The Fishbein Connection

It is so rewarding when someone sees my work and shares a connection that I have overlooked. This past weekend a gentleman was studying the older collage work in my back gallery and came to me with a question about my diptych titled A Sad Infatuation.

He wanted to know if there was some significance to the name Morris Fishbein which appears attributing a reviewer's comment on the jacket flap of Physical Attraction and Your Hormones. I replied that I did not know anything about Fishbein, who also wrote the books forward, but would now have to look him up. And this is what I found. Adds a little bit of relevance to the overall theme I must admit!

And there is another bit of trivia: The author of the book, Nina Katherine Lunn, was the daughter of Wallace H. White, Jr. White was a U.S. Senator from the state of Maine. Lunn reportedly "became a Washington (and later Hollywood) society figure, especially after writing a book entitled Physical Attraction and Your Hormones (Doubleday, 1950), and working on another, apparently unfinished, entitled Venus was an Amateur. She divorced her first husband, a Pittsburgh broker, in 1942 for having squandered her assets."

Eric Ravilious

I was surfing on my favorite used book site and I came across a jacket illustrated by Eric Ravilious that looked very familiar! It served to remind me of the book scanned above which has been sitting on my shelf in the front hallway for a few years just waiting for me to make this morning's connection. I have additional volumes and even though the set is incomplete I am happy to have paid .25 for each at a church used book sale.

Here's a nice Flickr Set where I found the image displayed below. Check out this Google image search to enjoy more art by Eric Ravilious. I particularly like his designs as applied to mugs and plates.

Volapuk Follow-up

Back when I was working on my second Divorce Diptych I learned about the universal language called Volapuk. The Public Domain Review just did an outstanding article about it.

Book Cover Pinwheel Design

When I saw this beautifully worn-out book cover from 1932, I knew right away that it would make something interesting. The volume had been withdrawn from a lending library where the dust jacket had long ago been trimmed and glued to the cover of the book.

Brian Dettmer's Book Art

Brian Dettmer is known as "the Book Surgeon" for his technique of carving up old volumes to create beautiful sculptural art. Taking collage to the next level, he neither adds nor rearranges, only removes using scissors and surgical tools transforming dictionaries, old medical textbooks, and out-of-date encyclopedias into mind-boggling dioramas.

My Modern Met features fifteen illustrations of Dettmer's bibliotransformations as well as an exclusive interview with seven more photos. Visit the website of Brian Dettmer to view additional work dating from 2005 to 2010. Recent press includes an article on The New Yorker's "Book Bench" titled Postmodern Deconstruction. A solo show is scheduled for May 19, 2011 – June 11, 2011 at Kinz + Tillou in New York City.

Collage Collections on The Altered Page

Check out Collector's Edition Volume 8 over on Seth Apter's blog The Altered Page. Seth had mentioned two of my collage techniques in his Secret Sunday series a while back and this Sunday he included my statement about collecting old books. Visit his site to see what other collage artists are obsessed with!

And if old books are your interest also, you might enjoy my latest blog called Biblio - Dots.

Beautiful Book Bindings 1830-1910

I added two new reference links today. One is to a fabulous collection of book bindings--the University of Rochester's Rare Books and Special Collections online exhibit titled Beauty for Commerce: Publisher's Bindings 1830-1910. I added it to my list of reference links under Bindings 1830-1910. I love the way their photographs show both the front cover and the spine together.

So much so that I gave similar treatment to an interesting dump find from my collection. Below are two pages from Samantha in Europe by Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley) and illustrated by C. DeGrimm (NY: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1896).

I've also added a second new reference link to a site called Gallery of Graphic Design. It's an amazing collection of magazine advertisements, dating 1930 -1969, conveniently sorted by advertiser (3121 of them!), illustrator, magazine, product and keyword. Check out this one by Salvador Dali illustrating for De Beers Diamonds.

Here the product is industrial chemicals but the artwork is anything but industrial. The tag line for this one is "No Sibling Rivalry" and the illustration reminds me of a Rorschach inkblot test! And here's a third one for the same company, Celanese, that's also got eye-catching artwork.

And finally, here's a very dramatic advertisment for Drano. Don't let this happen to you!

Introducing Biblio - Dots!

I started another blog today for showcasing the "old and odd" illustrated books in my collection. The first discussion is on one titled Fascination, or The Philosophy of Charming published by the phrenological Fowler brothers (Lorenzo and Orson) and Samuel Wells in 1885. I thought this would be a good choice since I am currently reading Madeleine B. Stern's Heads & Headlines; The Phrenological Fowlers.

The new blog is called Biblio - Dots. I'm still not done fussing with fonts and colors yet but it's getting there.

Centennial Exhibition Digital Collection

Season's Greetings! to everyone. (I have taken some time off from this blog due to personal reasons which will be brought to light soon in a new collage series!)

I have just added a new reference link: 1876 Centennial Exhibition . The Centennial Exhibition Digital Collection and web site were developed by the Free Library of Philadelphia with a National Leadership grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. I've just begun exploring the site which documents one of my favorite events in American History.


Images are from Phillip T. Sandhurst's beautifully illustrated book: The Great Centennial Exhibition Critically Described and Illustrated (Philadelphia: P.W. Ziegler, 1876).

