Community: bloggers@brooklynmuseum

One of the great feelings I experience at the Brooklyn Museum is when I see a true connection between the Library and art collections here. This connection was felt recently at a public program showcasing the work of the widely-admired translator Zahra Partovi and the Brooklyn-based artist Kelly Driscoll. Kelly and Zahra’s work Fragments of Light II is now on view in the exhibition Light of the Sufis: The Mystical Arts of Islam and several other books published by Vincent FitzGerald & Co. are on view in the Library display cases on the second floor. The conversation included Zahra, Kelly, Ladan Akbarnia, Hagop Kevorkian Associate Curator of Islamic Art, and me, with a large audience made up of artists and artisans who have collaborated with Vincent Fitzgerald over the years. We had a lively conversation and the opportunity to view some remarkable books.

This panel discussion, held Saturday June 13, 2009 at the Brooklyn Museum, addressed the production, collection, and display of Sufi-inspired artist books. Zahra Partovi, whose artist book Fragments of Light II is featured in the special exhibition Light of the Sufis, discussed her art in conversation with collaborating book artist Kelly Driscoll, Hagop Kevorkian Associate Curator of Islamic Art Ladan Akbarnia, and Principal Librarian Deirdre Lawrence.

Vincent has been the primary leader in the overall conception, design and production of these books, pulling together incredibly talented artists and artisans to create them. The books, all inspired by the Sufi poetry of Rumi as translated by Zahra Partovi, are a jewel in the crown of our artists’ book collection and remain wonderful examples of how contemporary art can carry on the essence of traditional art.

How did these wonderful books come into the Brooklyn Museum collection?

Back in October 1998 the Brooklyn Museum held an exhibition entitled Royal Persian Paintings, The Qajar Epoch, 1785-1925 curated by Dr. Layla Diba. This exhibition was one of several that Brooklyn has featured over the years and an example of the Museum’s long standing interest in Islamic art. The Library collection is also rich in this area due to a series of grants from the Hagop Kevorkian Fund and donations such as the personal library of noted Islamic scholar Charles K. Wilkinson whose selected acquisitions are on view in the newly reinstalled Islamic Art galleries.The Library has a collection of artists’ books, ranging from multiples to limited editions to unique works, many of which relate to the cultures represented by the Museum’s object collections. Many of the books published by Vincent FitzGerald & Co. fall into this latter category as they resonate so well with the Islamic collections here.

I first met Vincent FitzGerald and Zahra Partovi in the Dieu Donne Galleries in 1999 at an exhibition entitled Dialogues in Collaboration: the publications of Vincent FitzGerald & Co. I remember being swept off my feet by the books on view and wanted to bring some of these books into the Brooklyn Museum collection.  Both Vincent and Zahra recognized the Museum’s longstanding interest in Islamic art and knew their books would fit in well with our collections.

Through the generosity of anonymous donors and guidance from Vincent we were given nine books created by Vincent FitzGerald & Co. The books demonstrate in a beautiful way that thirteenth-century Persian poetry can be made intellectually accessible to a present-day audience. Since we acquired these books we have featured them in exhibitions such as Working in Brooklyn: Artists Books in 2000 and they have been a favorite of visiting teachers, students and artists in the Library Reading Room. Both visually challenging and intellectually stimulating, these books speak to the future of the book as a vibrant tool for communication while being works of art in themselves. The Fragments of Light series is the most recent example of innovative ways Vincent and his collaborators challenge the definition of the book.

Come visit and see these great books in person!

We are very proud of the fact that Walt Whitman not only lived and worked in Brooklyn but that he had a direct connection to this institution in its early days as a library. This past Saturday we had a fabulous opportunity to celebrate Whitman and our past with representatives from the Whitman Project and Woodside Press.

The Whitman Project included Associate Artistic Director Greg Trupiano; Associate Artistic Director Lon Black; Nicole Mitchell; and Hakim Williams. Both Greg and Lon read  eloquently from Whitman’s writings about witnessing the early days of the Brooklyn Apprentice’s Library and the Brooklyn Institute. Their readings from “Brooklyniana,” Leaves of Grass, and Specimen Days beautifully captured Whitman’s fond memories of the sites and sounds of Brooklyn. They also read excerpts from books that were in the Library at the time Whitman was acting librarian in 1835, including titles such as The History of Printing in America by Isaiah Thomas, published in 1810, and An historical … view of the United States of America by William Winterbotham. Mezzo-soprano Nicole Mitchell graced us with her beautiful renditions of “Oh! Susannah” and “Ode,” set to the music of the “Star Spangled Banner.” Hakim Williams passionately recited Whitman’s words from his texts, including “Old Brooklyn Days” and “Brooklyniana” including a wonderful description of Francis Guy’s A Snow Scene in Brooklyn in the Olden Times which describes in detail the painting in the Brooklyn Museum collection. Mr. Hakim’s reading of “Early Typesetting Experience” by Whitman set the stage for the next part of the program which focused on a poem entitled “Pictures.”

