Ingalls Library & Museum Archives

This index is the type of reference text that librarians and researchers rejoice over.  The A.C.I. was compiled and realized by Noelle Corboz and Cécile de Pebeyre under the direction of Marc Blondeau and Thierry Meaudre.  The subtitle defines it succinctly, “Catalogues Raisonnés & Critical Catalogues of Artists 1780-2008,” and further, “Painting, Sculpture, Works on Paper, Prints, Contemporary Media.”  Entries are alphabetical by artist name, with place and date for birth and death.  Bibliography proceeds chronologically from date of publication, with separation for genre.  Details of publication are included, as well as ISBN number.  A thoughtful introduction tracing the history and evolution of the catalogue raisonné written by Rainer Michael Mason is also presented.  An author index follows, linking to the corresponding artist.  Prior to the release of this volume, art reference librarians relied on the Wolfgang M. Freitag text Art Books: A Basic Bibliography of Monographs on Artists, published in 1997.  This more up to date volume will indeed be a boon to research.  The A.C.I. will be shelved behind the reference desk for ease of access.

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.

Recently added to the Ingalls Library, via the continuing generosity of John C. Bonebrake, is this volume, Buckminster Fuller to Children of Earth, by noted architect, designer, and thinker, R. Buckminster Fuller, with photographs by Cam Smith.   Written in a matter of fact tone, the book juxtaposes Fuller’s folksy truisms against black and white photography.  It is at the least an historical document of early seventies environmentalism.  And while some of the writing is far less enlightening than Fuller’s seminal works, it is hard not to take some wisdom from lines like, “Nature has no weeks.  There is no Monday, Tuesday, Friday in nature.”  PS3511.U6617 B8 1972

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.

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.

Newly acquired and residing in the contemporary galleries of the East Wing is a sculpture by artist Liza Lou.  Continuous Mile (Black) is a large coil of what appears to be rope, but when viewed closely is made entirely from black glass beads.  The hand knotted sculpture is the product of Lou’s interest in beadwork and her location; her studio is in the city of Durban, South Africa.  There she is able to draw on local Zulu men and women to assist in the creation of her intricate work.  The Ingalls Library holds several volumes on Liza Lou, as well as resources on South African and Zulu beadwork.

This recently published three volume set is, like so many previous Grove volumes, immediately essential.  The Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture fills in an unoccupied space in the reference collection, covering topics heretofore not published in a single volume or set.  Entries are concise but thorough, with up to date bibliography.  Illustrations and photographs are in black and white.  An index follows in the third volume.  One cannot overlook the most obvious, but perhaps most important aspect of this set; it is published in English.    The volumes reside in the reference collection, where they will certainly be appreciated.  N6260 .G75 2009

The work of Spanish born painter José Guerrero is presented in this catalogue raisonne in vivid detail.  Though he is known for his later abstract imagery, the first volume of this set deals with his formative years as a painter.  Covering 1931 to 1969, the text displays an artist in transition, from realistic scene and landscape painter to burgeoning abstract artist.  By the 1950s, Guerrero is in New York, and leaving the influence of Picasso behind for Kline, Rothko, and Motherwell.  His work follows in the second volume, from 1970-1991, exhibiting his trademark vibrant colors and brushwork.  Guerrero died in 1992, his work in prominent collections, including the Guggenheim and the Whitney.   The two volume set is available in the library catalog, ND813.G7685 A4 2007.  The library also holds two clipping files on the artist, and numerous texts.