Early Personality Profiling

I love the title of this one as well as the type used on the cover. Flak Magazine has an interesting write-up on William Gerhardi:

In the 1930s Gerhardie wrote a book with Prince Leopold of Loewenstein, "Meet Yourself as You Really Are," which has been described as an early example of hypertext. The catalogue of his works in the New Directions "Futility" describes "Meet Yourself ..." as "about three million detailed character studies through self-analysis"; Loewenstein would sit around talking about psychological types, while Gerhardie rendered the whole into witty, elegant English.

I've got this one on my reading pile. It's a very curious book!

Tales for Children

I also just discovered a lovely blog called Nineteenth Century Dust Jackets.

Bookplate Dot

The phrase means "inspired by the Spirit."

Flatland No. 1

Now that I have my new Nikon Coolpix camera (thanks to the miracle of credit card miles!) I've been trying it out by catching up on some collage and shop photos. Here's the first of what will be a series of four 12x12 inch collages based on crossed squares. The original spark was the discovery of a book titled Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions which you can view on the Internet Archive.

The gray background is Thai unryu tissue over #5 black "stringth" which is a popular bead stringing material. I used a couple of leftover face quarters from my Zinc Pennies project. The suggestion is that of a rolling or flipping television image. The substrate is canvas board.

The Costly Star by Margaret Slattery

I have a copy of what I have seen described as a "scarce antiquarian book" titled The Costly Star by Margaret Slattery. It was published by The Pilgrim Press of Boston in 1917 and is illustrated by Frank T. Merrill. I haven't been able to locate an original copy of this slim (32 page) volume for sale anywhere online. The listing in WorldCat shows four copies in libraries.

Other titles (some with links to the Internet Archive) by Margaret Slattery include:

• The American Girl and Her Community.
• The Charm of the Impossible.
• The Girl and Her Religion.
• The Girl in Her Teens.
• He Took It Upon Himself.
• The Highway to Leadership.
• Just Over the Hill.
• Living Teachers.
• New Paths Through Old Palestine.
• The Second Line of Defense: A Plea for the Men and Women of To-morrow.
• Talks With the Training Class.
• When You Enlist.
• You Can Learn to Teach.

The illustrator, Frank T. [Thayer] Merrill (American, 1848-1936) is listed in Mantle Fielding's Dictionary of American Painters, Sculptors and Engravers (Enlarged and Revised edition, 1974).

Merrill, Frank T. Painter. Born in Boston in 1848. He studied art at the Lowell Institute, and at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts; he also studied in France and England. His water colors are free in wash and color, and he has also been very successful with his etchings. Merrill's work has been used extensively in illustrating and may be found in Thackeray's "Mahogany Tree" and in Irving's "Rip Van Winkle."

Merrill's work is available at the Childs Gallery. A search for Frank T. Merrill on the Internet Archive yields seven results:

• Captain January by Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards (two copies)
• Colonial Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne
• A Loyal Lass: A Story of the Niagara Campaign of 1814 by Amy Ella Blanchard
• Six Boys by Elizabeth W. Champney
• The Young Moose Hunters: A Backwoods-boy's Story by C. A. Stephens
• The Interference of Patricia by Lilian Bell

Contact me if you are interested in purchasing this copy of The Costly Star. It is not an ex-library copy. There is a small portion of the front endpaper clipped off and slight damage to the spine which is shown in the photograph.

Innocuous Desuetude

I love the title of this post. It's meaning points to a state of disuse or inactivity, certainly appropriate given my recent absence here!

We had a town-wide yard sale over the holiday weekend. I didn't offer anything for sale, but did my bit by purchasing two boxes of old books from my neighbor up the street. Included were three volumes of an eleven-volume set of James D. Richardson's "A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents." Published in 1910 by the Bureau of National Literature and Art, individual volumes are available for as little as $3.45 so it is not a particularly rare find.

One of the three volumes is the index, itself a very useful 834 page dictionary of political figures and events, which includes maps illustrating the extent of the United States during the administrations of the various presidents from Washington through Roosevelt. From perusing this volume I learned the marvelous phrase made popular in a speech by President Cleveland: "innocuous desuetude."

In trying to get a better handle on the phrase, I came upon an interesting article by William Safire published in the New York Times on October 4, 1987 titled On Language; The Penumbra of Desuetude. The lovely old photograph of the Smithsonian is from volume ten, the last page of which is numbered 7809!

Actually, I really like the sound of "Penumbra of Desuetude" in the Safire subtitle. It just brought to mind a great book that I read in library school, James Lipton's An Exaltation of Larks about collective nouns. A penumbra of desuetude could also be something one might find in an Edward Gorey drawing, no?

Safe Method Dots

I love the old illustrations in this guide to business published in 1897. If I played around long enough I could get the dots to tell a little story!

Tennyson & The May Queen

Address Dot

I've had this old circa 1899 copy of Addresses by the Right Reverend Phillips Brooks, Bishop of Massachusetts for about 30 years. I've always loved the cover and it makes a wonderful dot!

Human Physiology

I love old medical text illustrations. Here are some beautiful ones from John Thornton's Human Physiology published in 1909.

The book was previously owned by Gertrude A. Barron, and one of her nursing school report cards was tucked inside.