Ingalls Library & Museum Archives

Our book sale group meeting ended today with a spirited discussion about green initiatives and the small monthly sale we maintain near the circulation desk. Besides books and auction catalogs, could we add book jackets and slipcase boxes? At first we were all rather negative about it, but then thought, well, if it would keep these items out of the trash, why not? Many are beautiful, too lovely to add to the nation’s huge trash problem. Some of us have used colorful book jackets as gift wrap. And, really, most every one of us library nerds has a slipcase box filled with our own personal flotsam & jetsam parked in a corner of our desk.

So let’s get creative! Email or stop by and tell us what you think people might do with these paper items that we don’t keep. Bookends with pockets? Unusual coffee tables? Papier-mâché sculpture? For a dime or a quarter, what could you create to keep us green? Ooooooh, I know – THINKING CAPS!

One of the many joys found in the new East Wing is the establishment of the Mark Schwartz and Bettina Katz Photography Galleries. For those of us keenly interested in the history of photography, as well as lovers of the contemporary photography scene, these three galleries provide a perfect venue. Currently on exhibit is France at the Dawn of Photography,” photographs taken contemporaneously with the life of Paul Gauguin, the subject of our current main exhibition. Curator Tom Hinson writes in our Members Magazine, “France at the Dawn of Photography is a snapshot record of France during the Second Empire: the grandeur of its capital city, the beauty of its natural resources, and the vitality of its population.”

Camille Dollard, "Self Portrait" 1997.56

The galleries beckon the viewer with portraits of celebrated French artists. The first image is a large daguerreotype, a self-portrait of artist Camille Dollard. He is, not surprisingly, posed with easel and brush but right next to him is a giant hookah! Oh, Orientalist man of romance and pleasure – what’s not to love? Pierre Petit’s Gustave Doré , looking sexy and cosmopolitan, leans toward the viewer with a bold stare. We see captured images of Paris before the “Haussmannization” of the city’s medieval streets in Charles Marville’s untitled cloud study. Here the distant dome of Les Invalides towers over the city, under a race of clouds that pattern light and gray. A rare snow scene in the forest by Eugène Cuvelier is a study of entwined winter branches creating an almost web-like image. And Behind the Troglodyte Barn – a title so intriguing that this viewer had to read the label before looking deep into the image (“troglodyte” is a medieval term used to describe political activists who found their way around property taxes by living in caves) is a stone arch and structure built into a rock formation. Tools litter the ground but no figures are present. Caves? I need more to this story.

Lastly, this viewer’s favorite photograph and the one that graces November’s Member’s Magazine cover: Courtyard with Painters, by an unidentified photographer. Tom Hinson describes it as, “a captured wealth of detail in an intimate slice of 19th century village life in northern France.”

And is it ever! Amid Normandy barns and coops, laundresses deal with overflowing baskets of laundry. Two artists are painting – one hugging a little girl with woman reading her letters at his side, and another working under bright umbrellas, his clay pipe clamped in his teeth. His canvas reveals a woman bent over her sewing. And to the right of our scene is the innkeeper with his fancy vest and bushy muttonchops. He looks like a character right out of Émile Zola’s Rougon-Macquart novels. He faces the photographer, seeming to say: “Soyez le bienvenue! Qu’est-ce que vous voulez a boire?”

Yellow paper, yellow-back books, yellow prints. We are experiencing a tsunami of yellow for the opening of our exhibition, Gauguin: Paris 1889. The catalogue that curator Heather Lemonedes and Conservator Moyna Stanton labored over for years is finally here in the library! Their hard work has paid off handsomely, with groundbreaking scholarship and amazing loans from illustrious collections. The exhibition is beautiful – our museum staff is so talented.

The recreation of the exhibition installed in Monsieur Volpini’s Café des Arts, held on the grounds of the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris is brilliant. Dr. Lemonedes tells us that the Volpini prints on canary yellow paper were available for sale, to be viewed upon request (none sold), but here, we have them all framed on view together. One may ask, why is this so important? For the museum visitor, it is an opportunity of a lifetime to see works of art on paper — our complete Volpini Suite (never before on public view) and compare them to other Volpini Suite prints and paintings from museum collections that live most of the time in temperature and light controlled security. Look at the hand colored version of “Dramas of the Sea” (Van Gogh Museum) — what exquisite detail! Below a calm blue sea, dangerous waves churn around a fisherman and his red boat, all constrained in its finite fan-shaped print. One has to see it in person to understand the effect Gauguin sought to convey. There is so much to discover here, so many works of art that the visitor might not see again. As our Chief Curator, Griff Mann says: “Don’t miss it — this is the only U.S. venue.”

