Recently in Prints, Drawings, Paintings Category

In 1919, Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky, 1890-1976) had his third solo exhibition at the Daniel Gallery, run by a former saloon owner Charles Daniel (1878-1971) and the poet Alanson Hartpence (1883-1946). By this time, Man Ray was losing interest in oil painting and the show featured airbrush drawings (called aerographs) and several installations.

One of these, called Revolving Doors, featured ten collages made from colorful construction paper cut-up and pasted onto white cardboard. Each collage was framed and hinged onto a rotating support, so that the entire ensemble could be spun like a revolving door. When Daniel asked the artist to give the audience an explanation, Man Ray wrote long labels for each panel. For instance, the Dragonfly label read in part: “The lozenges of different colored wills to ascension are a fairly accurate record of the creature’s struggles.”

Man Ray moved to Paris in the 1920s but continued to explore this series in a variety of mediums, including a pochoir edition published by Editions Surréalistes in 1926. The following year, Man Ray gave a copy to Henri Pierre Roché (1879-1959, who would later write Jules et Jim.) This made its way into the Charles Rahn Fry Pochoir Collection, and ultimately to Princeton University.

Man Ray (1890-1976), Revolving Doors, 1916-1917 (Paris: Editions Surréalistes, 1926). Copy 71 of 105. Graphic Arts Collection (GAX) Oversize 2004-0007E

James Bretherton (active 1770-1781) after a design by Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811), The Dog Barber. La Francia, 1772. Etching with added color. Graphic Arts GC021. Gift of Dickson Q. Brown, Class of 1895.

William Dickinson (1747-1823) after a design by Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811), A Family Piece, 1781. Stipple engraving and etching. Graphic Arts GC021. Gift of Dickson Q. Brown, Class of 1895.

James Bretherton (active 1770-1781) after a design by Henry William Bunbury (1750-1811), Mutual Accusation, 1774. Etching. Graphic Arts GC021. Gift of Dickson Q. Brown, Class of 1895.

“When once you’ve told & cant recall a Lye
Boldly persist in’t or your Fame will die.
Learn this ye Wives, with unrelenting Claws
Or right or wrong, Assert your husbands cause.”

The British artist Henry Bunbury has been called the Raphael of Caricaturists. A member of a landed family, Bunbury traveled in the elite circles of London, exhibiting at the Royal Academy and honored with an obituary in Gentleman’s Magazine at his death.

“His pencil never transgresses the limits of good taste and delicacy, and had he been under the necessity of pursuing art for profit, instead of amusement and pleasure only, he would probably have made a great fortune by the produce of his genius.”

For more information, see Hugh Belsey, Henry William Bunbury 1750-1811 (1983). Graphic arts (GA) Oversize NC 1479.B89 B45 1983Q.

These grotesques (figures with large heads) were invented by George Woodward (1760-1809) and etched by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) for the publisher Rudolph Ackermann. Several times Woodward refers to the caricatures as Lilliputians, referencing the small people of Lilliput in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. The forty-six horizontal strips mounted on twelve plates were meant to be cut apart and used, literally, as border designs in your home. According to Greco, the partnership created twenty-four sheets in total. The Princeton copy includes an additional sheet of smaller sketches in 6 vertical strips, dated May 20, 1805, not a part of Grotesque Borders as originally published.

Not long after Woodward and Rowlandson finished publishing their caricatures, Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) wrote an insightful essay entitled, De l’essence du rire et généralement du comique dans les arts plastiques, in which he differentiates between the uses of grotesque comic figures. For an English language translation, see Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays (New York: Garland Pub., 1978). Firestone Library (F) NX65 .B38213 1978

George Woodward was a caricaturist from Stanton-by-Dale, Derbyshire, whose drinking habits are perhaps better known than his art. When he moved to London his inheritance had already been spent. More often than not, he provided the drawing of an idea to publishers and to other caricaturists, rather than a completed etching. He very sadly passed away one night at his usual spot in his local tavern.

