The Cleveland Museum of Art

We found this British touring volume in our library collection whilst conducting ILL and purchasing  for Heather Lemonedes. She is working on British drawings and book illustration for a future exhibition, and is interested in many artists including Arthur Rackham.  The artist, notorious for his wicked goblins and grasping trees, began as a modest illustrator and reporter.  His sketches for this small book, Sunrise-Land; rambles in Eastern England by Annie Berlyn in 1894, received no credit on the title page.  Granted he had yet to reach his astonishing observance of Nature, as Desmond Shawe-Taylor observed  in Rodney Engen’s book Arthur Rackham. Beside an illustration of this cover, the artist is described fishing and drawing through the English countryside, completing a number of travel books for publisher Jarrold and Sons. Whilst, even!

Anyone who is familiar with the Ingalls Library will know that we are in the process of bringing 100,000+ books out of storage and reintegrating them into our stacks.  With each box we open we find old friends that we have not seen for 5 years!  I came across one of these old friends the other day, the colorfully named(and colorfully bound), Yellow Book: An Illustrated Quarterly.

The brain-child of Aubrey Beardsley and expatriate American writer Henry Harland, the Yellow Book was just 13 volumes published between 1894 and 1897.  It was a bridge between the waning age of Queen Victoria, and a look forward to the age of modernism and the 20th century. And although short-lived, it featured some of the best and most representative literary art of the time, including several of Henry James’s renowned short stories, as well as contributions from Max Beerbohm, H.G. Wells, W.B. Yeats, and Joseph Conrad.  In the visual arts, such artists as Frederic Lord Leighton, Walter Crane, John Singer Sargent, Walter Sickert, and illustrator Laurence Housman are found between its vibrant covers.

More than any other published document of its time, The Yellow Book has come to represent the fin de siècle decadence and dandyism that epitomized the 1890s.  It was well received and popular, so popular that it is mentioned in some of the greatest literary works of the period, including An Ideal Husband, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Of Human Bondage.  But even this popularity could not survive the terminal illness of its chief protagonist, Aubrey Beardsley, and the periodical ceased publication in the Spring of 1897.  The Ingalls Library is fortunate to own a complete set, in near fine condition, of this journal in its original clothbound Beardsley illustrated covers.

Welcome back old friend, you have been sorely missed.

With staggering numbers, over a hundred thousand volumes in four thousand boxes to be reintegrated into a collection of a nearly a half million, it is difficult to truly explain the move project currently underway at the Ingalls Library. It’s like we built an addition onto our house, and we are rearranging the furniture to fit while unpacking old furniture from the basement, except the furniture is made of books, and everything is numbered, and has to be arranged very specifically. If that doesn’t make sense, perhaps this video will provide insight.

The Ingalls Library collection includes approximately 1,200 currently received periodical  titles. That is quite simply, an overwhelming number. This ongoing series features articles that discuss objects included in the museum’s collection of more than 46,000 objects,  as well as articles written by museum staff members.   Additionally, articles about the museum,  its history and activities are noted.

The autumn issue of Tribal Art features an article by Curator of African Arts Constantine Petridis on René and Odette Delenne and the acquisition of their collection of Congolese scultpural objects by the Cleveland Museum of Art. The portrait of the couple is a joy to read for insight into the spirit of collecting.  The article closes with a promise of a future exhibition featuring the collection, titled Fragments of the Invisible in 2013. Until then, nine of the thirty-five objects from the collection see publication here.

The most recent issue of Zeitschrift fur Kunstgeschichte contains an image of the museum’s fourteenth century Mirror Case with a Couple Playing Chess. Visitors will immediately recognizes this delicate scene carved in ivory, installed in the Early Christian and Byzantine Art galleries. Here it serves as an example of the more domestic scenes portrayed on these objects.

