform, estimated at $35,000+. JFK, out of affection and concern, personally sent this to Loretta’s daughter, Marylou, during a difficult period of her life while the war raged on, telling her to wear it on her school uniform.

He reminded her of his current location and advised her: "Mary, be brave kiddo. I'm not so thrilled about where I am either."

Marylou did as he advised and found the patch helpful during the uncertain days when JFK was reported missing in action, until news came of his rescue. She cherished the patch for the next 50 years, as a poignant souvenir of her beloved cousin.

Other JFK items include a signed copy of Profiles in Courage (Estimate: $2,500+), intimate Kennedy family photos by famed photographer Mark Shaw (Estimate: $4,000+) and a silver cigarette box given to select guests by Frank Sinatra, who served as Entertainment Chairman for Kennedy’s Inaugural gala (Estimate: $2,000+).

A pair of glass decanters owned by George Washington, also as mentioned above, are expected to bring $8,000+, while an early 19th century pendant containing interwoven locks of hair from both George and Martha Washington, a rare and interesting artifact, is estimated at $12,000+.

Also found in the auction are items such as James Monroe’s own ceramic meat platter in the “Landing of Lafayette” pattern, estimated at $3,000+. The last living Revolutionary War hero, Lafayette made a triumphant visit to America in 1824, while Monroe was president. This platter was preserved by his family for generations as a remembrance of that momentous event. Several china pieces belonging to Mary Todd Lincoln, which she sold to pay off debt after Lincoln’s death, are estimated at $2,000+.

New York, NY, November 10, 2011—The Morgan Library & Museum has announced the launch of an extensive online exhibition in conjunction with its exhibition, Treasures of Islamic Manuscript Painting from the Morgan, on view through January 29, 2011.


More than 120 religious and secular works from the Morgan's outstanding collection of Islamic manuscripts are presented, including thirty not in the museum exhibition. Magnifying capabilities bring rich details—often nearly hidden even from a short distance—into view, while accompanying commentary from exhibition curator William Voelkle provides context and insights.



The online presentation is divided into five sections: 



Dating from the tenth through the nineteenth centuries, eighteen Qur'ans and Qur'an leaves reveal a wide range of decorative motifs and calligraphic styles. 



Five illustrations from a thirteenth-century treatise on the benefits of animals—ranked among the ten most important Persian manuscripts in existence—mark the beginning of the Natural History and Astrology section. Also included are several works based on astronomy, cosmology, demonology, poetry, and mysticism.



Over thirty illustrated manuscript pages depict a variety of scenes from the life of Persian mystic and poet Rumi, including a water monster begging Rumi's wife to intercede on his behalf, Rumi restoring his favorite flute player back to life, and the Prophet Muhammad reading Rumi's poetry. 



The Read Persian Album, one of two disassembled albums that once belonged to Sir Hercules Read, a curator at the British Museum in the early twentieth century, contains exceptional depictions of secular subjects. Of special note are images of an Uzbek prisoner, a young lady reclining after her bath, and a fern whose surrounding ink drawings of plants and animals is visible only upon closer viewing.



The second album, known as the Read Mughal Album, is particularly notable for its life-like portraits of Mughal rulers, and several composite drawings, such as an elephant, horse, and lion made of entwined animal and human figures.



The importance of Persian poetry and poets is evident in their rich representation in the online exhibition. Thirty-six manuscripts illustrate some of the most beloved Persian poems, like Nizami's Khamsa, which includes the story of Laila and Majnun, the Persian Romeo and Juliet.



Organization and Sponsorship

The online exhibition was organized by William Voelkle, curator and head of the Department of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, and Dan Friedman, Web site Manager and Designer. It will remain a permanent resource on the Morgan's Web site at http://www.themorgan.org/islamic.



The exhibition is supported in part by a generous grant from the Hagop Kevorkian Fund and by the Janine Luke and Melvin R. Seiden Fund for Exhibitions and Publications.



Related exhibition


The online exhibition is presented in conjunction with Treasures of Islamic Manuscript Painting from the Morgan, an exhibition at the Morgan of more than ninety manuscripts, single illuminated pages, and Qur'ans. It marks the first time the Morgan has gathered its collection of Islamic manuscripts together in a single exhibition. On view through January 29, 2012.



Related programs


Reading the Qur'an: The Contemporary Relevance of the Sacred Text of Islam 
With Ziauddin Sardar

Thursday, November 17, 6:30 p.m.* 

In his new book Reading the Qur'an, Ziauddin Sardar, one of Britain's leading cultural critics, provides an illuminating and highly personal look at the Qur'an and its role in Islam today. Sardar speaks out for a more open, less doctrinaire approach to reading the Qur'an, arguing that it is not fixed in stone for all time, but rather a dynamic text which every generation must encounter anew. Presented in cooperation with Asia Society & Museum.

Tickets: $15 for Non-Members, $10 for Morgan and Asia Society Members


*The exhibition Treasures of Islamic Manuscript Painting from the Morgan will be open at 5:30 p.m. especially for program attendees.



Gallery Talk: Treasures of Islamic Manuscript Painting from the Morgan

Friday, November 18, 7 p.m.

William M. Voelkle, Curator and Department Head, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, with Zahra Partovi, Rumi translator.

Free with museum admission



Adult Art Workshop: An Art of Measure and Harmony: The Arabic Letterform

Friday, December 9, 6:30-8:30 p.m.

After a brief tour of the exhibition Treasures of Islamic Manuscript Painting from the Morgan, calligrapher Elinor Aishah Holland will demonstrate the method of preparing paper, cutting a qalam (pen), and writing Arabic letters. Participants will then be invited to carefully observe the twenty-eight independent Arabic letter forms in the style called Thuluth. Using traditional tools and materials, they will experiment with and draw the letters themselves. In keeping with tradition, they will learn the ancient system of proportional measurement governing Arabic letterform to create harmonious and meaningful lines.

Tickets: $20 for Non-Members; $15 for Members



The Morgan Library & Museum

The Morgan Library & Museum began as the private library of financier Pierpont Morgan, one of the preeminent collectors and cultural benefactors in the United States. Today, more than a century after its founding in 1906, the Morgan serves as a museum, independent research library, musical venue, architectural landmark, and historic site. In October 2010, the Morgan completed the first-ever restoration of its original McKim building, Pierpont Morgan's private library, and the core of the institution. In tandem with the 2006 expansion project by architect Renzo Piano, the Morgan now provides visitors unprecedented access to its world-renowned collections of drawings, literary and historical manuscripts, musical scores, medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, printed books, and ancient Near Eastern seals and tablets. 



