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53.
Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472).
De re aedificatoria. Florence: Nicolaus Laurentii, [1485] Avery Library, Classics Collection
Although Vitruvius's is the oldest architectural treatise to survive in the
West, the first to have been printed from movable type was Alberti's De re
aedificatoria. Indeed, Alberti's was the first architectural treatise to be
written in the West since Vitruvius and consciously recalled the ancient work,
being likewise divided into ten books. Alberti wrote his text for patrons as
well as architects, in elegant Latin, a deliberate effort to bring status to
architecture and the architectural profession. He presented his treatise in
manuscript to Pope Nicholas V in 1450. The text was posthumously printed at
Florence in 1485, with a preface by the scholar-poet Angelo Poliziano, addressed
to Lorenzo de' Medici. Lorenzo already owned a manuscript of De re
aedificatoria, and he may indeed have lent it to the printer for the setting
of type.
Avery acquired the editio princeps within a year of its founding,
from the New York City bookseller Stechert. The copy has been dutifully
annotated by a non-Italian student of the first half of the sixteenth-century;
that is, up until leaf 23 of 204, where he appears to have stopped reading.
Alberti's treatise included no illustrations, but for the first book on
Lineaments, the reader has added diagrams that reflect the author's discussion
of angles, arcs, and circles. The volume was rebound in the late nineteenth
century and bears the gilt arms of the Bibliothèque de Mello on its front and
back covers.
Purchase, 1891
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54.
Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (b. ca. 80/70 BCE).
De architectvra. [Rome?: s.n., 1486 or 1487] Avery Library, Classics Collection
Avery Library, a memorial to Henry Ogden Avery, a New York architect who
died tragically young, was expressly established to make expensive treatises and
plate books accessible to architects and students. It was only quite natural,
then, that the first printed edition of Vitruvius's De architectura
should enter Avery's collections early on. Eight years after the library's
founding, in March 1898, Henry's father, Samuel Putnam Avery-a superlative book
collector as well as one of America's first great art dealers-presented a copy
of the editio princeps to Columbia University.
Most of the little that is known of Vitruvius's life has been gleaned from
his ten books on architecture, probably written around 30-20 BCE. He was a
freeborn Roman citizen with a liberal arts education as well as architectural
training. His text, the only architectural treatise to survive from Western
antiquity, remains the most important document for understanding the built
environment of the ancient Roman and Greek worlds. Although no papyrus scrolls
of De architectura are extant, medieval manuscripts are preserved.
Probably at least two fifteenth-century manuscripts were used by Giovanni
Sulpicio, a Roman humanist, to produce this first edition from movable type,
which, like the manuscripts, includes little illustrative matter (actually just
one woodcut diagram). The book is presumed to have been printed at Rome, current
scholarship favoring Eucharius Silber over Georg Herolt as printer.
The Avery copy is the second of two variant printings and is bound (as is
often the case) with the first printing of an ancient work on Rome's waterworks,
Frontinus's De aquæductibus (Rome?: s.n., 1486 or 1487), in early
nineteenth-century diced russia leather, decorated in gold and blind. The
annotations of a late fifteenth-century reader appear in its margins. The inside
front cover bears S. P. Avery's bookplate with a quote from John Lyly's
Euphues: Anatomy of Wit (1579): "far more seemely were it for thee to
have thy Study full of Bookes than thy purses full of mony." Avery Library today
includes well over a hundred different editions of Vitruvius among its 380,000
some volumes.
Gift of Samuel Putnam Avery, 1898
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55.
Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528).
Underweysung der Messung. Nuremberg: Hieronymus Andreae, 1525. RBML, Book Arts Collection
Best known of the books on the geometry of letterforms is Dürer's
Unterweysung der Messung (A Course on the Art of Measurement). The text
is printed in a form of blackletter known as Fraktur. The book presents the
principles of perspective developed in Renaissance Italy, applying them to
architecture, painting, and lettering. Dürer's designs of roman capital letters
demonstrate how they can be created using a compass and straightedge.
Purchased with the American Type Founders Company Library & Museum, 1941
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56.
Antoine Lafréry (1512-1577).
Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae. 610 prints of varying sizes mounted on sheets (76.8 x 55.2 cm). 16th-18th centuries. Avery Library, Drawings and Archives
The Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae is a collector's album of
engravings of Renaissance Rome that takes its name from a title-page designed by
Etienne Dupérac (ca. 1573-1577) and published by Antoine Lafréry. In his shop at
Rome, Lafréry offered for sale well over a hundred prints of Roman subjects,
which could be supplemented with other prints and bound up by visitors to the
Eternal City. These sixteenth-century albums were in turn acquired by later
collectors who further expanded them.
The Avery-Crawford Speculum is what may be called a "super"
Speculum, consisting of over 600 prints assembled by the 26th
Earl of Crawford (James Ludovic Lindsay, 1847-1913), most probably from two
Speculum exemplars of 168 and 433 prints each. As was the fashion with
these nineteenth-century amalgamations, the prints were removed from their old
mounts and bindings, laid down on fresh sheets, and boxed. The Avery-Crawford
Speculum is distinguished by the number of unusual suites and single
prints it contains, as well as its size. One such print is this engraving for a
monument with the dioscure designed by Giovanni Guerra.
Purchase, 1951
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57.
Sebastiano Serlio (1475-1554).
Book VI, On Domestic Architecture. Ink, wash, and pencil on paper; 73 drawings on mounts (62.3 x 47 cm.), and
63 text leaves (no larger than 38.7 x 27 cm.), ca. 1541-1551. Avery Library, Classics Collection
"Book VI is a unique treasure because in the great variety of needs it
seeks to accommodate it gives us, as no other book of its age has done, an
insight into Renaissance society and customs." So, the architectural historian
James Ackerman introduced this manuscript in its first complete printing, over
four hundred years after its creation (Myra Nan Rosenfeld, Sebastiano Serlio
on Domestic Architecture . . . The Sixteenth-Century Manuscript of Book VI
in the Avery Library of Columbia University, 1978).
The Italian architect Sebastiano Serlio planned to issue seven books on
architecture, among the first illustrated manuals of their kind to be printed in
Europe. For reasons not fully known, one of these failed to find a publisher,
Book VI, On Domestic Architecture. The Avery manuscript of Book VI is one
of two extant in Serlio's hand. It passed through various private owners–some
debated and some clearly known (the Bird family of Cheshire, England, in the
eighteenth century, and Dr. David Laing of Edinburgh in the nineteenth)–before
arriving at Avery, on deposit, in 1920.
Serlio probably began work on the book, a series of designs for houses both
modest and regal, after arriving at the court of François I at Fontainebleau.
Although the volume was not published as intended, its ground plans, elevations,
and cross sections appear to have been known and influential. Drawings that have
fascinated historians include ones for the château at Ancy-le-Franc, which
established Serlio definitively as its architect; Serlio's proposed plan and
elevations for the Louvre, the earliest grand designs for the Parisian royal
palace; and one of the first Renaissance designs for a domed secular building
(here illustrated), noted for its similarity to Palladio's Villa Rotonda.
Purchase, 1924
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58.
John Shute (d. 1563).
The First and Chief Grovndes of Architectvre vsed in all the auncient and
famous monymentes: with a farther & more ample discouse vppon the same,
than hitherto hath been set out by any other. Pvblished by Ihon Shute, Paynter
and Archytecte. London: Thomas Marshe, 1563. Avery Library, Classics Collection
The First and Chief Grovndes of Architectvre is the first book in English
on architecture and of excessive rarity, even in an imperfect copy such as Avery
Library's, one of only two copies held outside the British Isles. Shute was a
painter-stainer and does not seem to have worked as an architect, although he
identifies himself as such. He had visited Rome and includes his own accounts of
ancient buildings there, although his text in the main is indebted to Vitruvius,
Philandrier, and Serlio, being largely a manual on the five orders.
The book's four engraved plates are less accomplished than contemporaneous
Continental work. The larger woodcut illustration of the Composite order has,
perhaps, greater charm and is the one original plate surviving in the Avery
copy. Shute's book was influential in establishing English architectural
terminology. One of the earliest English textbooks, it appears to have been
popular, going through three further editions in the sixteenth century. These
editions are even scarcer than the first, with no copies traced for two of them.
According to library lore, the first edition was serendipitously acquired for
Columbia when an Avery librarian walked into a London bookshop and asked if they
had any Shute.
Purchase, ca. 1947
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59.
Thomas Wright (1711-1786).
