Everything's better in color, and this summer, Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is celebrating a century of film in Technicolor with a film exhibition called "Glorious Technicolor: From George Eastman House and Beyond". Through August 5, the museum will be showing American films made during Technicolor's heyday from 1922 to 1955. Included among the 60 full-length features and snippets are gems such as the silent film Red Hair (1928), Clara Bow's only movie in color, and The Pirate (1948), a swashbuckling musical comedy starring Judy Garland, Gene Kelly and Walter Slezak, with a score by Cole Porter. There's also 35 mm dye-transfer prints of The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, and Singin' in the Rain. (To digital natives: a 35 mm dye-transfer print was Technicolor's multistep technique of creating color prints.) Many of the prints on display are loans from director Martin Scorsese's personal collection.


The Pirate. 1948. USA. Directed by Vincente Minnelli. Image courtesy Deutsche Kinemathek

Bring the kids for the last week of the exhibition, when MoMA will screen classic Technicolor cartoons, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Bambi, Fantasia, and Melody Time. All movies are shown in their original celluloid format and hail from the Eastman House Museum's massive Technicolor archive.

While a far cry from giving off a natural look, these super- pigmented moving pictures are a lasting testament to the deft work of filmmakers who created vibrant explosions of color, shadow and light for generations to enjoy.  


Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. 1937. USA. Directed by David Hand, William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, Ben Sharpsteen. Image courtesy RKO Radio Pictures/Photofest.

Glorious Technicolor: From George Eastman House and Beyond
June 05, 2015-August 05, 2015
More information, including admission and film times, at Moma.org
                                




 

A Gutenberg Bible for sale? Well, not entirely. What Sotheby's New York will offer next week is an eight-page fragment of the book printed by Johann Gutenberg and Johann Fust in 1455. Single leaves of the famous 42-line Bible occasionally turn up at auction--one recently sold at Swann Galleries for $55,000--but a complete copy hasn't been seen at auction since 1978, so this sizable section is estimated to make at least $500,000 for its consignor, the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in New York City.

The eight consecutive leaves comprise the Book of Esther from the first book printed in the West with movable type, of which only 48 (or 49, according to Sotheby's) exist in complete or substantially complete condition. This particular set of pages was extracted from an incomplete Gutenberg Bible in 1921 by New York book dealer Gabriel Wells, who sold leaves ($150 each) and sections separately, accompanied by an essay by author and book collector A. Edward Newton, as A Noble Fragment. Banker and book collector Mortimer Schiff purchased this one and donated it to JTS in 1922.

In an email today, a JTS spokesman commented on the sale, "Over the past century, the Library, as part of its core mission, has implemented an acquisitions program to purchase general collections that include the kind of Hebrew and Judaic material that comport with its core mission. As a byproduct of those purchases, the Library has found itself in possession of a number of important non-Hebrew incunabula, Latin Christian works which have a significant and intrinsic value but do not contribute to the Library's core mission. Because scholars rarely turn to JTS for these non-Hebrew materials, they have lay dormant on library shelves for the 90 years they have been in our collection. It has become clear that these volumes would better serve as scholarly resources in other collections and in keeping with best practices among academic libraries, and after due consideration, The Library of The Jewish Theological Seminary has chosen to deaccession these important non-Hebrew incunabula."

According to the spokesman, the JTS Board of Trustees approved the sale, and "No objections have been raised." He added, "Any proceeds from the sale will support the ongoing operations of the Library."

A May 16 article in the Forward stated that JTS has consigned fourteen additional early printed books to the auction as well; the only one specifically noted in the auctioneer's provenance records is a 1545 Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, a gift from famous book dealer, Dr. A. S. W. Rosenbach. 

Image via Sotheby's.

The Nancy Drew Sleuths, an organization of collectors, fans, and scholars, is celebrating the popular book series' 85th anniversary this year. To that end, the group has held two mini-conventions--one in Iowa City from April 30-May 3, the other in Toledo, Ohio, from May 28-31--and will embark on its third mini-con in Maplewood, New Jersey, this week from June 11-14.

The Nancy Drew series debuted on April 28, 1930 with three mysteries, The Secret of the Old Clock, The Hidden Staircase, and The Bungalow Mystery. It was the brainchild of author and book packager Edward Stratemeyer, who was responsible for other immensely popular juvenile series like the Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift, and the Hardy Boys. The Nancy Drew series, ghostwritten under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene, was the publishing guru's last major launch; he died two weeks later.     