General Information

The Morgan Library & Museum

225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street

New York, NY 10016-3405

212.685.0008

www.themorgan.org


Hours
Tuesday-Thursday, 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; extended Friday hours, 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; closed Mondays, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year's Day. The Morgan closes at 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.



Admission

$15 for adults; $10 for students, seniors (65 and over), and children (under 16); free to Members and children 12 and under accompanied by an adult. Admission is free on Fridays from 7 to 9 p.m. Admission is not required to visit the Morgan Shop.

NEW YORK, November 9, 2011— The American Art Fair moves to a new venue as it celebrates its fourth year and will be held November 28-December 1, 2011 at the Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd Street, New York City. The gala preview on Sunday, November 27 marks the beginning of American Paintings week in New York. Inaugurated in 2008, the fair focuses on the grand tradition of American art established early in the nineteenth century and gathers more than 300 works including landscapes, portraits, still lifes, studies, and sculpture.

The Fair assembles the premier specialists in nineteenth and early twentieth century American art. Returning exhibitors include Adelson Galleries, Alexander Gallery, Avery Galleries, Debra Force Fine Art, Gerald Peters Gallery, Godel & Co. Fine Art, Hammer Galleries, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Menconi & Schoelkopf, Questroyal Fine Art, and Thomas Colville Fine Art.  New exhibitors include Babcock Galleries, Conner  Rosenkranz, Gavin Spanierman, Jonathan Boos, John H. Surovek Gallery, and Meredith Ward Fine Art.

Fair hours are 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. daily, and to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, November 29.  On Monday, November 28 at 4:30 pm, Dr. Linda S. Ferber, Vice President & Senior Art Historian at the New-York Historical Society will present Making American Taste: 200 Years of Collecting at the New-York Historical Society. Admission to the preview is by invitation;  admission to the lecture and from November 28-December 1 is complimentary. For details, please visit www.TheAmericanArtFair.com.

PARIS Nov 8 - At the end of the thirteenth century, Bologna was the largest city in Italy and the fifth largest city in Europe, outranking Paris.  The oldest university in Europe was located there, and for the next two centuries Bologna enjoyed a period of great prosperity - in culture and the arts, in its religious foundations, and in commerce and civic activities.

At The Winter Antiques Show in New York January 20 - 29 Les Enluminures  (www.lesenluminures.com) gallery of Paris and Chicago (Stand #6) will host a special exhibition of about a dozen illuminated manuscripts, miniatures, and text manuscripts that brings together a group of works that gallery owner Sandra Hindman says, “Animate Bolognese culture and life in the late medieval era.”

According to Hindman, a specialist in Medieval and Renaissance Art, “Although the Black Death wiped out as many as 30,000 people in 1348, and Bologna suffered from considerable political turmoil in the last half of the fourteenth century, the city flourished again under the enlightened rule of the prominent Bentivoglio family who took over in 1401 and governed throughout the fifteenth century.”

“Founded on an art that was profoundly influenced by Byzantium, Bolognese painting in the early thirteenth century increasingly demonstrated the impact of the great Giotto (c. 1267-1337), who spent some years in Bologna in the early 1330s. The illuminator Nerio, who signed his name in a manuscript in Paris, was responsible for an unusually large miniature that illustrates the opening of Psalm 25 with two kneeling figures looking up toward Christ (fig.1).

Nerio clearly makes reference to Giotto, who appears to have been a significant influence on his work.  Following Nerio, one of the major Bolognese illuminators at mid-century, the Master of 1346, takes his name from his illuminations in the Bolognese Draper’s Guild of 1346.  We have the only surviving witness from the lost manuscript, where the head of the Guild poses at the opening of the text, revealing the expressive three-dimensionality of Giotto’s style; the guild’s symbol, a pair of scissors, appears in the margin.

“What’s more, Bologna’s active craft and merchant guilds protected the rights of workers, such as the Guild of the Tailors and the Guild of the Wine Merchants, the statutes of which are included here written in a lively Bolognese dialect (fig. 5).  Did you know that, then as now, it was illegal to sell wine that had been diluted with water? And that, whereas only those over 14-years-old were entitled to drink wine, records fix consumption at an average of five liters daily!”

Hindman adds that “Other works protected the rights of the numerous students, who gathered in Bologna from all over Europe to attend its famous law school.  Dedicated in 1492 to Giovanni II Bentivoglio and still preserved in its original binding, we have a legal commentary that harks back to a famous charter composed for the university in the twelfth century under Frederick I Barbarossa that ensured juridical privileges of both students and teachers of Bologna (figs. 6).

 “Another especially noteworthy artist is the Master of 1446, named after a 1446 book of statutes and representative of a late Gothic tendency in Bolognese manuscript illumination.  His work was still rooted in the vocabulary of Niccolò but he was receptive to the examples of contemporary painters.”

At Les Enluminures stand at The Winter Antiques Show is a stunning Dominican Hymnal, formerly in the Robert Lehman Collection in New York, that Hindman says “Is a fine example of this painter’s art (fig. 4).  With its seventeen illuminations, this Choir Book is a rare survivor of an intact Italian music manuscript commissioned by an important (still-unidentified) individual. (fig. 2).”

“The Master of 1346 may have been the teacher of Niccolò di Giacomo da Bologna (active 1349-1403), whose expressive style characterized by action-packed narratives dominated Bolognese painting until the end of the century.  The delightful initial of Monks Singing is by Niccolò (fig. 3).  Eight music-making monks dressed in Olivetan robes play musical instruments - a psaltery, a viola, bells, and an organ - while others listen to the sounds, heads tilted, mouths partly open.  Niccolò was appointed illuminator to the city of Bologna in the 1380s, and he was an active participant in city government.”

Now beginning its third decade in business, LES ENLUMINURES, with a gallery in Paris opposite the Louvre and offices in Chicago, is well known to collectors, curators and librarians from its participation in the most important international art fairs.  The year begins in January at New York’s Winter Antiques Show, then in March to the Netherlands for TEFAF in Maastricht, in June to Great Britain for Masterpiece London, in October to the Firenze Biennale as well as several other fairs including the Salon du Dessin and New York’s Antiquarian Book Fair.