Painter George Condo discusses his work in the October issue of Apollo. The Portrait of the Jester Calabazas by Velázquez appears alongside the artist’s work entitled The Jester, which it inspired. Condo relates his experience with the work from the exhibition Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2003. Of our piece Condo says, ” That painting is unbelievable — the way he is standing in space.” The resulting comparison between conteporary artist and old master is jarring, but not so much as that of Goya’s La Maya Desnuda with the contemporary versions offered here as well.

Two museum objects grace the pages of the Art Newspaper from November 2011, volume XXI, number 229. First the Apollo Sauroktonos stands poised at the center of an article on the changing landscape of antiquities collecting. The Cleveland Museum of Art is cited as leading the way in a new spirit of international cooperation. Both Director David Franklin and Curator of Greek and Roman Art Michael Bennett are quoted, the latter regarding the scultpture, “The object has only been preserved, cared for, published, exhibited, and made acessable, because [the museum] owns it.” The frank discussion of of the field of antiquities that follows is a fascinating read. Pages later in the same issue of the Art Newspaper, the Arm Reliquary of the Apostles reaches out from the corner of a review of several volumes which concern relics and faith. The past exhibition Tresures of Heaven is cited in the first paragraph of the review as well.

For a preview of the forthcoming special exhibition Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties, look for the November issue of American Art Review. This beautiful exhibition features several paintings from the museum including Charles Sheeler’s Church Street El. In the same issue, you will find an article on the Crystal Bridges Museum. The first president of these United States as portrayed by Charles Wilson Peale in George Washington at the Battle of Princeton leans against his cannon in an installation photo. The work is identical to the painting in the museum’s collection.

Take a moment to view these flagged publications in the recent acquisitions area of the library.

With pumpkins on every doorstep and leaves turning on the trees we look to set the mood for All Hallow’s Eve. Amidst our recent acquisitions you will find our Halloween Horrors book display lurking. This frightful selection features a formidable cast of devils, monsters, grotesques, ghosts and witches, all ready to jump from the pages. Compiled by Cataloging Assistant  Stacie Murry, these books include artwork spanning ages from medieval to modern and genres from illuminated manuscripts to painting and sculpture. We invite you to enjoy some devilish good fun with our Halloween Horrors.

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Welcome to the October issue of the Ingalls Library Digest, the newsletter about the Ingalls Library. The Digest was created to keep you informed of new resources and information regarding the Library.

ArtStor Changes – In a surprising move, ArtStor has instituted password protection for the downloading of images. Fortunately, creating a password could not be easier. You will be able to continue browsing images in the same manner, but at the point you would like to download an image, you will be prompted to login or register. With the addition of over 3,300 images of Pre-Columbian, African, Native North American, and Oceanic objects from the Peabody Museum, as well as 7,000 images from the Soloman R. Guggenheim Foundation including major art works, exhibition installation views, and architecture, this small password step is minor, considering the ever increasing value of this resource.

Patron Re-Registration – We are happy to announce our fall re-registration drive. All patrons, including staff, must fill out a new patron registration form, and have their record updated. These changes will allow us to serve you better. In addition, we will be asking all patrons and staff to sit for a photograph. All photographs will be kept private and viewable only to library staff while your patron record is open. Visual evidence of your identity when checking out materials is a necessity in securing our collection. Equally important is the fact that we can simply serve you better by putting faces with names. Smile for the camera, please.

SFX Button – You might have seen a circular red logo on an item record in the library catalog and wondered what it means. This is the SFX logo. SFX is what is called a link-resolver, and the acronym originally stood for Special Effects. Look at the SFX button in action on the holdings page for African Arts. Where it is utilized, the SFX icon points you to the full text provider of that volume of that journal. Click it and the popup window provides the full text details. Implementation of the SFX button is ongoing.