Andrew Birsh and Davin Kuntze from Woodside Press, a traditional letterpress printing shop in The Brooklyn Navy Yard, premiered their new book featuring a poem by Walt Whitman. They created a small edition of Pictures: A Poem by Walt Whitman, which is available directly from the Press. When time allows and the inspiration is there, they publish and print fine-press editions that illuminate their capabilities with classic typography, letterpress presswork, and bookbinding by hand. The beautiful letterpress chapbook is set in Linotype Baskerville, hand-sewn and printed on Magnani Avorio paper and was designed and printed for Woodside Press by Davin Kuntze.  The book has a very magical quality—we were all convinced that Walt Whitman had been overseeing the production of the book, which matches the colors and ink that were used in the original 1927 edition. Mr. Kuntze had not seen the edition that is in the Brooklyn Museum Library collection and we were all amazed on Saturday when we got our book out to compare to the new Woodside Press edition. There is an uncanny likeness to the original!

We all agreed that Walt Whitman is still with us in spirit as he had been in the days when he lived in Brooklyn oh so long ago. A comforting thought in today’s world.  Here’s the program PDF if you’d like to see it.

Seeing the response to historic photographs that we have posted on Flickr Commons begs a look back on why we have these images and who created them. Being an art museum library and archives our mission is to collect and make accessible research collections that serve to document the objects held in the Brooklyn Museum’s encyclopedic collection. We also preserve the research documents created or collected by the Museum staff who have acquired objects since the founding of the Museum as a library back in 1823. What that means is that we have a rich historical legacy of text and images that allow us to look back in time and recall the period in which the objects were created–where, when, how and why.

Susan A. Hutchinson, Founding Museum Librarian, with William Henry Goodyear, Founding Curator of Fine Arts in the Library Reading Room circa 1910.

Since the images collected by William Henry Goodyear (1846-1923) are generating interest today we thought it would interesting to look back at Goodyear and several of his colleagues who built the Museum’s collections over the years. So let’s declare 2009 the year of looking back and learning from history. Hopefully this exercise will educate us all as we move forward and learn about each other and our cultural heritage. Who knows maybe we will end the year in a more peaceful way than we started.

Let me start with a quote from artist John La Farge to William Henry Goodyear: “You have opened the window that has been closed for centuries, and have let in the light”.

I believe that La Farge was referring to Goodyear’s intense interest in photography as a tool to document the world he saw. A Yale graduate and student at the Universities of Berlin and Heidelberg, Goodyear devoted himself to teaching and lecturing about the history of art and architecture. After graduating from Yale in 1867, he traveled to Germany, Italy, Palestine and Syria to pursue his interest in architecture. It was in Pisa in 1870 that he began to focus on architectural details and later published in an article entitled “A Lost Art” in Scribner’s Magazine, the first of many essays he wrote about architectural refinements. Goodyear started his museum career in 1882 as a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and in 1899 came to the Brooklyn Museum as the first curatorial appointment made by the newly founded museum. At Brooklyn, Goodyear led a series of research and collecting expeditions with a mission to build an art collection. He oversaw the growth of the American, European and ancient art collections including the casts of Ancient and Renaissance sculpture as well as designing and installing exhibitions of newly acquired art.

Hall of Sculpture with Casts, circa 1904.

In addition to his curatorial mandate, Goodyear dedicated time to developing his architectural theory that historic buildings were planned with irregularities which he referred to as refinements. This study focused on architectural monuments found around the world from the Cathedral of Pisa to the temples of Egypt with stops in Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece and Turkey. Like his colleague Stewart Culin, founding curator of Ethnology from 1903 to 1929, Goodyear seems to have been interested in everything and this is evidenced in his photographs of people and places around the world from a street vendor in Istanbul to the vivid depictions of the world fairs of Chicago and Paris. Goodyear recognized the importance of these fairs as an educational tool to introduce cultures from different parts of the world. He, like Culin, also saw objects at the fairs and recommended their acquisition for Brooklyn. These photographs by Alfred Percival Maudslay were exhibited at the Chicago Columbian Exposition and collected for Brooklyn after Goodyear and Culin saw them at the fair. Indeed, Goodyear worked obsessively using photography as a tool to educate and a method to document his findings in the field in addition to his writings.

