December 2007
Louise Erdrich
Winter Reader, 2003-2004
Minnesota Center for Book Arts: Minneapolis, 2003
Gould Library Special Collections
This book is fifteenth in an annual series celebrating the creative potential of book art, commissioned by the Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA). Featuring a full-leather binding with blind embossing and text by Louise Erdrich, the book showcases the work of five Minnesota papermakers.
The page displayed was made by Jeff Rathermel. A nationally-recognized book artist, Rathermel is the artistic director of the MCBA and has served as a visiting professor in the art department at Carleton College.
Contributing artists to this volume:
Amanda Degener
Bridget O’Malley
Rebecca Alm
Mary Hark
Jeff Rathermel
Michael Lizama (Book Design)
Jana Pullman (Binding)
November 2007
Cy Thao
The Hmong Migration : Paintings
50 paintings and text by Cy Thao
Minneapolis, Minnesota : Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 2000
Gould Library Special Collections
The images and text on these plates are from a series of fifty oil paintings by St. Paul painter Cy Thao. The paintings depict five thousand years of Hmong history, from life in Southern China and the mountains of Laos, to the conflicts over Communism and eventual resettlement in the United States. The two-dimensional, straightforward style of his images evokes Hmong story quilts used to preserve and recount Hmong cultural history. This type of cultural preservation seems to be the intention of Thao as he has avoided selling individual paintings so that the series may be viewed in its entirety for years to come.
Thao is an artist, teacher, and also a DFL representative in the Minnesota State Legislature representing St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood.
October 2007
Richard Fred Arey
Waterfalls of the Mississippi : The Story of Eight Waterfalls Found in Saint Paul & Minneapolis : Descendants of the Late, Great River Warren Falls, and the only Waterfalls Along the Entire Mississippi River
Color wood engravings by Gaylord Schanilec
Saint Paul, Minn. : Minnesota Outdoors Press, 1998.
Gould Library Special Collections
Encompassing the history, geology, and legends of the waterfalls of the Mississippi River, this carefully researched volume is the result of a collaboration between writer and book collector Richard Arey and master wood engraver and book designer Gaylord Schanilec. The book is illustrated with Schanilec’s minutely detailed scenes of the river and its falls, including this view of Saint Anthony Falls in the heart of downtown Minneapolis. For the adventurous waterfall-seekers, a fold-out map details the location of each waterfall and the trails that connect them.
The book was printed at Schanilec’s studio in the Mississippi River Valley near Stockholm, Wisconsin.
September 2007
Thomas Coke (1747-1814)
A History of the West Indies, containing the natural, civil, and ecclesiastical history of each island; with an account of the missions instituted in those islands, from the commencement of their civilization, but more especially of the missions which have been established in that archipelago by the society late in connexion with the Rev. John Wesley
Liverpool, Printed by Nuttall, Fisher, and Dixon, 1808-11
Gould Library Special Collections
In 1791, Toussaint L’Ouverture organized an army of slaves in Saint-Domingue and began a revolution that ultimately defeated the French and, in 1801, established Haiti’s independence.
Although this map was published in 1808, Haiti is shaded blue, indicating that it is a French colony.
July-August 2007
Claes Oldenburg
Store Days: Documents from The Store, 1961, and Ray Gun Theater, 1962 selected by Claes Oldenburg and Emmett Williams
Photographs by Robert R. McElroy.
New York, Something Else Press, 1967
Gould Library
In 1961, artist Claes Oldenburg opened The Store. The Store featured the types of items typically found in a small shop – pairs of shoes, shirt and ties, a cash register, assorted foodstuffs – all made by hand of plaster or paper-maché and garishly painted.
Founded in 1963 by writer and artist Dick Higgins, Something Else Press published artist’s books and collections of poetry, as well as newsletters, pamphlets, and other ephemera produced by artists associated with Fluxus.