Various & Valuable Sketches and Designs of Buildings. Album of ca. 175 drawings mounted on ca. 64 full leaves and numerous
partial leaves, ink, pencil, and wash on paper, (30 x 25.5 cm.) Avery Library, Classics Collection
Thomas Wright is best known as an astronomer, but he was also active as a
landscape gardener and architect. His Universal Architecture (1755) in
two parts (Arbours and Grottos) is a beautiful printed book of true rarity. This
manuscript volume, however, is even rarer, being, of course, unique, and one of
just two surviving that document Wright's designs beyond his published work.
For thirty years, Wright was employed by the 4th Duke and
Duchess of Beaufort at Badminton, where he filled their grounds with follies,
grottoes, and garden buildings, in the rustic, gothic, and Palladian styles. He
also designed country houses, pavilions, and gatehouses for other wealthy
patrons. Some drawings in the Avery volume have been identified as specific
built projects for Badminton and elsewhere; others are still unassigned. An
identified and wholly fantastic design is this garden barge with Chinese-style
pagoda for Frederick, Prince of Wales, intended to travel the Thames.
The Avery Wright manuscript was previously owned by Sir Thomas Phillipps
(1792-1872), the greatest of all manuscript collectors (he owned over 100,000).
Its front endpaper is inscribed: "Phillipps MS / 13448* / and / 13451 / (vol
1)." Phillipps manuscripts were dispersed in a series of sales, this one at
London, in 1898.
Purchase, 1967
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60.
François de Cuvilliés (1695-1768).
A collection of engravings after the designs of François de Cuvilliés, the
elder and his son, François the younger (1731-1777). Paris and Munich, 1738 - ca. 1772. Bound for Victor Massena, Prince d'Essling (1836-1910) Avery Library, Classics Collection
This large and unique compendium of ornament and architectural design by
one of the greatest of rococo designers, Cuvilliés the elder, and his son, both
architects at the Bavarian court, has been fully analyzed by Herbert Mitchell in
The Avery Library Selected Acquisitions 1960-80: An Exhibition in Honor
of Adolf K. Placzek (1980). It comprises 337 engravings on 307 leaves
and includes the celebrated Morceaux de caprice à divers usages,
characteristically inventive and wonderfully bizarre.
The volume came to Columbia in 1962 as part of the John Jay Ide (1892-1962)
bequest, one of the most substantial gifts of books to Avery Library after the
initial donation of Henry Ogden Avery's collection. Ide was a great-great
grandson of John Jay, first Chief Justice of the United States and one of
Columbia's most famous graduates. He had a distinguished career as an
aeronautics expert but actually first studied architecture at Columbia, where,
no doubt, Avery Library inspired his love of books.
Bequest of John Jay Ide, 1962
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61.
James Adam (d. 1794).
British Order. Ink and wash on paper with red highlighting, (116 x 60 cm.), 1762. Avery Library, Drawings and Archives
The third son of Scottish architect William Adam became best known as the
partner of his brother Robert, who was one of the most important architects in
England in the second half of the eighteenth century and a leading international
figure in the neoclassical movement in Europe. Pursuant to their gaining
knowledge of the "spirit of antiquity" both brothers had undertaken extensive
stays in Rome and had been guided by the French architect Charles Louis
Clerisseau, a pensionnaire at the French Academy in Rome. It was during James's
tenure in Rome, 1760-1763, that this drawing, replete with Crown of Britain and
other symbols of the Empire, was made as part of his project for the Houses of
Parliament. Although he had little chance of winning the commission, James
dedicated the design to the Earl of Bute, a close friend of the King.
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62.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778).
Elevazione ortografica della Tribuna, e del Presbiterio della Basilica Lateranense. From Varj Disegni fatti d'ordine della Santità di Nostro Signore PAPA
CLEMENTE XIII nell'anno 1764 . . . pe'l compimento della nuova Basilica
Lateranense: presentati nell'anno 1767 . . . . Pen and brown ink, with gray and brown washes on paper, (89.7 x 57.2 cm.), n.d. Avery Library, Classics Collection
This artfully embellished section is one of twenty-three drawings at Avery
that present Piranesi's ideas for the redesign of San Giovanni in Laterano at
Rome. Widely acclaimed for their beauty and historical importance, they are
justly regarded as the crowning glory of Avery Library's considerable Piranesi
holdings.