In this print, John Bull is seen as a sailor wearing striped trousers, a sword in his right hand. He looks towards two figures poised on the beams, which radiate from a magic lantern worked by Napoleon. Other beams reach a bear standing on a rocky island on the horizon behind John. Napoleon says: “Begar de brave Galanté Shew - for Jonny Bull.” The two lantern-figures include a French officer, holding a tricolour flag in the left hand, and young woman. He says: “Here we come Johnny - A Flag of Truce Johnny - something like a Piece! all deckd out in Bees, and stars and a crawn [sic] on her head - Not such a patch’d up piece as the last.” John answers with a distrustful stare: “You may be d——-d and your piece too! - I suppose you thought I was off the watch - I tell you Ill say nothing to you till I have consulted Brother Bruin and I hear him grouling teribly in the offing.” (from M. Dorothy George, Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum, VIII, 1947)

The Wiener Werkstätte or Vienna workshops were founded in 1903 with the backing of Fritz Wärndorfer to “make all facets of human life into one unified work of art.” Architects, artists, designers, metalworker, typographers, and many other artisans joined. Their motto: Better to work ten days on one product than to manufacture ten products in one day.

The primarily female textile and fashion division was not formed until 1910. From 1914 to 1915, this division published a series of twelve portfolios, each with twelve original linocuts of fashions designed by their members. Here are a few examples from portfolio number five.

Mode (Wien, 1914-1915). Graphic Arts GAX Oversize 2007-0318Q

Here are a few drawings illustrating Chateaubriand’s Atala from a portfolio donated by Princeton University Professor Emeritus and Chateaubriand scholar Gilbert Chinard. For the complete story of how he acquired them from the Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin at 6, Place de la Sorbonne in Paris, see the Princeton University Library Chronicle XXVI, no. 3 (Spring 1965) http://libweb5.princeton.edu/visual_materials/pulc/pulc_v_26_n_3.pdf.

Mr. Vrin told Chinard that the drawings were by an amateur artist from Dijon known as Comte de Boulet, presumably executed around 1810-20 for an illustrated edition of Atala, ou les Amours de deux sauvages dans le désert written by François-Auguste-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand (1768-1848). The edition was never published and Princeton’s two blue buckram portfolios housing thirty-two drawings appears to be the only remaining evidence of the project.

When Atala was published in 1801 it was an immediate success. Inspired by Chateaubriand’s trip to the American South ten years earlier, the story is told through the reminiscences of Chactas, an elderly native of the Louisiana territory raised with a Seminole Indian tribe. Chactas loves Atala, who is a dedicated Christian, and the novella contrasts their two backgrounds and religious philosophies. Chateaubriand describes the book as a “painting of two lovers who walk and talk in solitude; all lies in the picture of the turmoil and love in the midst of the calm of the wilderness.”

Boulet’s drawings have been exhibited at least once, in the 1976 exhibition at the Grand Palais organized by Hugh Honour under the title L’Amérique vue par l’Europe. Firestone Annex A N6754 .H762

To listen to a French reading of the story, see: http://www.litteratureaudio.com/livre-audio-gratuit-mp3/chateaubriand-francois-renede-atala.html.

Theophile de Boulet, Chateaubriand’s Atala, ca. 1810. Pencil, crayon, and ink drawings with gouache highlights. Graphic Arts GC100.

The Asamblea de Artistas Revolucionarios de Oaxaca (Assembly of Revolutionary Artists of Oaxaca or ASARO) grew out of the 2006 Oaxaca teachers’ strike and the violence that followed. ASARO formed as a collective, no individual artist’s names are used, working in a variety of mediums to commemorate public actions and critique political responses. For instance, the print above documents the army’s use of helicopters to drop chemicals on peaceful protesters. Graphic Arts has acquired forty-nine woodcuts, stencils, and poster by ASARO, many as large as 100 x 70 cm.

http://asar-oaxaca.blogspot.com/

http://www.artslant.com/chi/articles/show/16050

A bilingual interview with ASARO was published by the Houston (Texas) Independent Media Center in 2008.

Here are a few segments: Retomamos la forma de asamblea, porque creemos en la posibilidad de recuperación de la fuerza comunitaria en el arte, y porque la asamblea es al forma en que los pueblos dialogan y toman decisiones basadas en los intereses colectivos. De esta manera, respondemos también ante el llamado de la APPO, conformar un frente amplio de resistencia civil. (We have retaken the form of the assembly because we believe in the possibility to recover the power of the collective in art and because the assembly is the form in which the pueblos have a dialogue and hold decisions based on collective interests. In this way, we respond as well before the call of the APPO to create an ample front of civil resistance.)