Bibliography of Asian Studies Upgraded – We are pleased to announce that a new version of the Bibliography of Asian Studies will soon be launched, along with an upgrade having close to 800,000 entries. This new version offers a state-of-the-art discovery system with simplified searching and facet-based browsing. Refinements based upon such categories as Author, Subject, Country/Region, Journal, Publication date, or Type of publication are provided through facets, and can be easily combined; the number of entries in each category is provided. A new category, Language, has been added. In addition, all records have been converted to standard Unicode, which means that the diacritic-rich entries of the BAS are now accessible to any modern browser without any need for special settings on the part of the user; these can be easily copied, pasted and printed in standard programs and are compatible with all generally available Unicode fonts. Export to bibliographic management programs has also been improved and is provided through the RIS format.

Art Crime – We have added The Journal of Art Crime to the print collection. Published by ARCA, it is the first peer-reviewed academic journal in the study of art crime.  This biannual publication welcomes interdisciplinary articles from both academics and professionals, related to art crime, its history, and its repercussions.  Relevant fields include criminology, law, art history, history, sociology, policing, security, archaeology, and conservation. Each issue includes: academic articles, academic essays, book and exhibition reviews, conference write-ups, capsule summaries of major recent art crimes, and editorial columns.

Additions and Subtractions – Our astute colleague June DePhillips recently noticed that the popular Artist Signatures database had stopped working. Naturally we investigated. The company that produced this database discontinued it without notice. Therefore, we revert to our already generous print holdings in this field, and await future online signature resources. In better news, we have added the Encyclopædia Iranica to our electronic resources. This encyclopædia is a comprehensive research tool dedicated to the study of Iranian civilization in the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. The academic reference work will eventually cover all aspects of Iranian history and culture as well as all Iranian languages and literatures, facilitating the whole range of Iranian studies research from archeology to political sciences.

The Ingalls Library collection includes approximately 1,200 currently received periodical  titles. That is quite simply, an overwhelming number. This ongoing series features articles that discuss objects included in the museum’s collection of more than 46,000 objects,  as well as articles written by museum staff members.   Additionally, articles about the museum,  its history and activities are noted.

Curator of African Arts Constantine Petridis writes about the Art of Daily Life in the summer issue of Tribal Art. The article which reviews themes from the exhibition and includes seven images of Cleveland Museum of Art objects in addition to several loaned objects, follows his publication earlier in spring in African Arts. The opposing page of the article features the recently acquired Apron (2010.206) of the Southern Nguni People, with its glass beads stark against a black page.

In the Magazine Antiques, the Marquise d’Aguirandes (1942.638) stares out confidently from the page.  The article is a review of the exhibition, Paris: Life and Luxury at the Getty through August, and from September through the end of the year in Houston at the Museum of Fine Arts. Even before the inclusion in the exhibition, which focuses on fine and decorative art in eighteenth century France, curators here recognized that while the Marquise is beautiful, if not slightly idealized in the painting, her gown is the real subject of the painting. François-Hubert Drouais portrays the robe à la française in remarkable detail. As the label read, “the focus of the painting is less on the Marquis and more on her elegant gown, which is a particularly fine rendering of eighteenth-century printed cloth, with the brilliant gold and white fabric strewn with meticulously detailed flowers and lace.”

The cover of the August issue of American Art Review features the museum’s Edward Hopper Lighthouse Village (806.1930), a bright beacon amidst stark images of the coastline, from the Bowdoin College Museum of Art exhibition, Edward Hopper’s Maine. The work, a watercolour with guache over graphite, provides thorough punctuation on both the article and the artist’s time in Maine, which ended in 1929, when he captured the lighthouse at Cape Elizabeth. For fans of Hopper, it is a rare chance to see this work on paper.

The cover story in the July/August issue of Minerva is a review of Treasures of Heaven, now at the British Museum. The glowing review includes over fifteen images from the exhibition, with our Arm Reliquary of the Apostles (1930.739) holding down the corner of page thirty-eight.

If you’ve noticed the absence of A Eunuch’s Dream by Jean Jules Antoine Lecomte du Nouÿ, you will find it in the July/August issue of the Magazine Antiques. The painting is a part of the Orientalism in Europe: from Delacroix to Matisse on view in Marseille at the Centre de la Vieille Charité.