The Ingalls Library had an opportunity to assist in procuring various works on paper in the exhibition: maps, books, and the rare poster announcing the Volpini exhibition. We found a 1901 treatise examining yellow dyes in paper pulp that was so helpful to our paper conservator. A gift book from the Butkin estate provides illustrated highlights of the 1889 Expo. And we used our antique postcards from France to add introductory images to the gallery walls. It was an opportunity to feel like an active, integral part of The Cleveland Museum of Art team.

Finally, mention should be made of the accompanying photography show in the East Building, “France at the Dawn of Photography.” Drawn mostly from The Cleveland Museum of Art’s collection of photographs, one has an opportunity to view three packed galleries with images taken during the lifetime of Paul Gauguin. And the admission is free! A follow-up post about the photography show will be forthcoming.

Some times a book is more than a book. That is the case with one of the latest acquisitions of the Ingalls Library, Papermaking at Hayle Mill 1808 – 1987. The impressive clamshell cased publication is an historical archive and treasure trove of papermaking history. Hayle Mill, near Maidstone, Kent, was the last industrial handmade-paper mill in commercial operation in Britain. The mill went through several owners until it was bought by John Green in 1817. It was operated continuously by the Green family until its closure in 1987.

Opening the clamshell case you find a hand-bound book chronicling the history of the mill. Next you see a reproduction of an 1856 map of the mills that operated in the Loose Valley in Kent. Unfolding the map you see that 12 mills operated in the two mile area between Tovil and Loose Village. Underneath the map is a folded paper portfolio containing 12 original paper samples with names such as Renaissance, Egyptian Vellum and Bodleian Light Toned. These are the papers used by some of the greatest English artists known, including John Constable and J.M.W. Turner. At the bottom one finds the paper portfolio containing a diagram of the mill and 19 reproduction photographs. Most interestingly, the author puts names to the faces in the pictures. In photo 4, the Rag House in 1921, where Mrs. Brislee and Miss Harrison sort rags. Photo 8 shows us that Arthur Whatmore, with his big bushy moustache, worked as vatman in 1933.

Hayle Mill closed in July 1987, a victim of economic recession. Ironically the last paper made by the mill was called Finale. And it is on this paper that the author chose to print the book. The Mill worked for 179 years to produce papers of the highest quality and Papermaking at Hayle Mill 1808 – 1987 is a fitting accolade to this achievement in word, photographs, paper samples, and construction.  TS1096.H38 G44 2008.

The earliest known American-made patchwork quilt is a handscreen, a type of small fire screen. That this little quilt still exists is incredible, author Lynne Zacek Bassett calls it, “merely a battered ghost.” It was stitched by Deborah Clark, wife of Parson Clark of Salem Village sometime between 1730 and 1750, in a community still wracked by sorcery. She placed at the center of her patchwork star a square of silver brocade — this tiny patch of brilliance must have held significance for our Calvinist parson’s wife, perhaps part of an inherited costume? Who cares…one might ask. That textiles were the most valued possessions women owned, either imported or created by an individual or group, is a significant part of New England’s history. Needlework schools and quilting groups produced valued wives, the proof often on display for wife-seeking husbands to admire. Recently acquired, Massachusetts Quilts: Our Common Wealth is a most unusual catalog of the history of this needlework, from the exhibition of the same name at the New England Quilt Museum. We learn more about the owners and their communities of such objects, rather than their patterns. My recent visit to the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA, revealed the power of cloth. The textiles are lovely, but the machines are genius. Recently renovated, this museum has charming period rooms and deafening mill machines. And lastly, both the book and the museum remind this reader of the complicated history between the textile industry and slavery, conjuring up ghosts that haunt us still.

The East Wing’s decorative arts gallery glitters with silver and gold, glass and porcelain. Without a doubt, the star is the vase Bertin, a magnificent Sèvres porcelain likely to have been exhibited at the 1855 Exposition Universelle (Paris).  Léopold-Jules Gély, sculptor-modeler and decorator at the Sèvres Porcelain Factory, applied pâte-sur-pâte technique, an incredibly labor intensive decoration.

Look closely — an aquatic world carved in white enameled slip is caught in fishing nets and ropes. A fierce-looking lobster and a skate hang with ropes of mussels and an array of crabs and cockle shells, all surrounded by floating ribbons of seaweed.  Oddly, there is a frog hanging by his front foot – what is the artist thinking here, putting this fresh-water fellow into the salty sea? The delicate celadon color of the vase echoes that of sea foam, a color that helped win the manufactory a gold medal at the Exposition.