Proponemos, iniciar un movimiento artístico, donde el fin sea el contacto directo con la gente, en las calles y espacios públicos. (We seek to initiate an artistic movement where the final goal is direct contact with people in the streets and in public spaces.)

Creemos que el arte publico (diversas disciplinas artísticas) es una forma de comunicación que permiten el dialogo con todos los sectores de la sociedad y hacen posible la visualización de las condiciones reales de existencia, las normas y contradicciones de la sociedad que habitamos. (We believe that public art (in all its diverse artistic disciplines) is a form of communication that allows a dialogue with all sectors of society and which makes possible the visualization of the real conditions of existence—the norms and contradictions of the society which we all inhabit.)

For the full interview, see http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2008/06/64061.php

See also: Louis E.V. Nevaer. Protest Graffiti-Mexico: Oaxaca (New York, NY: Mark Batty, 2009.) RECAP: Marquand Library GT3913.16.O29 N48 2009

On January 1, 1799, Rudolph Ackermann (1764-1834) published the first of eight plates designed by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) of the Cries of London. Rowlandson’s ink drawings were etching and printed by the Swiss artist H Merke (fl.1799-1820) and hand colored in Ackermann’s shop on the Strand. The cost was two shillings and six pence colored or one shilling and six pence uncolored. Rowlandson continued to add to the Cries and in 1820, the complete set of fifty-four prints was published under the title of Characteristic Sketches of the Lower Orders. Princeton owns two copies of Rowlandson’s original peddlers and street hawkers, pasted into albums.

Graphic Arts’ second set of Cries has the artist’s name added to the bottom of each mat.

Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), [Etchings from Cries of London] (London: Ackermann’s, 1799). Graphic Arts Collection (GA) Oversize Rowlandson 1820.01.11q.

see also:
Diana Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996). Firestone DA505 .D73 1996

Joseph Grego, Rowlandson the Caricaturist: A Sketch of his life, Times, and Contemporaries (New York: J.W. Bouton, 1880). Graphic Arts GARF Oversize NE642.R7 G8q

Benjamin Champney (1817-1907), New Public Library Boston, 1850. Watercolor. GC031 Benjamin Champney Watercolors Collection.

When most people hear the name Benjamin Champney, they think of images of the White Mountains. However, this American painter also loved his adopted home of Boston, Massachusetts, and sketched many Boston cityscapes.

Born in New Ipswich, New Hampshire, Champney studied and exhibited in Paris during the 1840s. He settled in Boston for only a few years before returning to New Hampshire but remained active in the Boston art scene. Champney helped found the Boston Arts Club in 1855 and exhibited regularly at the Boston Athenaeum. These are a few of Champney’s watercolors in the graphic arts collection.

Benjamin Champney (1817-1907), New Boston Theater. Washington Street, 1850. Watercolor. GC031 Benjamin Champney Watercolors Collection

Benjamin Champney (1817-1907), Boston City Library, 1850. Watercolor. GC031 Benjamin Champney Watercolors Collection.

Benjamin Champney (1817-1907), Blackstone Square. Boston, 1850. Watercolor. GC031 Benjamin Champney Watercolors Collection

Thanks to the “Adopt-a-book” benefit sponsored by the Friends of the Princeton University Library this spring, and specifically to the donations given by Ruta Smithson in honor of Andrew Smithson and by Ursus Books, one of our Audubon prints has been conserved and rehoused by Special Collections Paper Conservator Theodore Stanley.

Plate 234 Tufted Duck (common name Ring-Necked Duck). Fuligula Rufitorques was drawn in watercolors by John James Audubon (1785-1851) and then, engraved, printed, and colored by Robert Havell, Jr. (1793-1878), completed in 1834. For a view of the editioned print in the copy of Birds of America at the University of Pittsburgh see: http://digital.library.pitt.edu/a/audubon/plates.html.

In 1827, Audubon approached Robert Havell, Sr. (1769-1832) to take-over the engraving of his watercolors for The Birds of America. His original printer, Edinburgh engraver W.H. Lizars dropped out of the project after his staff went on strike. Havell Sr. was joined by his son, Robert Havell, Jr. (1793-1878), who engraved the plates while his father supervised the printing and coloring. Health problems led to Havell Sr.’s retirement in 1828 and his death four years later, leaving the majority of the work to his son. Havell Jr. finished the final print in 1838 and the first edition of the book is often called the Havell Edition.