Series book collector James Keeline's mini-con presentation, "The Secrets of the Stratemeyer Syndicate," and artist/illustrator Tricia Zimic's program, "A Painter's View of Nancy Drew," are scheduled for Saturday, June 13, at the Maplewood Public Library from 11:00-12:30. (This portion of the convention is open to the public.) At this event, the Sleuths plan to donate a full set of classic Nancy Drew books to the library. Keeline, who contributed an article about the Stratemeyer Syndicate to our Spring 2010 issue, will also narrate a bus tour through Stratemeyer's Garden State locales for convention attendees. Stratemeyer was born in nearby Elizabeth, later lived in Newark, and is buried in Hillside. After his death, his daughters ran the Syndicate from an East Orange office.

Next year, the Sleuths will return to a less hectic schedule, with one annual conference slated for April 2016 in New Orleans.

Coming to auction in California later this week is a "Horrors of War" trading card collection--Hitler and bubble gum for the kiddos, c. 1938. Produced by the Philadelphia-based Gum Inc., the graphic cards depict brutal scenes from the Japanese invasion of China, the Spanish Civil War, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, and Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland.

According to the auctioneer, Profiles in History, a complete set of these collectible cards in mint condition sold for over $700,000 a few years back. This lot contains 196 cards (out of a total issue of 288), most in (graded) mint or excellent condition. The estimate is $8,000-12,000.

The June 11 auction also features less controversial historical fare, such as:

-Lot 116: Sir Isaac Newton signed rare document, estimated at $30,000-50,000.

-Lot 98: Abraham Lincoln autographed letter, estimated at $30,000-50,000.
 
-Lot 137: A third (New York) printing of "The Star Spangled Banner," estimated at $40,000-60,000.

-Lot 155: Fourteen WWII maps owned by Major General Geoffrey Keyes, General Patton's Deputy Commander.

You can see more at Invaluable's collectibles page.  

Images Courtesy of Profiles in History/Invaluable.
 

New-York Historical Society is the place to be this summer with a blockbuster installation sure to enthrall Picasso aficionados and history buffs. The museum recently acquired the largest painting by Pablo Picasso to be found this side of the Atlantic. At an astounding 20 by 19 feet, Le Tricorne (1919) was originally commissioned as a curtain for a Spanish ballet of the same name created by art critic and Ballets Russes founder Serge Diaghilev. Over the course of three weeks and wearing ballet flats while standing on the canvas, Picasso created the massive bullfight scene by applying traditional Spanish tones of orange and yellow with paintbrushes attached to broom handles and, for detail work, repurposed toothbrushes. Complete with toreros, matadors, and fashion-forward men and women known as majas and majos, Le Tricorne served as an appropriately Iberian backdrop for the ballet.


Pablo Picasso, Curtain for the Ballet "Le Tricorne," 1919. Tempera on canvas, ca. 20 x 19 feet. New-York Historical Society, Gift of New York Landmarks Conservancy, Courtesy of Vivendi Universal, 2015.22. © 2015 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York

In 1957 Diaghilev sold the piece for $50,000 to Phyllis Lambert, daughter of Seagram Company CEO Samuel Bronfman. Its new home became the entry to the Four Seasons restaurant in the Seagram Building, where it hung for 55 years until 2014. The New York Times ran a piece last year examining the various reasons behind the curtain's removal as well as the conservation issues involved with moving the massive Tricorne. When the curtain's destiny was finally resolved, New-York Historical went to great lengths to transport it to its current location, and even filmed the process. (See a time-lapse video of the event here.)

Once again, the curtain fills a great wall, and now is surrounded by masterpieces that influenced Picasso's work - paintings by El Greco and Goya (on loan from the Hispanic Society of America) - as well as Spanish-themed objects that were trendy in the early 1900s.

Le Tricorne was gifted to the New-York Historical Society by its owner, the Landmarks Conservancy, and is on long term display on the second floor Dexter Hall Gallery. More information about the piece can be found here.
      
      
 

It pays to work in recycling in Silicon Valley.

Last month, a woman dropped off a box of electronics at Clean Bay Area, a Silicon Valley recycling firm. Included in the box was an Apple I computer, hand-built by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in Jobs' garage in 1976. These extremely rare computers are highly collectable. In 2013, an Apple I sold at auction for $671,400.

