HAUNTING IMAGES FROM HUNGARY

In celebration of the Halloween holiday, I thought I'd share with you the following treats from the Wolfsonian-FIU library's ephemera collection: These two vintage postcards were published in Gyoma, Hungary by Isador Kner, ca. 1918. XB1992.156.2 ; XB1992.156.3

VISIT TO WOLFSONIAN LIBRARY BY ITALIAN CURATOR, SILVIA BARISIONE

This October, the Wolfsonian-FIU museum and research center hosted a visit to the institution by Silvia Barisione, an expert on twentieth-century Italian decorative arts and one of three curators at the Wolfsoniana, our sister institution in Genoa, Italy. Silvia has been working with that collection since 1991, and with her colleagues Matteo Fochessati and Gianni Franzione, has organized numerous exhibitions both in Italy and abroad, and published a number of excellent and well-received catalogs for the same. Thanks to a NEA "Access to Artistic Excellence" grant, Silvia was able to spend nearly the entire month with us working on projects centered on our extensice Italian holdings. She also came bearing gifts--something we always appreciate here--donating to the library a vintage Italian postcard published at the end of the First World War by her great grandfather.

Silvia conducted a survey of our rare Italian books and ephemera and helped us identify some particularly rare and significant items in our collection. One item in particular that caught her eye was this book published by Davide Campari and C. in 1932 with brilliancolor illustration by futurist artist Bruno Munari (1907-1998).

In the course of her research visit, Silvia also worked with Wolfsonian curator Marianne Lamonaca to explore the possibilities of organizing a joint exhibition drawn from our related--if geographically separated--collections. Their collaboration has thus far produced the germs of an exhibition with the tentative working title, Exporting Italy. This exhibition will look at how Italy marketed its products abroad, examining the trends, debates, and directions of Italian art and design between 1902 and 1960.

While Silvia appeared content slaving away in our windowless research library--the few windows on this floor are kept constantly shuttered to prevent UV light damage to our rare books--we thought it necessary to occasionally drag her out into the sunshine on weekends to ensure that she did not return to Genoa paler in complexion than when she arrived! Towards that end, the staff here took turns dragging her off to the beach and to some of the quirkier tourist attractions here in sunny Florida. Here she is with yours truly during a Sunday afternoon excursion to Coral Castle and Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.

CCC GAME ON LOAN FOR AN EXHIBIT AT FIU’S GREEN LIBRARY IN NOVEMBER

Two Florida International University students currently enrolled in my America & Movies: the Great Depression and New Deal Era in Film and History class had the privilege of visiting the Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. private collection in downtown Miami earlier this month. While there, they selected a number of items to be included in a display of materials primarily culled from our own rare books and special collections library.

Both students have been looking at New Deal programs aimed at the young, and especially at materials relating to the Roosevelt administration’s Civilian Conservation Corps (or CCC). One item that caught their attention was The Forest Ranger Game, a 1930s game board designed by the Indoor Games Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota to capitalize on the popularity of Roosevelt’s CCC program. The students have also selected another item from the Wolfsonian library collection for inclusion in their display: All-Story Love Stories, a popular weekly featuring a romantic tale by Edna Gorman entitled, “C.C.C. Sweetheart.”

The CCC provided employment for millions of undernourished urban youths whose parents had been thrown out of work by the Great Depression; the program required enlistees to send the majority of their paychecks back home to help support their families. It was assumed that performing manual labor in the “great outdoors” would help restore American boys both in body and soul. Clothed in military-style uniforms and stationed in barracks located in rural areas and state and national parks, these youths were set to work on various conservation and natural resource development projects. Between 1933 and 1942, three million young men—(most between the ages of 18 and 25)—were enrolled in the CCC for terms of six months or longer. There they gained an appreciation for nature that later helped spawn the post-war conservation movement in the United States.

The game board, periodical, and many other New Deal artifacts selected by the student “curators” will on display at Florida International University’s Green Library in mid-November and December, 2009.

SMOOTH ADVERTISING

This week a Florida International University student in the Honor’s College came to the museum to schedule a research appointment in our rare books and special collections library. In the course of our reference interview, the student expressed interest in seeing what we might have in the library pertaining to “vintage” tobacco advertising. He had decided to work on a project that would examine how tobacco companies marketed their products in early to mid-twentieth century, and how their claims then compare to those being made in present-day “pro” and “con” tobacco propaganda. The library holds a good run of Fortune magazine from the 1930s, many of which had back cover advertisements from various tobacco companies. Above is one example from our collection.