One of Audubon’s biggest complaints with Lizars’ first plates was the variation in the hand coloring between impressions. Havell solved this by creating a working proof or pattern print for each plate. Audubon marked up the trial proofs until one satisfied him and this was used by the colorists as a guide. In a modern edition, the artist’s approved print is known as the bon à tirer (BAT), which in French means good to print. Note Havell’s initials, added in ink on the center title, presumably to indicate his approval.

Howard C. Rice wrote in the catalog for a 1959 Audubon exhibit at Princeton University:

This is one of the so-called ‘Pattern Prints’ used by the workers in Havell’s studio to guide them in the coloring. Since two hundred or more impressions of each plate had to be hand-colored, it was necessary to establish a standard pattern for the workers to follow in order to maintain uniformity in the coloring … It is said that the margins of such pattern prints were often trimmed irregularly or otherwise mutilated, as a security measure, to prevent them from being stolen from the studio or surreptitiously sold.

William Hogarth (1697-1764), The Stage-Coach, or The Country Inn Yard, June 1747. Engraving. Graphic Arts Collection Hogarth GC113.

Hogarth’s print, The Stage-Coach, was first advertised on June 26, 1747 as a print representing “a country inn yard at election time.” Since the election had only been announced eight days earlier, Hogarth must have completed the scene with some haste. The only direct reference to the campaign is the crowd in the back, perhaps a comment on the lack of attention the election received from the English people.

The central focus of Hogarth’s print is the woman with her back to us, entering the coach. Ronald Paulson wrote, “whether we think of her as “broadbottom” or as backside, she embodies self-absorption and unawareness of what is going on around her as she prepares to disappear inside the coach. The composition focuses on her back, and creates another verbal pun: she is literally “turning her back” on the urgency of the election… .”

Over seventy years later, George Cruikshank took this image and re-imagined it for contemporary London society. At first only indirectly as The Piccadilly Nuisance, Dedicated to the Worthy Acting Magistrates of the District with the stage coach seen from the side. The followed year, he tried again with Travelling in England, which more directly echoes Hogarth’s print.

George Cruikshank (1792-1878), The Piccadilly Nuisance. Dedicated to the Worthy Acting Magistrates of the District, December 29, 1818. Etching with hand coloring. GC022 Cruikshank Collection. Gift of Richard W. Meirs, Class of 1888.

George Cruikshank (1792-1878), Travelling in England, or A Peep from the White Horse Cellar, August 12, 1819. Etching with hand coloring. GC022 Cruikshank Collection. Gift of Richard W. Meirs, Class of 1888.

John Augustus Mapes, Class of 1920 (died 1970), In Praise of Old Nassau. A Portrait of William (the Silent), Prince of Orange; Count of Nassau, no date. Watercolor. Graphic Arts GA 2006.02632. Painted expressly for George H. Sibley, Class of 1920.

No, Princeton colors do not come from William I, Prince of Orange (1533-1584), also called William the Silent. Born to the House of Nassau, a princely German family, William I became Prince of Orange in 1544 and went on to liberate The Netherlands from Spanish rule. (To read more, see http://www.hollandhistory.net/famous_dutch_people/book-william-the-silent/online-book.html.

It was William III, Prince of Orange (1650-1702) who endowed the College of William and Mary in 1693 and is recognized at Princeton University with Nassau Hall. The building was going to be named Belcher Hall but Governor Jonathan Belcher declined the honor, suggesting that it be named in memory of “the Glorious King William the Third who was a Branch of the Illustrious House of Nassau.”

For more myths and facts about Princeton, see Princeton Myths, Debunked by Wes Tooke, 1999
http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pwb/99/0510/myths.htm
and
Princeton College Bulletin 1895: http://books.google.com/books?id=mxXiAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA89&lpg=RA2-PA89&dq=william+the+silent+nassau+orange+princeton&source=bl&ots=ROiyfvhx0N&sig=RjCFrp2KC8teoWqbZ62Wr7lAyU&hl=en&ei=Vgv4S8G0CIT78AaUk-3QCg&sa=X&oi=bookresult&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CDcQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=william%20the%20silent%20nassau%20orange%20princeton&f=false

Myth: The orange in the school’s colors comes from Nassau Hall, dedicated to Prince William of Orange, of the House of Nassau. The black came from a crew race before the turn of the century. The team was about to be disqualified because they weren’t wearing numbers, so they dipped their fingers in mud and painted black numerals on the backs of their orange jerseys.