Avery began collecting the work of the great Venetian-born printmaker
Piranesi soon after its founding, acquiring an almost complete set of the Rome
printing of his Opere in 1892. Through the years, other notable materials
were added: a first state of the Antichità Romane (1756); a rare copy of
the Lettere di Giustificazione (1767); the Prima parte di
architetture (1743), Piranesi's first printed work; and a manuscript account
book recording construction costs for Piranesi's redesign of the church of Santa
Maria del Priorato in Rome (1764-1767).
In 1970, through the generosity of Dr. and Mrs. Arthur M. Sackler, Avery
acquired a collection of most of Piranesi's major works in their early states up
to 1764. And in 1971, once again through the Sacklers' beneficence, Avery
acquired twenty-three of the twenty-five known large drawings for the redesign
of the Lateran Basilica, given in memory of Rudolf Wittkower, chairman of
Columbia's Art History and Archaeology Department from 1956 to 1969.
Jointly executed by Piranesi and his assistants, these drawings propose
various architectural solutions for rites in the church space, sympathetic with
the prior remodeling by Francesco Borromini (1599-1667). They were commissioned
by Pope Clement XIII and presented to his nephew Cardinal G. B. Rezzonico;
however, none of the six schemes was ever realized. They remain a magnificent
record of Piranesi's second and final attempt to work as an architect.
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Arthur M. Sackler in Memory of Rudolf Wittkower, 1971
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63.
Abraham Swan (ca. 1720-ca. 1765).
A Collection of Designs in Architecture, Containing New Plans and
Elevations of Houses, for General Use. Philadelphia: R. Bell Bookseller, 1775. Avery Library, Classics Collection
Swan's Collection of Designs is the second architectural book to be
printed in the Colonies, and by far the rarest of the handful printed before
1800 in what came to be the United States of America. It appears that only two
other copies exist, at the New York Public Library and Winterthur in Delaware.
The printer Robert Bell and engraver John Norman had announced their
intention to publish A Collection of Designs, in twelve monthly numbers,
in their publication of Swan's British Architect (1775), the first book
on architecture printed in the Colonies. Perhaps because of the political
situation, only this, the first number, ever appeared. The book was dedicated to
John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress. Its dedication leaf
features an emblem engraved by Norman, symbolizing the unity of the thirteen colonies.
The Avery copy was purchased by Richard Smith (1735-1803), a delegate to
the Continental Congress, while on recess in Philadelphia. His inscription on
the title-page, "Richd. Smith Novr. 15. 1775," gives a terminus ante quem
for publication; the fascicule with its ten leaves of plates may have been
available some months earlier. In the twentieth century, the book was owned by a
Pennsylvania senator's nephew and namesake, Boies Penrose II (1902-1976), who
affixed his ex-libris to the title-page's verso.
Purchase, 1990
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64.
Minard Lafever (1797-1854).
Drawings for unbuilt church in Brooklyn Heights. Mixed media, 1840. Avery Library, Drawings and Archives
Lafever's reputation rests on two aspects of his career. In the 1820s and
1830s, the architect published several works that promoted the Greek Revival
style. His Modern Builder's Guide, first printed in 1833, had seven
editions by 1855, its popularity due to its designs for townhouse, then gaining
fashion in New York. Lafever was also known for his Gothic Revival churches,
mostly executed in Brooklyn. Upjohn's Trinity Church, begun in 1839, had sparked
this interest in Gothic Revival churches. These drawings are designs for an
unbuilt church on Henry and Montague, which may be an early version of Holy
Trinity on Montague Street. It was perhaps too expensive for the funds raised by
subscription. This drawing is bound in a book of specifications for the church
along with other drawings and a print of Holy Trinity as built.
Purchased through the New York Chapter American Institute of Architects
Heritage Ball fund, 1989
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65.
David Octavius Hill (1802-1870).
A Series of Calotype Views of St. Andrews. Edinburgh: D. O. Hill and R. Adamson, 1846. Avery Library, Classics Collection
This volume of twenty-two mounted calotypes is the third book of
photographic illustrations to be published and the first such to be devoted to
the monuments and scenery of just one city, St. Andrews, Scotland. David
Octavius Hill was a painter and illustrator and learned the art of calotype
photography from Robert Adamson (1821-1848), with whom he first teamed in 1843,
to tackle a daunting group portrait project. Adamson had been trained by his
brother, John, who had learned the process from Sir David Brewster, a friend of
William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), the inventor of negative-to-positive paper photography.