Hello and welcome to the Ingalls Library Digest, your source for all things Ingalls and Library in compact form. This is a cross posting of the monthly email newsletter created by curatorial request, read on dear colleagues.

Move Updates – The move continues this week. We have dismantled the Shared Library Space reference collection. We look forward to packing your library materials into TYGA boxes during the week of August 22^nd, and welcoming you back home in September.

New Source for Dissertations – Our astute colleague Jon Seydl recently pointed out a fantastic resource for French dissertations, theses.fr. This website indexes nearly 6000 theses defended since 2006, with some access to texts and English summary. While the subjects are not strictly limited to the humanities, the access is free. We have added the source to the library’s electronic resources. If you see something you think your colleagues would appreciate, feel free to make a suggestion.

Post-It Notes – Hanging in the library lounge as a gentle reminder to take care of our books you will find the Seven Deadly Sins of Book Care. As the circulation staff thumbs through your borrowed books for the yearly inventory, we often find sin upon sin. One of the most egregious offenses is the use of Post-It notes in our materials. Though certainly convenient, sticky notes damage our books permanently. We gladly provide colorful flags at the circulation desk to replace contraband Post-It notes.

Updates to JStor : It seems every month, there is news out of JStor. Indeed, this month I report the following new titles:  Journal of Museum Education, Watson’s Art Journal, the American Magazine of Art, Art Amateur, and Chungara: Revista de Antropología Chilena, among others.

Subject Guides – With the large number of electronic and print resources available at the Ingalls Library, we wanted to provide a starting point for research.  The solution we are developing is for subject guides to assist researching in the collection. The result will be a tool that is useful to you, but also to your interns, as well as students, professors, docents, and the general public. We welcome and plan to seek your input on resources as the project continues. Look for the subject guides to appear under the other resources menu on the library website in the very near future.

With a stern portrait of Moses Cleveland gazing out from the cover, This Cleveland of Ours is imposing indeed. You Gotta be Tough, as the saying goes. But no he’s not frowning, he’s just busy founding the sixth largest city in the country. Published in 1933 amidst this city’s zenith, this two volume set details the history of Cleveland from the Western Reserve and the Connecticut Land Company to Moses Cleveland and onward. Besides the handsome leather binding, embossed with the portrait of the city’s founder and namesake, it is illustrated with photos and etchings to quell all doubters of Cleveland’s once great civic history. Though not directly a title about art, it contains details on the founding of the museum and numerous benefactors. To be sure, this volume entered the library as a gift from Severance A. Millikin, and as the first published work to address the history of the city, it was certainly appreciated.  As authors Wilfred Henry and Miriam Russell Alburn posit in the foreword, “here is a great and unique city.” Hear hear!

Like anyone I noted the death of Lucian Freud today, reading with great interest his obituary in the New York Times. Consider me among the few who had no idea he was Sigmund Freud’s grandson. It could have been a coincidence, but nonetheless. Within hours an appreciation by Michael Kimmelman appeared as well, noting the steadfast nature of the artist’s career as well as his privacy. But something bothered me in the back of my mind. Naturally I checked the museum’s object database for the artist’s work. We hold several pieces, a drawing, two etchings, and a painting. The painting is titled  Portrait of Ib, and this is where my memory jogged. The slideshow of the artist’s work attached to the obituary includes our painting, though it is not credited to the institution, but rather to an image aggregator, the Bridgeman Art Library. At the website for the aggregator,  the image is credited to a private collection. A case of bad metadata clearly. Freud created numerous paintings of Ib, but our Portrait of Ib is their The Artist’s Daughter. To be sure, I spent several minutes studying the two images. The color is lighter in one of the photographs, but the brushwork is identical, noted in our label copy as being made with a, “stiff, hogshair brush.” The obituary quoted the artist saying, “the paint is the person.” The museum’s work is a fine example of this sentiment.