June 2007
William Curtis
The Botanical Magazine; or, Flower-Garden Displayed, vols. 31-33
76 vols. in 30 bound books, London: W. Curtis, 1787-1800
Donors: Mr. and Mrs. Hurley O. Warming, friends of the College
Gould Library Special Collections
This periodical includes accurate and meticulously hand-colored engravings of thousands of species of flowering plants, accompanied by their Latin classifications and descriptions of their characteristics. William Curtis founded The Botanical Magazine in 1787, and it continues to be published on behalf of the Bentham-Moxon Trust for the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew.
From the exhibition Treasured Gifts: Books Donated to the Laurence McKinley Gould Library.
May 2007
Helmut Newton’s photographs capture both the glamour and the grit of high society. Newton, born in Berlin in 1920, is celebrated for transcending the conventions of fashion photography and elevating the craft to an art.
In his 1976 book White Women, Newton focuses his lens on the hedonistic nineteen-seventies. These pages feature Lisa in Saint-Tropez, 1975, and Peter in Saint-Tropez, 1975. Newton luxuriates in the decadent poolside setting and the beauty of his subjects, but also reveals a darker side of their glamorous world. Both figures have their backs turned to the camera and stand alone as if in solitary contemplation. The resulting images are as mysterious as they are chic.
This sense of drama, typical of Newton’s photographs, is evident in the selection of photographs from White Women now on display in the Atheneaum as part of the exhibit 1970s Noir. The exhibition pairs the Newton’s photographs with those of Larry Fink.
April 2007
Pierce Egan (1772-1849)
Matthews’s Comic Annual; or the Snuff-Box and the Leetel Bird
Illustrations by Robert Cruikshank (1789-1856)
London: Alfred Miller, 1831
Gould Library Special Collections
Part of the long English comic tradition of mocking the French, The Snuff Box and the Leetel Bird tells the story of a ‘Monseer’ who stumbles into trouble while attempting to satisfy his wife’s desire for snipe. The humor in this thinly-plotted poem comes from the amusing engravings, exaggerated French mannerisms, and rhymed verse in the style of Byron.
Pierce Egan was the first well-known boxing journalist, before boxing was established as an official sport. He also wrote comic accounts of the lives of wealthy young men in Regency England, such as Life in London mentioned on the title page. He was well-known in his time, and Victorian authors later held him up as an example of poor morals.
A gift of former Carleton President Larry Gould, this volume originally resided in the ‘Cage’ of fenced and padlocked shelves, the former site of special collections.
March 2007
Eavan Boland (b. 1944)
Emigrant Suite
Minneapolis: Traffic Street Press, 2002
Gould Library Special Collections
Eavan Boland was born in Dublin, and has lived in London, New York, and most recently in California. Her experiences of emigration and exile from her native land inform her spare yet lyrical verse.
Made to honor Irish poetry on St. Patrick’s Day, Emigrant Suite is third in a series of fine-press books sponsored by the Center for Irish Studies at the University of Saint Thomas. Emigrant Suite was printed and bound by Paulette Myers-Rich at Traffic Street Press in Minneapolis. Myers-Rich also took the photographs. With handmade paper covers, letterpress printed text, and archival ink-jet printed photographs, this edition brings together ancient and recent technologies of bookmaking.
January-February 2007
Judith Guest
Ice Walk
Minneapolis: Minnesota Center for Book Arts, 2001
Gould Library Special Collections
Each year the Minnesota Center for Book Arts in Minneapolis produces a handmade Winter Book. Each is a limited edition collaboration between artists, designers, papermakers, bookbinders and printers, and features the work of a Minnesota author. Carleton’s copy of Ice Walk is the standard edition of the Winter Book for 2001; deluxe editions and chapbooks are also available. Jeff Rathermel, who currently teaches a paper arts course at Carleton, made the paper for the cover.
Ice Walk is a story by Judith Guest about a woman walking with her two-year-old granddaughter and considering her father on his deathbed. The book is accompanied by a series of prints inspired by the story, and all are encased in a clothbound portfolio.