Les Enluminures maintains an extremely active year round schedule of publishing comprehensive catalogues and staging special exhibitions at its own galleries and others in cities where it chooses to exhibit.  Its web site is a portal to four separate subject areas focusing on the artworks it sells with innovative ‘turn the page’ and video techniques employed to make it as easy as possible for visitors to learn about the subjects featured.  Dr. Hindman and her academically-grounded colleagues as well as guest scholars provide significant background knowledge on each subject contributing what she says “Is important additional information to the understanding of each work of art and subject in which we specialize.”

Dr. Sandra Hindman is Professor Emerita at Northwestern University, where she twice headed the Art History Department.  A specialist in Gothic and Northern Renaissance Art, it was her years spent studying Medieval manuscripts that sparked her interest in acquiring key pieces, which led to her opening her Paris gallery.  In the early years she maintained her academic career, shuttling back and forth between Paris and Chicago.

Within Europe the Musée du Louvre, the Musée Nationale du Moyen Age, the British Library, the Bibliothèques municipales at Metz and Rennes, among others, are all clients.
 
“The Winter Antiques Show in New York always presents a unique opportunity to show newly acquired examples of important and rare medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, miniatures, works of art, and rings to museums, library officials and private clients who attend this esteemed exhibition.”

Highlights-
 
1.
Nerio (Bologna, active first quarter of the 14th century)
David Offering his Soul to God in an Initial “A”
tempera and gold leaf on parchment, cut to shape (275 x 185 mm.)
Bologna, c. 1310-1315
 
2.
Maestro del 1346 (Bologna, active c. 1330-1348)
Leaf from the “Statuto della Società dei Sarti” (Tailors’ Guild) illustrated with the Captain of the Guild, the symbols of the Guild, and the arms of the Angevin king and the city of Bologna
tempera and goldleaf on parchment (297 x 217 mm.)
Italy, Bologna, c. 1340 (after 1334)
 
3.
Nicolò di Giacomo (Bologna, active 1349- c .1403)
Monks Singing in an initial “E”
Tempera and goldleaf, cut to shape (124 x 111 mm.)
Italy, Bologna, c. 1365-1380
 
4.
Maestro del 1446 (Bologna, active second quarter of the 15th century)
Dominican Hymnal
In Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment
Italy, Bologna, c. 1430-40
With 17 miniatures
 
5.
Statutes regulating the Wine Trade and Transportation of Wine in Bologna
In Italian, manuscript on parchment
Italy, Bologna, after 1416, c. 1450
 
6.
Bartolomeus Bologninus, Commentary on the Imperial Constitution “Authenca Constitutione Habita”
In Latin, decorated manuscript on paper 
Italy, Bologna, dated 12 January 1492

IF YOU GO
MEDIEVAL BOLOGNA AT LES ENLUMINURES
at the
2012 WINTER ANTIQUES SHOW in New York
October 20 - 29
Park Avenue Armory at 67th Street
Daily 12pm - 8pm  Sunday and Thursday 12pm - 6pm
LES ENLUMINURES
Les Louvre des Antiquaires,
2 Place du Palais-Royal,  75001 Paris (France)
Tel: +33 1 42 60 15 58 info@lesenluminures.com   www.lesenluminures.com
 

New York—On Thursday, December 1, Swann Galleries will offer a two-part auction of Printed & Manuscript Americana and Ocean Liner Memorabilia. The Americana portion of the sale offers many scarce and one-of-a-kind items with regional or national interest, while the Ocean Liner material features items related to the Titanic.

The lot with the highest pre-sale estimate is one of the most valuable newspapers ever to come to auction. It is the October 3, 1789 edition of the bi-weekly Gazette of the United States, which includes the first newspaper printing of the Bill of Rights. This was the American public’s first opportunity to see its new proposed rights, even before they were ratified by the states (estimate: $30,000 to $40,000).

A section of American Revolution material features a colored aquatint portrait of Lafayette, as leader of the National Guard of France, Paris, 1790 ($4,000 to $6,000); as well as an April 1776 Connecticut edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, the later of two Connecticut editions ($8,000 to $12,000).

Another significant pamphlet in the sale is a first edition William Penn’s The Sandy Foundation Shaken, written as a 23-year-old recent convert to the Quaker faith, for which Penn was sentenced for blasphemy and sent to the Tower of London, where he famously refused to recant his faith, 1668 ($8,000 to $12,000).

From the Civil War is a group of 15 drawings and watercolors by a Yankee regimental physician, which serve as a visual diary of his service in the war, 1862-64 ($4,000 to $6,000); and an autograph album, featuring signatures of some of the leading figures of the Confederacy, including Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, General James Longstreet, Colonel John S. Mosby and Pierre Beauregard, originally collected by confederate soldier Austin E. Smith of Virginia, and then continued after his death by his family ($6,000 to $9,000).

World War II is represented by an archive of General MacArthur’s official cables relating to the Japanese surrender, which were retained by a Women’s Army Corps (WAC) stenographer, and passed down through her family ($3,000 to $4,000). There is also an album of official photographs and reports on the internment of Japanese Americans in California containing 52 unsettling images, each carefully selected to present a positive view of the evacuation process ($2,000 to $3,000).

Presidential material of note includes a dance card from Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural ball, issued to guests, with a list of 23 planned dances, 4 March, 1861, which is the only item of its kind to come to auction ($4,000 to $6,000); a limited edition of Theodore Roosevelt’s The Winning of the West, in four volumes, with a leaf inserted from his manuscript, New York, 1900 ($4,000 to $6,000); and several items related to George Washington, among them Washington Irving’s Life of George Washington, extra-illustrated, with an original Document Signed by Washington dated 25 January 1774 ($8,000 to $12,000).

Among the regional highlights are a manuscript list of 113 convicts who were to be delivered to Maryland from Great Britain, which may have been the first shipment of prisoners under the Transportation Act that became law in May 1719 ($4,000 to $6,000); a first edition of Moore and Jones’s The Traveller’s Dictionary, or a Pocket Companion: Shewing the Course of the Main Road from Philadelphia to New York, and from Philadelphia to Washington, 1802 ($7,000 to $10,000); an album of 24 small-format chromolithographs from the series Views in Central Park, New York, 1863 or 69 ($1,500 to $2,500); and an archive of family letters from the Wilsons of WaKeeney, Kansas, filled with details of life on the newly tamed plains, one describing the 1878 Cheyenne breakout, 1873-79 ($1,500 to $2,500).