The recycling firm discovered the Apple I two weeks later when it sorted through the donated box. The company promptly sold the computer for $200,000 to a private collector. Clean Bay Area is now looking for the woman who dropped off the box. Per company policy, they would like to share half of the proceeds with her. In other words, they have a check waiting for her for $100,000.

The problem? She didn't leave a name or take a receipt for her material. The hope is that she hears about the money through media channels.

In the meantime, take an extra glance through your box of castoffs before you make your next donation.

Coming to auction at Swann Galleries on June 10 are several lots of hand-drawn and colored costume plates from late nineteenth-century stage productions of Shakespeare. Executed by illustrator Robert Bööcke, circa 1895, each gouache study on board is signed by Bööcke and captioned with the character and the play. The lot of 22 for "Twelfth Night" (estimated at $1,000-1,500) includes Olivia and Duke Orsino.
A group of 30 watercolor and gouache studies for "The Taming of the Shrew" (estimated at $1,000-1,500) includes Christopher Sly and Lucentio.

Another, less colorful lot includes 30 pencil and wash studies for "The Merchant of Venice" (estimated at $1,000-1,500).

Images via Swann Galleries.

Short story writer and novelist Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) will be honored by the United States Postal Service (USPS) with this beautiful 93¢, three-ounce stamp to be issued on Friday. The Savannah-born author is perhaps best known for her 1955 collection, A Good Man Is Hard to Find, though she also posthumously won the National Book Award for her Complete Stories in 1972. Her novels include Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960), and her writing is associated with Southern Gothic style, heavy on regional settings and dark humor.    

The 30th stamp in the USPS's Literary Arts series--which includes Ralph Ellison, Mark Twain, and Ernest Hemingway, among others--it features a watercolor image of O'Connor, based on a black-and-white photograph taken when she was a student at Georgia State College for Women in the 1940s. The vivid peacock feathers surrounding her call to mind the peafowl she raised on a farm in Georgia during the last fourteen years of her life, after she had been diagnosed with lupus. She died at 39 of complications from the disease.

A First Day Cover and a Digital Color Postmark, neat additions to any O'Connor collection, will also be made available from the USPS. The stamp issues from McLean, Virginia.

Image via USPS. The artist for this stamp was Sam Weber. Art director Phil Jordan designed the stamp.

Guest Post by Eliza Krigman

This past Thursday I spent a few hours at the London International Antiquarian Book Fair held at the Olympia National Exhibition Center. This marked my first foray into the world of rare and old books.

Not long after I made my way onto the exhibition floor I came across John Windle, owner of a San Francisco-based shop. Windle was eager to show me a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin in which Harriet Beecher Stowe had written her favorite quote at the start of each book and signed it. I was struck by the quality of her penmanship, which remained very good despite the age at which she had written it (in 1894, two years before her death at age 85).

Antiquarian book dealing is "one of the very last businesses that is truly collegial," Windle told me. Without a contract, people send each other very expensive books through FedEx because there is so much mutual trust, he added. The only way people make money, he continued, is by helping each other. Immediately I felt welcomed in my new environment.

I moved along the conference center, which was busy but not hectic. Given that the fair was competing with the sun outside, I was surprised that the attendance was so high. I next visited the booth of Adrian Harrington Rare Books, a bookseller based in Kent, England. Jon Gilbert, the attendant at the stand, drew my attention to a signed first edition of Towards Zero, an Agatha Christie novel. For a mere £2,500 ($3,800), the book could have been mine.

And since I was in England, and the date of my visit (May 28th) happened to be Ian Fleming's birthday, I thought it only appropriate that I spend a little time looking at a first edition of Casino Royale, published in 1953. Only 4,728 of them were ever produced, Gilbert told me. He happens to be a Fleming expert and has written an award-winning bibliography of the famous author's work.

After a quick coffee, a showcase at the booth of California bookseller Biblioctopus featuring a notebook page with handwritten lyrics caught my eye. It turned out to be the scrawl of Bob Dylan. The songs weren't his--although he did make minor alterations to them--but he had written them down in preparation for some of his initial performances in New York's Greenwich Village in 1961. A hardcore Dylan fan can own it for £50,000 ($76,000).

--Eliza Krigman is a journalist based in London who frequently writes about culture, gender and technology. Find her on twitter @ekspectacular, get in touch at eliza@elizakrigman.com, or see more of her work here www.elizakrigman.com.

Images: Credit Eliza Krigman.