For any bloggers interested in doing their own comparisons of the same, I recommend checking out the many anti-tobacco “Truth” campaign videos readily available via Youtube.com. Here’s one of my personal favorites:

As a movie buff (fanatic?) I can also heartily recommend Thank You For Smoking for an enormously entertaining look at (and biting satire of) tobacco industry spin doctors, directed by Jason Reitman in 2005.

NEW WEB DISPLAY GOES LIVE, COURTESY OF DAVID ALMEIDA

Our digital library specialist, David Almeida has recently completed the final touches on the virtual library exhibit, Advertising American Automobiles Abroad to accompany our exhibit by the same name now on display in the third floor foyer of our rare books and special collections library. David’s creative online exhibit joins the many other web exhibits he has created over the last few years to give our far away fans the opportunity to see our materials even when they cannot be here in person.

Enjoy the show!

http://www.librarydisplays.wolfsonian.org/

VISIT BY UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI PROFESSOR AND STUDENTS

This past Thursday, University of Miami professor Carlos Llerena Aguirre brought students from his Typography and Advanced multimedia/portfolio classes over to the Wolfsonian-FIU for two tours and directed presentations in our rare books and special collections library. The first group of eight students was interested in seeing a display of propaganda illustrations and drawings. As our Youth in Uniform show had just come down and been replaced with Advertising American Automobiles Abroad, Dr. Harsanyi and I laid out the tables in the main reading room with a variety of First and Second World War propaganda. When the professor and students arrived, they were brought up to the library for a talk on the subject of propaganda art utilizing that assemblage which included numerous large broadsides, stickers, pamphlets, periodicals, and rare children’s books. Afterwards I led them through our permanent exhibition galleries on the fifth floor to see a selection of the World War II posters generously donated to the Wolfsonian’s works on paper collection by Leonard Lauder. Two of the items from the library display are pictured below.

Dr. Nicolae Harsanyi, our rare book cataloguer, provided another lecture-presentation of library materials for the same professor and a second group of UM students when they arrived later this same afternoon to see some of our rare library materials dealing with typography and the Bauhaus. The following two images are examples of the materials Dr. Harsanyi pulled and used in discussions with that group of nine students.

WOLFSONIAN FELLOW STUDIES 19TH CENTURY INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITIONS

Since October 7th, the Wolfsonian-FIU has been hosting David Raizman, Professor of Art and Art History at Drexel University, as a research fellow. Professor Raizman has been looking through our extensive holdings of mid- to late nineteenth century World’s Fair materials for works related to his own area of interest and expertise: the representation and display of Renaissance and revival-style furniture in international expositions. Professor Raizman is particularly interested in some of the large and elaborately-carved and decorated pieces that were designed as much for public display as for private consumption, and which blurred the distinctions usually drawn between fine and decorative art objects, and gave luster to the notion of 'art applied to industry.'

The Wolfsonian library’s rich collection of original catalogs, guidebooks, official reports, and ephemeral items published by and for these international exhibitions is keeping him busy during the last two remaining weeks of his research visit. According to our scholar, “Every day brings new discoveries and greater familiarity with these events that attracted millions of visitors (and generated reams of printed paper!)" He adds that "It's interesting to read the jurors' reports along with the comments of critics and observers who wrote about the world's fairs - there's such a variety of viewpoints, praising the highest levels of skill, marveling at the technology which assisted the worker, while at the same time lamenting the absence of 'ordinary' furniture that the majority of visitors might actually buy and enjoy. Reconciling these often conflicting attitudes seemed to have occupied many observers at the time and contributes to our understanding of the history of design in the later 19th century."

VISIT TO WOLFSONIAN BY DASH STUDENTS

This last Friday, the Wolfsonian hosted a visit by 43 students from DASH (Design and Architecture Senior High School), a magnet school located in the heart of Miami’s Design District recently ranked as the 5th best high school in the nation. The students primarily came to see Beauty on the Beach: A Centennial Celebration of Swimwear, an exhibition exploring influence of designers on the marketing of swimwear. The DASH students also spent half of their time in our rare books library listening to a lecture-presentation that highlighted some of our rare materials dealing more generally with fashion and design issues. There was plenty of lively discussion by the students over the radical changes swimsuits underwent from the Victorian era to the present day.