Of particular interest in light of the Occupy Wall Street protests of today, is an archive of letters written by Eugene Debs, union organizer and Socialist Party leader. Written over a span of 30 years, the letters are all to his nephew Robert Debs Heinl, a newspaper columnist and editor, and feature a mix of personal and political views, written as Debs attended rallies and meetings for a variety of causes, 1893-25 ($2,000 to $3,000).

Rounding out the Americana section is a run of lots containing classic baseball images—portraits, team photos and newsworthy moments—by photographers Nat Fein and James Kavallines; Lewis and Clark material; theater memorabilia; and a section of Latin Americana and Caribbean items.

Part II of the sale, devoted to Ocean Liner and Transportation Memorabilia, commences at 3:00 p.m., with more than 360 lots of posters, photographs, shipboard ephemera, service ware, and collectibles from the great ships that graced the seas.

Among the rarest and most sought after items are those from the Titanic, and this sale offers a first-class deck plan, detailing the fine accommodations, December 1911 ($12,000 to $18,000); various postcards and china pieces; and survivor-related items such as a landing or custom card issued to Mrs. Cassebeer onboard the Carpathia after her rescue from the Titanic, 10 April, 1912 ($2,000 to $3,000); and a fragment from a musical toy pig carried by Edith Russell as she left the sinking ship ($1,500 to $2,500).

From the French Line’s Normandie, one of the fastest and most lavish ships of her day, are silver serving pieces; maiden voyage medallions; a 1935 photo album with 24 views of the ship from the library of the line’s head engineer at the time of the maiden voyage, and later company president ($2,500 to $3,500); and a magnificent reverse painted glass, pressed aluminum and photographic portrait of the ship used in the French Line offices, circa 1935 ($4,000 to $6,000).

Other desirable items are a letterpress timetable in the form of a broadside for Mitsu Bishi Mail Steam Ship Company service between Yokohama and Shanghai, 1877 ($2,000 to $3,000); a captain’s logbook for the maiden voyage of the World War II Liberty ship S.S. George Dewey, with highly detailed descriptions of day-to-day operations 1943 ($1,200 to $1,800); a company-issued travel agency photo album of the ill-fated Andrea Doria, containing 58 photos, in extremely fine condition, 1950s ($1,000 to $1,500); and various ephemeral items related to zeppelins including the Hindenburg.

The auction will take place Thursday, December 1 at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. The items will be on public exhibition Monday, November 28, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Tuesday, November 29, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Wednesday, November 30, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

An illustrated catalogue, with information on bidding by mail or fax, is available for $35 from Swann Galleries, Inc., 104 East 25th Street, New York, NY 10010, or online at www.swanngalleries.com.

For further information, and to make advance arrangements to bid by telephone during the auction, please contact Rick Stattler (Americana) by telephone at (212) 254-4710, extension 27, or email: rstattler@swanngalleries.com; or Gary Garland (Ocean Liners) at (212) 254-4710, extension 17, or email: ggarland@swanngalleries.com.
Online bidding is available via Artfact.com.

[ITHACA, NY] National Book Auctions, located in Ithaca, NY, will host a Sunday, November 20th auction featuring a broad range of rare antique and vintage books, as well as a fine array of maps and ephemera. Also included are several personal libraries of scholarly books relating to art, theology and a private collection of works by Anthony Burgess.

Featured books include a number of first editions and special edition printings from houses such as Marchbanks Press, Limited Editions Club and others. The private collection of Anthony Burgess writings includes dozensof first editions, highlighted by British and American first printings of “A Clockwork Orange.”  From the same estate which included the Burgess books, we will offer fine, limited edition works by Norman Douglas. Several lots will present selections from a private collection of fancy leather antique bindings, including decorative sets.  There are a number of lots which bear important signatures such as Richard Nixon, Cal Ripken and others.  Antique titles dating back to the 1600’s can be found in the collection of theology while atlases dating from the early 1800’s will also be sold.  Additional important antique works will be offered form the fields of astronomy and American history.

Found throughout this auction will be pleasing groups of ephemera, dating back to the 1600’s. Early items include engravings with architectural content and maps, while other lots offer antique groups of postcards, Victorian chromo-lithographic items, trade cards and valentines.  More recent ephemera groups include items from World War One and World War Two, graphically impressive art deco travel-related material, railroad-related items, magazines and sheet music.  In addition to ephemera lots are a number of pieces of artwork and prints, alongside a collection of Asian art and artifacts.

National Book Auctions is a public auction service specializing in books, ephemera, and art. National Book Auctions is a targeted service offering experience and expertise unique to marketing antique and modern books and ephemera for consignors and collectors alike. Preview for the upcoming Sunday, November 20th auction is at 10 a.m. and the live auction starts at noon. For more information or to consign collectible material please contact David Hall, Business Manager, at 607-269-0101 or email mail@nationalbookauctions.com.

CODEX Mexico is a pioneering initiative aimed at promoting the arts of the book in Mexico and Latin America and to foster the development of international collaborations and cross-border outreach and exchange of skills and ideas.

The first initiative is a collaboration with the Centro Cultural Estacion Indianilla and Tonaltepec Global S.C. in response to an invitation from The CODEX Foundation to co-ordinate CODEX MEXICO events at the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) in late November 2011 and an Exhibition / with events (to be announced) at Centro Cultural Estacion Indianilla in February 2012. These two events will establish the CODEX Mexico Chapter as part of The CODEX International Network.

The CODEX Mexico inaugural events will include the opening of the exhibition Libros de Artista at 1:00 p.m. on November 25th, 2011 at the Centro Cultural Mundo Cuervo, in Tequila, Jalisco. CODEX Mexico will offer an inaugural presentation and event at the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) during a conference to be held at 8:00 p.m. on November 27, 2011, at the Agustin Yañez Hall (upper level). On this occasion, the CODEX Mexico Manifesto (en español) will be issued as a starting point for the promotion and establishment of a Center for the Study of the Book, a library, and a regional center for the safeguarding and preservation of significant books on the art and history of printing and a laboratory preserving and teaching the multiple skilled crafts of handmade book production aimed at national, regional and global markets.

On February 16, 2012, this same exhibit will move to the Centro Cultural Estacion Indianilla in Mexico City. The exhibition is comprised of a collection of original hand-made volumes printed in California and drawn from the collections of Stanford University Library and an equal number of artist's books made by Mexican artists and printers will be included to make this a ground-breaking cross-border collaboration.