Fact: The orange did come from Prince William, via Nassau Hall. As for the black, the Princeton crews at the Saratoga Regatta in 1874 did wear orange and black — and that regatta is generally considered the beginning of orange and black as Princeton’s “official” colors. But black had been used since 1868, when the Class of 1869 wanted to print its class number on orange badges to wear in a baseball game with Yale — and black was the only available ink.

The great English painter Joseph Mallord William Turner loved the sea. Beginning in 1829, he spent periods of time each year at the seaside house of Mrs. Sophia Booth in Margate. Later, the twice-widowed Mrs. Booth moved in with Turner in his Chelsea residence, where he enjoyed being greeted as Admiral Booth.

In 1840, at the age of 64, Turner painted Slave Ship, which received nothing but condemnation from the critics. Not only did they hate the loose brushwork and violent palette but found the scene’s shocking depiction of slaves being thrown to their death unacceptable for a public gallery. Next to the painting, Turner hung a poem he called Fallacies of Hope:

Aloft all hands, strike the top-masts and belay;
Yon angry setting sun and fierce-edged clouds
Declare the Typhoon’s coming.
Before it sweeps your decks, throw overboard
The dead and dying - ne’er heed their chains
Hope, Hope, fallacious Hope!
Where is thy market now?

One of the only voices to speak up for Turner was that of art critic John Ruskin (1819-1900), who was moved to begin writing an article about Turner and contemporary painting. This led to a lifetime work in five volumes, beginning in 1843 with the infamous volume one of Modern Painters (Ex 3915.1.3645).

Turner died eight years later at his Chelsea home with Mrs. Booth and was buried in St Paul’s Cathedral. His paintings were bequeathed to England and his fortune to a charity for male artists. Although Ruskin did not accept the offer to be an executor of Turner’s will, he did sort through the drawings in the Turner Bequest and curate an exhibition of them at Marlborough House in 1856-57.

A number of works remained with Mrs. Booth and it was from her that Ruskin purchased this watercolor study in 1880. In it, Turner worked out the fish for the lower right corner of The Slave Ship. Years later, it was purchased by Robert Hill Taylor (1908-1985), Class of 1930, and ultimately, donated to Princeton University.

BTW, the Princeton University Art Museum is the fortunate owner of a Turner sketchbook, which Ruskin purchased in 1860 and Charles J. Mosmann, Jr., Class of 1950, donated in 1957.

See the figure just right of center on stilts dressed as Henry III (1491-1547), King of England.

Here the same figure is now William Pitt (1708-1778), Prime Minister of Great Britain.

William Hogarth (1697-1764), The Times, plate 1, 1762. Engraving and etching. Graphic Arts GA113.

In Hogarth’s 1762 engraving, the city on fire is emblematic of the Seven Years War and King George III’s efforts to bring about peace. Note the houses in the center, one with the sign of the two-necked eagle (Germany) and another with the fleur-de-lis (France). England is on the far left and a globe on the building to the right shows the extent of the damage being done.

In the first and second states of The Times, Hogarth disguises William Pitt in a Henry VIII costume but in the final, third state, the costume is removed. Princeton is fortunate to have examples of both the second and third states. The stilts represent Pitt’s crutches he used because he suffered from gout. The millstone around his neck marked 3000 pounds per annum represents the enormous pension he accepted. While others attempt to put out the flames, Pitt has a bellows to encourage the flames.

Five days before The Times was published, another print called John Bull’s House Sett in Flames was issued anonymously. This may have been the inspiration for Hogarth’s work. On the other hand, it might also have been someone copying Hogarth and trying to beat him to the public’s attention, since the second print was certainly completed with less care or iconographic detail.

Hogarth began work on a second, companion plate to The Times but peace was ratified by the Commons on December 9, 1762 and signed in February 1763. This left Hogarth’s print slightly out-of-date and so, he never printed plate two during his lifetime. According to Ronald Paulson, this copper plate was left to his widow, then to Alderman Boydell, who had it finished and published in 1790.