The Views of St. Andrews has a printed title-page but no table of
contents. There are fewer than ten copies recorded, and each differs in
assortment and number of images. The calotypes in the Avery copy have faded, as
is usual. Alas, the ephemeral medium eerily seems to suit the medieval ruins,
nineteenth-century fisher folk, and top-hatted gentlemen depicted. Too fragile
for exhibition, the book is preserved and made available through study prints.
Avery acquired this volume early on from a London bookseller. For years it
sat on the open shelves, classed with other books on Scotland's cities, more a
novelty, perhaps, than a "treasure." Today, as photomechanical processes in book
illustration give way to digital ones, the significance of this volume is obvious.
Purchase, 1896
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66.
Dickinson's Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851. From
the Originals Painted for H. R. M. Prince Albert, by Messrs. Nash, Haghe, and Roberts. London: Dickinson Brothers, 1854. 2 volumes. Avery Library, Classics Collection
This deluxe edition was created to commemorate the 1851 exhibition in the
Crystal Palace. Great Britain's Prince Albert had proposed a trade exhibition
like no other before it, truly international, with the work of nearly 14,000
exhibitors from twenty-six nations on view. To house such an event, Joseph
Paxton (1803-1865) designed a new type of building, using the latest in
cast-iron and glass technology. Sited in London's Hyde Park, the landmark
structure, 1848 feet long by 408 feet wide, was visited by more than six million
people in the exhibition's five months. Public feeling for the temporary
building was so strong that it was re-erected in South London, in enlarged form,
the year that these volumes appeared. Fire destroyed the Crystal Palace in 1936.
Dickinson's Comprehensive Pictures document the pomp and ritual in this
resplendent space, and the exhibits' from European bourgeois furnishings and
modern machinery to an Arab tent from Tunis, draped with leopard and lion skins.
Avery's set of these spectacular large-format color plate books from the genre's
heyday in the nineteenth century is a unique one. The fifty-five
chromolithographs, with some details colored by hand, are in proof impressions,
many signed in pencil by the artists.
Purchase, 1963
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67.
Stanford White (1853-1906).
Album of family letters with sketches. Mixed media, 1873-1878. Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, Stanford White Collection
Throughout his life White was a prolific letter writer, both professionally
and personally. This album, one of four in the Avery collection, contains
letters to his mother and father during his employment with Henry Hobson
Richardson in Boston. The letters reveal his enormous energy, keen observation,
and personal magnetism, as well as his strong affection for his parents. White
often included sketches of scenes he described. At this early stage in his
career, he had only recently given up his wish to become an artist, instead
focusing his artistic talents on a career in architecture. Unlike the clarity of
his artistic vision, White's handwriting was nearly illegible; fortunately his
son, the architect Lawrence Grant White, transcribed the letters when he
compiled these albums of letters and drawings.
The White family has also given more than 500 drawings for the White houses
in St. James, Long Island, and on Gramercy Park in Manhattan and a variety of
other projects. They have given letterpress books with outgoing correspondence
and incoming correspondence for White's professional activities from 1887 to
1907, as well as a death mask and plaster cast of the architect's hand.
Purchase and gift of the White family, 1999
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68a.
Louis H. Sullivan (1856-1924).
Drawing for Doorknob, Guaranty Building, Buffalo, New York. Pencil on paper (33 x 19.9 cm.), 1895. Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, Louis Sullivan Collection
68b.
Yale & Towne.
Doorknob, Guaranty Building. Cast iron (35.5 x 11 cm.), 1895. Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, Louis Sullivan Collection
Considered one of Sullivan's most famous buildings, the Guaranty Building
retains many of its original decorative elements designed by the architect. The
drawing shows the general outline of the doorknob that was used throughout the
building. Yale & Towne, a manufacturer of cast-iron architectural
elements, produced the doorknob.
The drawing was part of a group that Sullivan gave to Frank Lloyd Wright,
who had worked for him as a young architect. The drawings were purchased for
Avery after Wright's death by Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., whose family had commissioned
Wright's Fallingwater. The doorknob was an extra found at the building and
donated to the library.
(Drawing) Purchased with the assistance of the Edgar J. Kaufmann Charitable
Foundation, 1965; (Doorknob) Gift of Mrs. Suzanne Frank, 1967
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69.
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959).