A catalogue will be issued in conjunction with the joint Stanford University Library / CODEX Mexico Exhibition titled Libros de Artista, with texts by Peter Rutlredge Koch, printer and president of The CODEX Foundation; Robert Bringhurst, poet and erudite historian of printing, and the renowned Mexican writer Pedro Angel Palou. Copies may be obtained from the CODEX Foundation.

CODEX Mexico opening events are generously supported by the Mexican National Council for Culture and the Arts, the Guadalajara International Book Fair, the Centro Cultural Mundo Cuervo, the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Government of Mexico City, the Consulate General of Mexico in San Francisco, California, the Embassy of the United States of America in Mexico, Stanford University Libraries, and The CODEX Foundation.

Antique Woodworking Tools Their Craftsmanship from the Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century is not only a celebration of a collection lovingly put together over a period of 35 years, but it is also possibly the biggest private collection of western woodworking tools in the world. 

Assembled by David Russell, himself an expert joiner whose keen eye has been endorsed by scholarship, this is not simply the book of an unusual collection, but it is the most serious work of reference of its kind to date and has become a ‘bible’ in its field.  As David Linley, Chairman of Christie’s and well-known cabinet maker, writes in the Foreword, ‘Russell is to be congratulated on amassing with unerring eye such a fascinating array of tools, many of which are of the highest quality or deepest historical significance.’

Tools are man’s earliest surviving artefacts and David Russell’s scholarly book, is probably the first time the tools of a trade have been given a systematic and scientific analysis on such a scale. The book  has an important place in the twenty-first century because tools represent time-honoured values associated with pride in workmanship and skilled training, which together with the demise of apprenticeship, have all but lost their rightful position in society today.  It is also appropriate that the world famous Victoria & Albert Museum is opening a new furniture gallery in 2012, where the focus will not be on the finished product, but on the tools, their artistry and inventive craftsmanship.

David Russell’s collection starts with pre historic implements, gradually progressing through the centuries.  Many are unique and many were specially commissioned.  The first item Russell bought which set his heart racing and which triggered his passion for collecting, was a Norris smoother.  The name Norris is still music to the ears of anybody who knows and understands woodwork.  Norris-made planes from the mid 19th century were considered the pinnacle of practical design and gracefulness; as Russell himself says, ‘Some thirty odd years later planes are still the mainspring of my collection.  Yet on leafing through my book readers will soon come to see how broad, strong and lasting my acquisitive instincts have been, so much so that I have ended up with a vast array of tools that together tell something of the story of tools.’  The collection also embraces a handsome group of continental wooden planes dating from about 200AD to the 19thcentury.  Many are intricately carved with geometric or floral motifs while others are sculpted with snakes, monsters, cherubs or even naked ladies.

The sheer beauty and unexpected span of the collection is remarkable even to the untrained eye. Amongst the most unusual highlights must be the tools of Francis Nicholson, the first named US plane maker working in Massachusetts in the18th century, who bequeathed his tool making equipment to his slave Cesar Chelor, who was granted freedom and was able to set up in business as a plane-maker. Plumb bobs used since Roman times to find the true vertical, are a particularly attractive facet of the Russell collection.  Made of ivory, brass, bone, steel or lead these beautiful and often intricately carved pieces have a strong visual appeal.  Particularly unexpected is the group of three unpublished, delicate and detailed pencil drawings of garden tools by a ten year old Beatrix Potter, drawn in her garden shed.
 
David Russell’s Antique Woodworking Tools Their Craftsmanship from Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century brings together an extraordinary array of edge and boring tools from Britain, continental Europe and North America.  This beautifully produced book is already regarded internationally as a bible in its field; Part I of the collection recently sold at auction and Part II is eagerly awaited in early March 2012.
 
Antique Woodworking Tools Their Craftsmanship from the Earliest Times to the Twentieth Century
David R Russell
Published by John Adamson
Price: £90.00

October 31, 2011 -- Jörn Günther is a modern treasure hunter in the footsteps of medieval illuminated manuscripts. His company, Jörn Günther Rare Books, based in Stalden, Switzerland, will be one of the highlights of the International Fine Art & Antique Dealers Show in New York from 21-27 October, 2011, and of the Dallas Art, Antique & Jewelry Show  from November 2-6, 2011, presenting the finest selection of illuminated manuscripts and rare books. He will have select pieces for the Texas public in his luggage and will amaze the visitors who love the exquisite lifestyle.
 
Jörn Günther is one of the most renown international experts in his field. Since its foundation in 1990 Jörn Günther Rare Books has established itself as an international authority and driving force in this market. Over the last several years, the firm has introduced three of the most outstanding collections of manuscript illuminations in private hands: The Bernard H. Breslauer Collection, the Longari Collection and the Robert Lehman Collection. The Getty Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Walters Art Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art are among the institutions that systematically develop major collections of manuscript illuminations and took advantage of the rare opportunity to enrich their holdings when these three significant private collections reached the market.
 
Günther Rare Books will show in Dallas from November 2-4 outstanding treasures which will invite the audience to dive into a different universe like in a time travel, taken into the world of Aristotle (Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, translated by Leonardo Bruni Aretino; Illuminated manuscript on vellum. Southern Europe (Italy, Naples, or perhaps Spain), c. 1458-59, US$975.000) or to the the great Cistercian Abbey of Aulne-sur-Sambre (Biblia Latina, Illuminated manuscript on vellum. Northern or North-Eastern France, or Flanders, c. 1240-50 with 60 large illuminated initials in elaborate designs of lush interlaced leafy and plant designs or formed of twisting biting dragons for US $6 Mio.). Suddenly you look at Columbus and the Conquista of Latin America in Christophorus Columbus, De insulis nuper in mari Indico inventis from 1494 with 6 extraodinary woodcuts (US $1,8 Mio). The Columbus letter is the first account of the discovery of the New World. On his return from the newly discovered "Indian" isles in March 1493, Columbus addressed several letters to the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille, who had financed his expedition, and sent a report to the "escriuano deraciõ", his patron, Luis de Santàngel, in which he confirmed that the land he had discovered met all the hopes and expectations attached to this expensive and risky expedition, a journey which can be compared with the life journey of Jörn Günther.