William Hogarth (1697-1764), The Times, plate 2, 1790. Engraving and etching. Graphic Arts GA113

Edward Lear (1812-1888) was eighteen when he started work on the illustrations for The Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots. As an ornithological draughtsman, with a talent for striking colors and anatomically correct renderings, Lear found himself taking extended walking trips through Europe. By 1841, his travel had led to an interest in landscape painting and the publication of Views in Rome and its Environs followed by Illustrated Excursions in Italy.

Under the pseudonym of Derry Down Derry, Lear embarked on a separate career as humorist with the publication of A Book of Nonsense. Today, as during his own lifetime, Lear has followers who know his light verse but have no knowledge of his extensive oeuvre in landscape painting.

Lear spent the late fall and winter of 1866/67 traveling through Egypt on camel and boat, sailing down the Nile as far as Wadi Halfa, on the shores of Lake Nasser at the northern border of Sudan. He also visited Gaza and Jerusalem before returning to England. The following winter, Lear spent on the Italian Riviera and at the end of a productive year, composed The Owl and the Pussycat.

Note the lower left, where Lear records not only the date but time of day at which the sketch was made. He drew these wonderfully spontaneous pencil studies on site, leaving the color until later. This was painted in watercolor, following the instructions he wrote directly on the paper concerning hue and tone.

Edward Lear (1812-1888), [Nile scene] near Wady Halfeh [sic], 1867. Watercolor. Robert H. Taylor collection of English and American literature, [1280s]-1950. RTC01, drawer XII.

The Doctor Dismissing Death, 1785. Designed by Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827), engraved by P. Simon, aquatinted by Francis Jukes (1747-1812). GC112 Thomas Rowlandson Collection. Gift of Dickson Q. Brown, Class of 1895.

In this print, not included in the British Museum’s collection, a skeleton representing death is entering through a cottage window and being driven back by the doctor’s syringe (an enima?). The print’s young designer, Thomas Rowlandson, had only recently begun painting with watercolor. He was assisted in the printing of the delicate design by Francis Jukes, who specialized in aquatint, a new intaglio process used to add tone and color to an image.

The first French prints with aquatint ground were probably those made around 1761 by François-Philippe Charpentier (1734-1817) and his Swedish pupil Per Gustaf Floding (1731-1791). Another method of aquatinting was invented independently by Jean-Baptiste Le Prince (1734-1781) in 1769. A few years later, Peter Perez Burdett (died 1793) brought the process to England, where Jukes was another early master of the technique. Thomas Gainsborough, Paul Sandby, and Goya were among the many others who used the aquatint process to enhance their fine art prints.

For a complete history, see MoMA’s excellent descriptions of printing processes: http://www.moma.org/collection/details.php?themeid=10452&sectionid=T003497

Charles Scribner III, Class of 1973, writing in the Princeton University Library Chronicle 53, no.2 (Winter 1992): 141-155, explains how he came to own the original dust jacket design for The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940). Scribner’s cousin, George Schieffelin discovered the gouache sketch, painted in 1924 by Francis Cugat (1893-1981), in a trash can of publishing “dead matter” and took it home. Eventually Scribner inherited the painting, enjoyed it at home for several years, and then donated it to the Princeton University Library for the Graphic Arts collection (GA 2006.02659).

According to Scribner’s research, Francis Cugat was born in Spain and raised in Cuba. His brother, Xavier Cugat, became a musician and an orchestra leader. Francis worked as an illustrator in the 1920s, performed in New York City in the 1940s, and then moved to Hollywood, where he is credited as technical color consultant on sixty-eight films from 1948 to 1955.

Cugat received the commission for the Fitzgerald dusk jacket in 1924, while the book was still unfinished. Originally titled “Among the Ash Heaps and Millionaires,” Fitzgerald also toyed with calling it “Trimalchio in West Egg,” “On the Road to West Egg,” and “Gold-hatted Gatsby.” The author liked the design Cugat proposed (for which he was paid $100) and wrote to his publisher, “For Christs sake don’t give anyone that jacket you’re saving for me. I’ve written it into the book.” Cugat called his design “Celestial Eyes.”

The novel was first published with this jacket in 1925 and again in 1979 for the Scribner Library paperback edition. See: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (New York: C. Scribner’s sons, 1925). Rare Books (Ex) Behrman American: Fitzgerald no. 1

William Hogarth (1697-1764), Four Groups of Heads (Scholars at a Lecture, Chorus of Singers, Laughting Audience, and Company of Undertakers), 1737. Engravings. Graphic Arts, GC113 William Hogarth Collection. Gift of Dickson Q. Brown, Class of 1895.