Drawing of dining room, Dana House, Springfield, Illinois. Watercolor on paper, (62 x 50.5 cm.), 1902-1904. Avery Library, Drawings and Archives
Susan Lawrence Dana commissioned this house from Wright in 1902-1904, which
is now a state landmark. The cut-away view of the dining room, complete with
furniture, hanging lamps, sculpture, and wallpaper, makes the room look much
larger than its true size. This drawing appears in an early photograph of
Wright's Oak Park office and was purchased from the architect's son, John Lloyd
Wright. John Wright's notes indicate that his father was the draughtsman,
although others have claimed authorship for George Niedecken, an interior
decorator who collaborated with Wright.
Purchased from John Lloyd Wright, 1969
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70.
Greene & Greene.
Detail drawing of decorative window, Earle C. Anthony House, Los Angeles, California. Pencil on paper (69.9 x 59.7 cm.), 1913. Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, Greene & Greene Collection
Born in Ohio and educated at MIT, the Greene brothers designed several of
the most distinguished Arts and Crafts houses in the United States, mostly in
Pasadena and other towns in southern California. Combining Japanese-inspired
wood construction and individually designed and handcrafted furniture and
objects for houses that opened into the beautiful California climate, Greene and
Greene defined the California bungalow in the early twentieth century. This
stained-glass window was designed for the house of the Los Angeles businessman
Earle C. Anthony, for whom the brothers had also designed a showroom for his
Packard dealership. The mixture of Japanese-inspired line with California
flora–here the live oak–was typical of the their design sensibility.
The Greene and Greene papers are spread among three repositories: the
Gamble House, the Environmental Design Archives at UC Berkeley, and the Avery
Library. Under the aegis of the Gamble House, now a house museum belonging to
the University of Southern California, the three repositories cooperated on a
"virtual archive" of the three collections.
Gift of Jean Murray Bangs, 1960
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71a.
Rafael Guastavino (1842-1908).
Drawing for Dater House, Montecito, California. Pencil and colored pencil on tracing paper, (24.1 x 18.7 cm.), 1917. Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, The Guastavino Fireproof
Construction Company/ George Collins Architectural Records & Drawings
71b.
Rafael Guastavino (1842-1908).
Tile made for Dater House. Polychromed terra cotta, (14.6 x 14.6 x 2 cm.) 1917. Avery Library, Drawings and Archives, The Guastavino Fireproof
Construction Company/ George Collins Architectural Records & Drawings
Rafael Guastavino was a Spanish émigré architect who brought to the United
States a centuries-old vernacular method of building fireproof vaults and domes
and adapted it to the steel-frame construction prevalent in this country.
Although Guastavino practiced as an architect in Barcelona and in New York on
his arrival, his career took an unexpected turn through his connection with
Charles McKim and his work at the Boston Public Library in the late 1880s. It
was at this building that Guastavino began to function primarily as a contractor
building vaults and domes. His company, the Guastavino Fireproof Construction
Company, under his leadership and that of his son, Rafael, Jr., was extremely
prolific. By the time the firm closed its door in 1962, they had built vaults,
domes, and other architectural elements in approximately 1,000 buildings in the
United States. Their best known works include the Oyster Bar in Grand Central
Terminal and the dome at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.
The Guastavinos worked frequently with Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue, the
architect of notable Gothic churches and the Nebraska State Capitol. Goodhue had
an interest in Mexican architecture, which he put to use in his designs for the
Panama-Pacific exposition in San Diego in 1915. These tiles were designed for
the Dater house in Montecito, California, but were also used in San Diego and at
the Goodhue hotel in Colon, Panama. Goodhue, more than any other architect the
Guastavinos worked with, took advantage of the decorative possibilities of the
surfaces of the Guastavino vaults and domes.
The Guastavino papers were saved through the efforts of the late George R.
Collins, Professor of Art History and donated to the University in 1963.
Professor Collins served as custodian and guide to the papers until his
retirement in 1988, when the archives were transferred to the Avery Library.
Gift of the Gustavino Company, 1963
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72.
Hendrick Petrus Berlage (1856-1934).
Frank Lloyd Wright. Wendingen vol. 4, no. 11 (November 1921). Amsterdam: "De Hooge Brug," 1922. Avery Library, Classics Collection
This special number of the Dutch art magazine Wendingen testifies to
the international reverberations of American architecture in the early twentieth
century, as well as the powerful intersection of typography and book design with
criticism and the visual arts. It also serves as a fine example of Avery
Library's architectural periodicals collection, perhaps the largest in the
world.