--By Anne-Marie Melster
 

A new catalogue was published in October:
 
Pagina Sacra. Bibles and Biblical Texts 1050-1511
Catalogue 10
Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books AG, Stalden
ISBN: 978-3-033-03053-4
 
www.guenther-rarebooks.com
 

London - The first of the 500 Years Decorative Arts Europe sales of the season, The Opulent Eye, saw the top lot 'Paul et Virginie', a late 19th century life-size Italian marble sculpture, triple its original estimate and achieve £313,250 on Thursday 22 September 2011. The auction offered a selection of 238 elegant decorative objects, furniture, clocks and sculpture and witnessed the market’s taste for distinctive and collection-defining investment pieces and objets d’art. Christie’s is delighted to announce the rest of the 500 Years Decorative Arts Europe season in London with two anticipated sales in the coming months.

500 Years Decorative Arts Europe: The English Collector
Thursday, 3 November 2011 - Christie’s London King Street
The English Collector sale will offer a wide range of English works from the 17th century onwards, with notably traditional items from the Georgian to Victorian periods, and a large group of tapestries. Highlights include an English historical tapestry of the battle of Solebay Mortlake, circa 1688, by Thomas Poyntz, a design attributed to William Van De Velde (estimate: £70,000-100,000 - illustrated above). This is one of two magnificent Solebay tapestries offered in the sale, which represent the only two panels that remain in private hands from two sets of six royal tapestries each depicting the sea-battle at Solebay on 28 May 1672, where the English fleet collaborated with the French fleet against the Dutch. The series was originally commissioned by King James II from William Van de Velde (d. 1707) in 1672. Another important work is a pair of George III polychrome decorated and parcel-gilt satinwood secrétaire bookcases, circa 1790, attributed to London cabinet-maker George Brookshaw, and estimated at £200,000-300,000 (illustrated page 1). These cabinets, featuring landscapes and architectural vignettes painted on copper, were probably supplied in the early 1790’s to Colonel Sir Mark Wood for Piercefield Park, Monmouthshire.

500 Years Decorative Arts Europe: The European Connoisseur
Thursday, 8 December 2011 - Christie’s London King Street
A beautifully executed portrait of the Homeric hero Ulysses, in the form of a rectangular parcel-gilt polychrome enamel plaque of Ulysses by Léonard Limousin (1505-1577), produced circa 1540, will be offered for sale in December (estimate: £80,000-120,000). It is part of a series of fifteen known portraits which almost certainly once formed part of a single decorative scheme (illustrated below right). The series comprises portraits of pairs of ill-fated lovers from Homeric and Ovidian mythology; including Aeneas and Dido, Hippolytus and Phaedra, Paris and Helen. Ulysses was most likely paired either with his long suffering wife Penelope or his one-time captor and lover Calypso. The sale has a strong focus on works of art from the late 17th and 18th centuries and includes several private collections of French and Italian furniture, one of which is led by an impressive Louis XV ormolu-mounted amaranth & bois satine commode, by Jacques Dubois, circa 1750 and estimated at £80,000-120,000 (illustrated below left). 

ITHACA, N.Y. (Oct. 26, 2011) - Photography changed the course of history, offering Americans an entirely new view of themselves and their own country. Now, through an exhibition at Cornell University Library, some of the country's rarest, earliest and most important photographs will be on display for the world to see.

"Dawn's Early Light: The First 50 Years of American Photography features photographs and related artifacts about the technological development of photography - from daguerreotypes to gelatin prints - in the 19th century, while also illuminating the turbulent historic currents that shaped the nation.

The exhibition opened Oct. 20 in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collection's Hirshland Exhibition Gallery in Cornell's Carl A. Kroch Library. The exhibited materials are highlights from a magnificent set of more than 16,000 19th-century American photographs from the Beth and Stephan Loewentheil Family Photographic Collection.

Highlights of the exhibition include:
*       Multiple photographs by preeminent Civil War photographer Mathew Brady, including a large 1861 portrait of Abraham Lincoln, warmly inscribed to the wife of Lincoln's oldest and closest friend;
*       Images documenting the Civil War, including a photograph of American Red Cross founder Clara Barton sitting with soldiers;
*       A personal photograph album compiled by Mark Twain; and
*       Photographs documenting African-American life, westward expansion and the rise of celebrity culture.

"Super-collectors like Stephan Loewentheil have enriched our Library in extraordinary ways," said Anne R. Kenney, Carl A. Kroch University Librarian. "Without people who are dedicated to collecting and preserving historic artifacts, we would never be able to tell such a rich and complete story about our own history and the milieu from which Cornell was established."

Its opening celebration is scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 4:30 p.m. in Olin Library's Amit Bhatia Libe Café. Deborah Willis, Chair of the Department of Photography & Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, will deliver a lecture entitled "Framing the 19th Century Photograph: Then and Now," followed by a reception in the Carl A. Kroch Library. The opening events are funded through the generosity of Gail '56 and Stephen Rudin.

"This collection from the Loewentheil family stands as one of Cornell Library's most significant acquisitions," said Katherine Reagan, curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts. "It provides rich visual documentation that will complement and extend the Library's major textual collections on 19th-century America. Moving forward, the images in this collection will vastly increase our ability to understand our history."

The exhibition will run through May 4, and it has been funded by generous support from the Loewentheil Family and the Stephen '58, MBA '59 and Evalyn Edwards '60 Milman Exhibition Fund.

The extensive online exhibition is available on the Library's website<http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/DawnsEarlyLight/>.

To learn more:
Explore Cornell University Library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections<http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/>.

ITHACA, NY] National Book Auctions, located in Ithaca, NY, hosted a Sunday, October 23rd auction featuring a broad spectrum of rare antique and vintage books, as well as a fine array of artwork and ephemera. Highlights of this auction included several personal libraries of scholarly books relating to literature and philosophy, as well as a large estate collection of art and architecture-related reference books, many in large folio formats. This 428-lot auction also featured manuscript leaves dating back to the 15th century as well as early hand-colored botanical and ichthyological plates.

A complete ten-volume set of “The Works of Cicero” achieved a hammer price of $3120.00 (including buyer’s premium). This extremely rare set was printed during the years 1546 through 1567 by Sebastian Gryphius of Lyon. Gryphius was the most prolific printer in France during the most fertile period of French Renaissance humanism. This set is bound in 17th century French calf with gilt tooling, with labels and raised bands on the spines, and marbled page edges and endpapers. There were no auction records on file of this complete set coming to market previously.

Two original marble sculptures by Masayuki Nagare fetched hammer prices of $1020.00 and $900.00 (including buyer’s premium). Nagare is a celebrated Japanese sculptor whose pieces can be found in focal international settings including an impressive example that stood in the plaza of the World Trade Center buildings before they were destroyed.