Curator Stephen Harrison reminds me that the Museum also owns an 1855 Louis-Rémy Robert photograph of the companion piece to the vase, this one decorated with land creatures.  And surprise!  Published in London’s 1855 volume of Art Journal is an engraving based on that photograph.  Go team!

The latest handbook from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s family of publications is Henry Adams’ What’s American about American Art? Excellent color illustrations enhance objects and paintings. Some newly published Cleveland Museum of Art paintings include Fitz Henry Lane’s Harbor of Boston, with the City in the Distance, John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Lisa Colt Curtis, and Grant Wood’s January.

Curator Mark Cole introduces the galleries with a history of collecting American art at CMA, highlighting each museum director’s particular agenda.  He’s included some great stories in these few pages, such as the shockingly low price of Thomas Cole’s View of Schroon Mountain (I’m not telling).  Five ages of American art history are delightfully embellished by Thomas Hart Benton sketches, a poke to one’s funny bone.

Eye-popping canvases by American masters do not disappoint.  Check out Copley’s Portrait of Nathaniel Hurd — did you know that the volume of heraldry before him can be found in the library?  And imagine my surprise when the Massachusetts desk and bookcase doors open to reveal gilded inset niches — like rays of the sun.  Finally, this reader is so very pleased to see Native American art included in this welcome new handbook.

Hidden in the stacks of the Ingalls Library is a real gem, a complete run of the original exhibition catalogues of London’s Royal Academy of Arts.  Founded in 1768 under the patronage of George III to promote arts and design, the Academy produced printed salon catalogues beginning in 1769.  Our twelve volume set once belonged to Lord Joseph Duveen, art dealer to American industrialists. Open the now leather-bound pages and the names of British masters leap out — T. Gainsborough, Sir J. Reynolds,  J. Zoffany, and B. West.  This is contemporary art!  Room-by-room the art is arranged for the viewer, and followed by a list of the “exhibitors, with their places of Abode.”  The Cosways reside in chic Berkeley Square but H(enry) Fuseli is found in St. Martin’s Lane, most likely hanging out with the other artists at Old Slaughter’s Coffee House.

This year, in June 2009, the 241st Royal Academy Exhibition opened with the theme, “Making Space,” the goal to embrace as many different art forms as possible.  Check out wild Damien Hirst’s gleaming silver statue of St. Bartholomew, Cy Twombly’s epic painting of three roses, and for the first time in Academy history an entire gallery devoted to film.  It may seem a leap from 1769, but not really. N5054 .R69 1769-1900

In a tiny jewel of a publication lies a concept developed by curator Willem van Zoetendaal — “to confront period frames with modern photography.”  Frames  revisited: masterpieces of Dutch portrait photography shown in antique frames from the Frits Lugt Collection is an “Exposition-dossier VII” project undertaken by the Neerlandaise Fondation in collaboration with Fondation Custodia in Paris.  The contemporary portraits, identified from A to Z and followed by catalog entries, are captured within Frits Lugt’s wonderfully intricate antique frames.  It is a startling contrast. But the thrill for this reader is the brief history of Dutch frames and prints, “the liason between Picture and Frame.” We’ve had a lot of program discussion in the library about how prints were collected and framed, and many of my questions are answered in this delightful dossier.  My last point — go see Picasso’s Bottle, Glass and Fork in the East Wing.  Our curator William Robinson recently pointed out that a number of paintings were cleaned and reframed, including this one.  And it works beautifully.  Available at TR680 .F715 2005.

Lunch, for me, is a salad and an armful of auction catalogs. Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Bonhams and other international houses crowd the shelves of our Recent Acquisitions area – jewels in Paris, furniture in Amsterdam, or Old Master paintings in London, one can hardly believe the offerings available on the market today. As we ready for the opening of our new East Wing on June 27 which will, among 21 new galleries, showcase our Impressionist collection, I’m drawn to Christie’s Impressionist/Modern Works on Paper + Day Sale catalogs, for 24 June 2009. These gorgeous catalogs offer so much more than just works of art. Here’s Rodin! Le Baiser in bronze, only 15 inches in height, shines on pages also packed with bibliography. And here are pals of Gauguin, Claude-Emile Schuffenecker and Emile Bernard, soon to be highlighted in our upcoming Becoming Gauguin exhibition in October. A lot entry for Paul Sérusier chronicles his adventures in Brittany with Gauguin and the incredible influence Gauguin had on his painting. I’ve barely scratched the surface – come explore the best venue in town for the exciting world of art at auction.