The students were also intrigued by other materials marketing other fashion products. Many of the students were both simultaneously entranced and taken aback by a ninety year-old advertisement for fur coats and stoles that pictured the “cute and cuddly” animals on the same front cover as the glamour girl showing off the product. Obviously the counter-commercial propaganda of animal rights organizations and activist group like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has had a powerful and enduring influence on attitudes towards fur as fashion.

VISIT TO WOLFSONIAN BY THE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S FORUM

This past Thursday large groups of persons attending the International Women’s Forum in Miami visited the Wolfsonian and received guided tours through the galleries led by museum director Cathy Leff and curators Marianne Lamonaca and Sarah Schleuning. Sixty-seven of the visitors stopped off in the third floor foyer of our rare books library and became the first visitors to view the newly-installed library exhibit, Advertising American Automobiles Abroad. Stepping inside the main reading room, the visitors were treated to an additional display of materials dealing specifically with women and gender issues including century-old books designed by European women graphic designers and American arts and crafts artisans. The presentation also featured all manner of ephemeral items and promotional materials featuring women in a variety of formats, including vintage postcards, advertisements, brochures, and display cards. Our guests appear to have been taken with one item in particular which I will now share with those of you following this blog. The object that caught their interest was Catalogus van de Tentoonstelling “De Vrouw, 1813-1913,” a catalog produced for an exhibition highlighting the work and achievements of Dutch women in the early twentieth century. The hardcover book features a beautiful art nouveau cover design by Wilhelmina Cornelia Drupsteen, but what made it especially unusual was that it included in its binding two silk straps that allowed the attendees of that earlier women’s conference to carry it away like a purse.

THE "OUT-GOING" LIBRARY EXHIBIT

This week I have been busy preparing interpretative and label texts for the installation of a new library display, Advertising American Automobiles Abroad. This display of promotional materials garnered from our library collection and loans by Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. and Leonard Lauder has been designed to complement Styled for the Road, an exhibition opening to the public in our seventh floor gallery this October 16th. The installation of a new display is always a busy and exciting time, but also bitter-sweet as it necessarily involves the dismantling of the previous display.

Today I would like to introduce those of you “out-of-towners” to our “out-going” display, Youth in Uniform: Selections from the gift of Steven Heller. Steve, an educator and prolific author of books dealing with graphic arts, donated these and many other rare items to our library following the completion of his recent publication, Iron Fists: Branding the 20th-Century Totalitarian State. This exhibit will continue to live on in a virtual format put together by our digital library specialist, David Almeida and can be accessed at the following web address: http://www.librarydisplays.wolfsonian.org/
You can also access a more general selection of Mr. Heller's donation at:
http://www.librarygifts.wolfsonian.org/2008.htm

As we have limited display space in our library foyer, we often have to cut some items from our original checklist even though they are perfectly suited to the theme of the display. To remedy this loss, I am adding to today’s blog an image of an item that I would have liked to have included in the show had there been sufficient space. So without further ado, here is the…

LIBRARY OBJECT(S) OF THE WEEK

VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE WWII POSTER DESIGN (50 TO CHOOSE FROM)

Earlier this week a student came into the library to work on an experimental video project for an art class he is taking with Jacek J. Kolasinski, a New-Media artist and Assistant Professor of Visual Arts in the Art and Art History Department at Florida International University. This student was interested in the propaganda posters designed by the various protagonists of the Second World War. Although the library holds many rare and reference books on the subject and a good number of original broadsides from this era, the vast majority of posters are housed in a separate Works on Paper department. The student, however, did not go away disappointed.

One particular item in the library collection that caught his eye was a rare sheet of 50 stickers created by Artists for Victory, Inc. and produced and distributed by Ever Ready Label Corporation in 1943. These miniatures were marketed as “faithful reproductions of the original posters.” Patriotic consumers were urged to “fight on the home front” by affixing the stickers on all of their correspondence. Here are the miniature poster stamps. Send me your vote as to which one of the fifty stickers moves you most, or post your own favorite contemporary propaganda image.