Realizing a hammer price of $900.00 (including buyer’s premium) was a group of artwork by Hungarian painter, photographer and Bauhaus professor Laszlo Maholy-Nagy. This lot featured two exhibition posters, one of the 1923 painting "Sur Fond Blanc," held by the Ludwig Museum in Cologne, as well as a reproduction of the 1924 "Composition Axx" from the Musee Pompidou in Paris. Paired with the exhibition posters was a mixed media piece of artwork bearing the artist's stamped name over the signature of Hattula Maholy-Nagy, the artist's daughter and the executor of his estate.

National Book Auctions is a public auction service specializing in books, ephemera, and art. National Book Auctions is a targeted service offering experience and expertise unique to marketing antique and modern books and ephemera for consignors and collectors alike. For more information or to consign collectible material please contact David Hall, Business Manager, at 607-269-0101 or email mail@nationalbookauctions.com.

On November 29th and 30th at the Atlantis Casino Resort in Reno, Nevada, Holabird and Kagin Americana will give collectors the opportunity to bid on a unique collection that shows the genesis of a career and man that has become a worldwide icon in the world of entertainment. Hitting the auction block is an original, autographed, very early illustration by Walt Disney, entitled “Fill Up My Can”. The pen and ink work was done in the early 1920s, most likely prior to Mickey Mouse, who didn’t make his screen debut until 1928. The collection also includes several stock certificates issued by the O-Zell Jelly Company of Chicago, including what may be the very first stock ever issued to Walt.

These items were formerly owned by Walt Disney, his parents Flora and Elias, and his sister Ruth. They may be the only surviving O-Zell items known to exist. In the spring of 1917 Elias Disney, had tired of the newspaper delivery business and decided to make a career change, which also included bringing his youngest son, Walter into the venture. There is a distinct possibility that family revenue gained from work at the O-Zell Company gave Walt his first needed grub stake that allowed him to venture into the world of animation.  While it’s unknown what happened to the O-Zell Jelly Company in later years, that 16-year old kid from Kansas went on to make quite a name for himself.

This once-in-a-lifetime offering of incredible collectibles from America’s rich animation history, and the man that built it, is free and open to the public. The collection is estimated to bring $70,000-$100,000. For more information on the auction or to request an auction catalog, call 775-852-8822 or visit www.HolabirdAmericana.com. The Ruth Disney archive is part of the “2011 Grand Finale Auction” of Holabird-Kagin Americana and is also available for viewing and bidding on the internet through the company’s website.  

Philadelphia, PA October 26, 2011. Erica Armstrong Dunbar, an associate professor of history at the University of Delaware, has been named the first Director of the Library Company's Program in African American History. Professor Dunbar specializes in African American life and culture from 1619 to1865. She received a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1994 and a doctoral degree from Columbia University in 2000. Professor Dunbar's book A Fragile Freedom: African American Women and Emancipation in the Antebellum City (Yale University Press) is based in part on research she conducted in the Library Company's collections as a fellow. Says Library Company Director John Van Horne, "We are genuinely excited to have a distinguished scholar with strong ties to this institution providing leadership for this important Program."

The Program in African American History, established in 2007 with a grant from The Albert M. Greenfield Foundation, brings together scholars and interested members of the public to explore every aspect of the experience of people of African descent in the Americas from the beginnings of European colonization through 1900. Professor Dunbar will provide direction for the fellowships, conferences, exhibitions, publications, public programming, teacher training, and acquisitions through which the Library Company advances scholarship in African American History and shares this knowledge with the broader public. A new website for the Program that has detailed information about these initiatives is at http://www.librarycompany.org/paah/.

The Program's Director is supported by an Advisory Council whose distinguished members include the Rev. David M. Brown, Murray Dubin, Robert F. Engs, Oliver St. Clair Franklin, Annette Gordon-Reed, Autumn Adkins Graves, Tanya Hall, Emma Lapsansky-Werner, Louis Massiah, Randall M. Miller, Barbara Savage, Arthur Sudler, Diane D. Turner, Linn Washington, and William Earl Williams.

Afro-Americana Collection at the Library Company The Library Company houses one of the nation's most important collections of African American literature and history before 1900. Comprising more than 13,500 titles and 1,200 images from the mid-16th to the late-19th centuries, the Afro-Americana holdings include books, pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals, broadsides, and graphics documenting slavery and abolitionism in the New World; the printed works of Black individuals and organizations; descriptions of African American life throughout the Americas; and the exploration and colonization of Africa.

For more than forty years, the Afro-Americana collections of the Library Company have helped nurture and sustain rich scholarship that has added dramatically to our knowledge and understanding of that experience. In the late 1960s as scholars and researchers, inspired by the civil rights movement, began to foreground the significant roles played by African Americans in the country's founding and development, they discovered a trea-sure trove of material in the stacks of the Library Company. Beginning as an organic response to the reading interests of the Library Company's earliest patrons-such as members of the Abolitionist Society who wanted to keep up with current anti-slavery discourse the Afro-Americana collections have become an institutional priority for acquisition, conservation, exhibition, and research support.

Curator of African American History Phil Lapsansky, who has served in that capacity since 1971, has made significant contributions to the development of the larger discipline over that time, as well as helping to shape the Library Company's acquisitions, exhibitions, and programming. Mr. Lapsansky will retire in 2012.

Library Company Partnership with the University of Georgia Press
In a significant enhancement to the Program in African American History, the Library Company has formed a partnership with the University of Georgia Press to support Race in the Atlantic World, 1700-1900, a series of books focused on racial aspects of transatlantic history. The first book under the new partnership will be Eva Sheppard Wolf's Almost Free: A Story about Family and Race in Antebellum Virginia, to be published in spring 2012. Professor Dunbar, who will serve on the editorial advisory board for the series, believes that "this partnership provides a critical platform for disseminating the research that will be conducted at the Library Company by our Fellows, and we are very pleased to be associated with such a distinguished press and well-established series."

The Race in the Atlantic World, 1700-1900 series was created by the University of Georgia Press in 2006 and is edited by Richard Newman, Patrick Rael, and Manisha Sinha. Nine books already have been published in the series, including work by established authors such as Philip Morgan, Marcus Wood, Afua Cooper, and Vincent Carretta. The series also has featured first books by an international cohort of emerging scholars including Gale Kenny, Jeannette Jones, and Mischa Honeck.