Under the editorial and design leadership of H. Th. Wijdeveld, the
periodical entitled Wendingen–"Upheavals" or "Turnings"–was intended as a
medium for creation and not just art journalism. Individual issues were
dedicated to a single subject, with writings by noted practitioners. The
distinctive format and style of binding echoed Japanese traditions. Covers were
conceived as works of art, most being designed by "representative members" of
the society sponsoring the publication, Architectura et Amicitia.
For this issue devoted to Frank Lloyd Wright, the artist El Lissitzky
(1890-1941) was paid to provide the cover design, among his first commissions
upon leaving Russia. In the magazine's fourth year (1921), German-language and
English-language editions of issues began to appear, evidence of its appeal
beyond the Netherlands. This deluxe copy of the English edition of vol. 4, no.
11, is one of about seventy five produced with heavier paper and hard covers.
The text of the influential Dutch modern architect Berlage introduces a
selection of photographs and renderings of Wright's work, including Midway
Gardens, Taliesin, the Imperial Hotel, and the Barnsdale Theatre. A further
seven issues of Wendingen would be devoted to Wright in 1925-1926.
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73.
Florine Stettheimer (1871-1944).
Portrait of Myself, 1923. Oil on canvas, mounted on composition board, signed and dated, across top,
"Florine St." (101.6 x 66 cm.), 1923. Office of Art Properties
Florine Stettheimer was an artist, designer, and poet. Although during her
lifetime she was little known outside the circle of New York modernists of which
she and her sisters were a part, Stettheimer's achievements in painting,
costume, and set design have since been recognized as important contributions to
American art in the first half of the twentieth century. She was born in
Rochester, New York, the second youngest of five children in a well-to-do
German-Jewish family. In 1914, after studying art in both New York and Europe,
Stettheimer settled permanently in New York City with her mother and two
sisters. Together they hosted salons and intellectual gatherings for over twenty
years that included such figures as Marcel Duchamp, Carl Van Vechten, Georgia
O'Keeffe, and Alfred Stieglitz, many of whom became the subjects of
Stettheimer's portraits.
Her first and only solo exhibition during her lifetime took place in 1916.
It was a great disappointment to her, and subsequently Stettheimer showed her
work only in group exhibitions. In her vividly colored portraits of family and
friends, Stettheimer experimented with modernist styles and expressed her often
witty social commentary on contemporary culture. She created sets and costumes
for two never-produced ballets and the well-known 1934 Gertrude Stein and Virgil
Thomson opera Four Saints in Three Acts. In addition to the paintings
catalogued by Columbia's Office of Art Properties, the Rare Book and Manuscript
Library holds her journals, early paintings and drawings, scrapbooks, and
figurines, including those for Four Saints, included in the Theater
Historic & Dramatic Arts section of this exhibition. Her Portrait of
Myself shows the artist dressed in a diaphanous gown; she floats beneath the
arch of her signature, which ends in a radiant sun and dancing mayfly.
Gift of the Estate of Ettie Stettheimer, 1967
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74.
Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997).
Untitled, 1974. Lithograph and silkscreen with embossing, (103 x 81 cm., sheet; 82.6 x 60.6
cm., plate), #1/100, from the portfolio For Meyer Schapiro, twelve signed
prints by twelve artists published by The Committee to Endow a Chair in Honor of
Meyer Schapiro at Columbia. Office of Art Properties
This portfolio is a tribute to Meyer Schapiro (1904-1996), distinguished
teacher, lecturer, and scholar, whose writings have influenced generations of
scholars and critics the world over, particularly in the areas of medieval and
modern art. Affiliated with Columbia since he enrolled as a freshman in 1920 at
age sixteen, he earned three degrees at the University, including the Ph.D. in
1929, with a dissertation on the Romanesque sculpture of Moissac. Schapiro began
teaching art history at Columbia in 1928 and rose through the professorial ranks
to become full professor in 1952. He was named University Professor, Columbia's
highest rank, in 1965 and was designated University Professor Emeritus in 1973.
Known as a champion of the art of his time, Schapiro not only wrote about
contemporary art but was a friend of countless artists. As a gesture to their
friend and mentor on his seventieth birthday, twelve artists, among them Jasper
Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Motherwell, Claes Oldenburg, Saul Steinberg,
Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol, in addition to Roy Lichtenstein, created this
portfolio of original lithographs, etchings, and silk screens.
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