Two of these four engravings by William Hogarth began as subscription tickets for the sale of other prints or groups of prints. Each were printed and sold separately but after a few years, Hogarth cut off the bottom of the plate (where the text about the sale was engraved), reprinted them, and bound them with two additional prints. The four small sheets were then sold under the title Four Groups of Heads. Princeton is fortunate to have both the later printing (1737) and, in some cases, impressions of the original prints.

A Chorus of Singers (also known as Rehearsal of the Oratorio of Judith), was originally a subscription ticket for Midnight Modern Conversation. The print shows a rehearsal of the oratorio Judith, written by William Huggins with music by William Defesch. It was performed February 16, 1733, at Lincoln’s Inn Fields, after a postponement due to the misconduct and pretended sickness of Cecilia Young, who had engaged for the part of Judith.

The Laughing Audience, was originally a subscription ticket for Southward Fair and The Rake’s Progress. Note that only one man is not laughing. He is usually identified as the critic, who were always made to stand in the pit of the theater.

In Scholars at a Lecture the open book reads “Datur Vacumm” (Leisure time is given for…), which according to Ronald Paulson is a pun on ‘vacumm,’ carried out in the expressions of the various auditors. These are scholars at Oxford, wearing square-topped cloth and felt hats, which were worn by all undergraduates and graduates except Doctors of Law, Medicine, and Music.

For more see Ronald Paulson Hogarth’s Graphic Works (London: Print Room, 1989). GARF ND497.H7 A35 1989Q

Bird’s Eye View of Princeton, N.J., 1874. Lithographed by Breuker and Kessler after a design by H. H. Bailey. Published by Charles O. Hudnut. GC047 Princetoniana Collection.

Princeton College, Princeton, N.J., 1875. Lithographed by Thomas Hunter, after a design by W. M. Radcliff. Published by Charles O. Hudnut and also called Hudnut’s Aerial View. GC047 Princetoniana Collection.

Kyes and Woodbury (John F. Kyes, dates unknown, and Charles Herbert Woodbury, 1864-1940), Untitled [Aerial view of Princeton University campus], 1895. Lithograph. Published by George S. Harris and Sons, and reproduced in Harper’s Weekly on January 26, 1895. GC047 Princetoniana Collection. *Note: Kyes is correct, not Keyes as is sometimes seen.

Princeton University, 1906. Hand-colored engraving after a watercolor by Richard Rummell (1848-1924). Commissioned and published by Littig and Company. GC047 Princetoniana Collection. Rummell made a number of watercolors of Princeton University (see also below), which were reproduced in full color, sepia, and/or black and white prints.

Princeton University, ca. 1920. Collotype after a watercolor by Richard Rummell (1848-1924). Commissioned and published by Littig and Company. GC047 Princetoniana Collection.

Described by M. Dorothy George in the Catalogue of Political and Personal Satires in the British Museum as follows:

“In a squalid room a man in a frenzy of inspiration, stern and intent, sits at an easel painting on a canvas on which is the large head of a (?) minatory Hebrew prophet. He wears a shirt with one tattered boot and one slipper, and a cloth tied over his head. In his left hand is a pen, and he appears unconscious of a large cat which claws at his bare legs. His pretty wife sleeps with a carefree expression on a make-shift bed (across which his breeches are thrown), while a naked infant beside her pours the contents of a bottle into a glass. On the table are coffee-pot, &c. An older child, almost naked, sits in a tub facing the fire plying a pair of bellows and is in great danger from a kettle and a red-hot poker. The other pursuits of the genius are indicated by two large books, on which he rests a foot, a violin and a French horn, a syringe, a pair of scales, a retort standing on a small furnace; a classical bust on a bracket. A cord stretches across the room on which hang tattered stockings and a piece of drapery. On the wall hang a sword and tricorne hat, with three prints: ‘Araeostation’ [sic], a balloon ascending, reminiscent of Rowlandson’s ‘Aerostation out at Elbows …’; a woman ballet dancer, and an ugly profile head inscribed ‘Peter Testa’. Above the fireplace (right) are a string of onions and a bunch of tallow dips. A dish of food with knife and fork is on the floor.”

*Note, what is the youngest child getting ready to drink?