About the Library Company of Philadelphia
The Library Company of Philadelphia is an independent research library concentrating on American history and culture from the 17th through 19th centuries. Free and open to the public, the Library Company houses an extensive non-circulating collection of rare books, manuscripts, broadsides, ephemera and works of art. The mission of the Library Company is to preserve, interpret, make available, and augment the valuable materials within our care. We serve a diverse constituency throughout Philadelphia and the nation, offering comprehensive reader services, an internationally renowned fellowship program, an online public access catalog, and regular exhibitions and public programs. Located at 1314 Locust Street, Philadelphia, it is open to the public free of charge from 9:00 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Monday through Friday. The Library Company can be found online at www.librarycompany.org.

WOOJUNG CHUN: LIBRARY,
 28 October-23 November 2011. This installation by the Korean artist Woojung Chun presents an imagined library furnished with bookcases, cabinets and globes, all recognizable as symbols of a place where knowledge resides. Chun reveals her library as ‘a place of persistent search for elusive questions: unsolved theories, unexplained narratives and unresolved philosophical debates’. She has been inspired in part by Borges’ text, ‘The Library of Babel’, which compares the library to the universe as a repository for all knowledge and every individual truth.

Library is an on-going, evolving project: this new installation at England & Co includes three recent works shown at the Cairo Biennale earlier this year, together with new works incorporating video projection exhibited for the first time. James Putnam, who curated an installation of Chun’s Library at the Venice Biennale in 2009, describes how the objects displayed on the bookcases ‘are both meaningful and meaningless’,  representing ‘a distillation of memories, accumulated information, ideas and interests - an ambiguous ever-growing and unbounded entity. Her library takes the form of enigmatic artefacts that… seem to possess a persistent force of memory that refuses to be forgotten, carrying histories, fictions, emotions and knowledge suspended in time.’

Displayed in a darkened space, the installation seems at first to be a library from a palatial house of a past era: although apparently furnished conventionally, further inspection reveals that there are no books in the bookcases and that the globes are not covered with maps of the world.

The dark wooden bookcases are meticulously crafted cabinets containing arcane and intriguing objects and tableaux, often surrealist in spirit. One cabinet contains repeated photographs of faces with mouths swallowing an endless string of letters and numbers; another has a chest of drawers with roots growing from its base. Others contains a puzzling, complex construction of boxes, strings and pulleys, or are inscribed with diagrammatic, alchemical drawings. A naked figure, curled up seemingly asleep, inhabits one cabinet; while brass implements of quasi-scientific origin are displayed in another case. The two globes stand among the bookcases, one representing the life of nature with beings moving and floating across the earth’s surface, while the other represents a kind of labyrinth of life with raised markings suggesting routes across a dark universe.

Woojung Chun was born in Seoul in 1976, and currently lives and works in the UK. Library was first shown as a solo installation as part of The 53rd International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia in 2009; and she also took part in The 12th International Cairo Biennale in early 2011. Previous exhibitions include Good Morning Mr. Nam June Paik at the Korean Cultural Centre UK (2008); Lessons of Embodiment (part of Escrita na Paisagem) at the Biblioteca Municipal de Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal (2009); and Biblioteket at Luftskipet, Fjell Gard, Norway (2010).

Few individuals are recognized by essays published in their honor while they are still fully engaged in their chosen profession. John Y. Cole, Director of the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, is one of those exceptions.

"The Library of Congress and the Center for the Book: Historical Essays Honoring John Y. Cole," has been published by the Library of Congress and the University of Texas Press at Austin. Edited by Mary Niles Maack of the University of California at Los Angeles, the volume features nine essays marking Cole’s dual achievements as a scholar who is "known internationally as the foremost expert on the history of the Library of Congress" and as the founding director, in 1977, of the Center for the Book.

The essays were originally published as a special issue (2010, vol. 45, no. 1) of the University of Texas quarterly journal "Libraries & the Cultural Record: Exploring the History of Collections of Recorded Knowledge," also edited by Maack. This clothbound edition includes a new, illustrated essay by Cole ("A Life at the Library of Congress"), an updated bibliography of his writings 1970-2010 and a comprehensive index. The frontispiece is a poem, "Voyage," which was dedicated to John Cole in 2003 by U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins. The volume’s dust jacket features a photograph of the Library’s Main Reading Room by Carol M. Highsmith and reproductions of Center for the Book posters and promotional items.

The invitational essays address topics representing different aspects of John Cole’s contributions and interests as a scholar and a librarian. The topics and their authors are:

    •    "Histories of the Library of Congress," by Jane Aikin, National Endowment for the Humanities
    •    "Properly Arranged and Properly Recorded: The Library of Congress Archives," by Josephus Nelson, Library of Congress
    •    "The National and International Roles of the Center for the Book," by Guy Lamolinara, Library of Congress
    •    "The Center for the Book and the History of the Book," by Eleanor F. Shevlin, West Chester University of Pennsylvania and Eric N. Lindquist, University of Maryland
    •    "The Choice of Books: Ainsworth Rand Spofford, the Ideology of Reading, and Literary Collections at the Library of Congress in the 1870s," by Carl Ostrowski, Middle Tennessee State University
    •    "The Library of Congress in 1892: Ainsworth Rand Spofford, Houghton Mifflin and Company, and ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin,’" by Michael Winship, University of Texas
    •    "‘Wake Up and Read!’ Book Promotion and National Library Week, 1958," by Jean Preer, Indiana University
    •    "The Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Global Exchange of International Documents, 1834-1889," by Nancy E. Gwinn, Smithsonian Institution Libraries
    •    "International Trends in Library History," by Donald G. Davis Jr., University of Texas

The 223-page book, "The Library of Congress and the Center for the Book: Historical Essays Honoring John Y. Cole," is available for $24.95 from the Library of Congress Sales Shop (888-682-3557) and online at www.loc.gov/shop/. It is also available from Oak Knoll Press (800) 996-2556 and online at www.oakknoll.com.

Since its creation by Congress in 1977 to "stimulate public interest in books and reading," the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress (www.Read.gov/cfb/) has become a major national force for reading and literacy promotion. A public-private partnership, it sponsors educational programs that reach readers of all ages, nationally and internationally. The center provides leadership for 52 affiliated state centers for the book (including the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands) and nonprofit reading-promotion partners and plays a key role in the Library’s annual National Book Festival. It also oversees the Library’s www.Read.gov website and administers the Library’s Young Readers Center.
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