Maudslay photographs on view in the Chicago Columbian Exposition, circa 1893.

It seems that throughout his long life he developed theories that explored new themes in the history of art starting with his “Grammar of the Lotus” documenting continuing use of the lotus form in decorative art since its use in Ancient Egypt. He also wrote several popular histories of art and was one of the first to use actual photographs, as opposed to engravings, to illustrate these texts. He took and collected photographs and used them in the form of lantern slides to illustrate his many lectures–over 130 for the Brooklyn Museum alone–ranging from the art of ancient civilizations to the art of the nineteenth century. In addition to being known as an architectural historian, Goodyear was a scholar of anthropology, archaeology and ethnology with a focus on America, Egypt, Greece and Rome. All of this is evidenced in the photographs (lantern slides, negatives and prints) and his research (published and unpublished) found in the Museum Libraries and Archives.

His photographs offer detailed images of historic structures before the devastation of world wars and rampant twentieth century architectural “redevelopment.” His documentation of many buildings has served as guideposts to reconstruction of several monuments that have been destroyed or renovated over the years. But his influence went beyond architecture since it was his vision that laid the groundwork for two major art museum collections–the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was responsible for recommending the acquisition of several important objects including the antiquities collection and library assembled by Charles Edwin Wilbour, America’s first Egyptologist. Goodyear also established the first children’s museum in America – the Brooklyn Children’s Museum. Today we all benefit from Goodyear’s scholarship and foresight as we see the world before us through his photographs and writings.

More to come about these early visionaries in Brooklyn, but today we are honoring Professor Goodyear by releasing more images from his archives of street scenes and mosques in Turkey in response to comments on Flickr Commons.

This week there is a contemporary artists’ book conference being held in collaboration with Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair. The conference is being co-organized by representatives from the Brooklyn Museum, MoMA and the New York Public Library as well as several other institutions who are involved with artists’ books. The conference features a panel session, entitled Artists’ Books from the Brooklyn Perspective, which includes Brooklyn-based artists and publishers Emily Larned of Red Charming, Dan Nadel of PictureBox, and Matvei Yankelevich of Ugly Duckling Presse.

In conjunction with this event, we have just installed several artists’ books from our collection in two display cases in and outside the Library on the second floor, so come visit the Brooklyn Museum and see these interesting books! One strength of our collection is books by Brooklyn-based artists and publishers. I’ve done some blogging on the subject in the past and this time around Lilli Schestag, our great Pratt intern, has compiled lists of Brooklyn-based book artists, galleries and presses for your reference. If you are a Brooklyn based book artist, gallery or press, let us know if you want your name added to any of these lists for future publication. Just send us an e-mail.

We would love to hear your thoughts and comments!

We have just joined The Commons on Flickr to share a selection of images with the Flickr community and to begin our partnership, it seemed appropriate that we start at the beginning! William Henry Goodyear was the Museum’s first Curator of Fine Arts. As an architectural historian (he is known for his book entitled The Grammar of the Lotus), he documented his travels. Goodyear collected lantern slides to illustrate his slide lectures which he presented here at the Museum and during his travels around the world. What you see in The Commons today are selections of images documenting Egypt as it appeared around Goodyear’s time as well as what he saw when he visited the Paris Exposition in 1900.

Left: Lantern Slide Collection: Views, Objects: Egypt. Abu Simbel [selected images]. View 05: Egypt. Abu Simbel., n.d., This slide colored by Joseph Hawkes Brooklyn Museum Archives (S10|08 Abu Simbel, image 9491).

Right: Paris Exposition: Champ de Mars and Palace of Metallurgy, Paris, France, 1900. Exposition of 1900. General view of the Chateau de Mars taken from the Chateau d’Eau. [The Champs de Mars towards the Metallurgie Palace]. Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection (S03_06_01_015 image 1945).

While the Brooklyn Museum staff is the primary user of our Libraries and Archives, we are open to the public and are always looking to reach out to a wide and varied audience. One of the challenges is ensuring everyone knows which resources we have available and listening to the needs of our visitors, so we know what to provide and how best to present these materials. One of the more interesting results of “growing” an encyclopedic collection is that we have research collections that serve as an intellectual link to the objects and perhaps act as storytellers revealing the cultural context of the objects. Think about the possible stories behind these photographs and then tag the images with the story you see. Take a look at these photographs and tell us how you would like to use them. What other materials would you like to see?

We believe that by sharing these images we will support a better understanding of the cultures that have created the great art that is held by this Museum. We hope you will agree.