Category: Historical collections
-
Happy Holidays!
To celebrate the holidays, we are highlighting a Christmas greeting made by Bruce Rogers in 1923 out of letterpress printer’s ornaments that is housed in the Department’s Teaching and Historical collection. As an homage, I made two holiday cards using printers ornaments, although they are digital greetings and were not printed.
-
‘Twas the Night before Christmas
To celebrate the upcoming Christmas holiday, we are highlighting a small publication of A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement C. Moore, first published in 1837. The poem is better known by its first line, “‘Twas the bight before Christmas.” This version was published in 1921 and was designed by Bruce Rogers for the Atlantic…
-
A Chapbook in Honor of William Edwin Rudge by Karen Brummer, MALA 6000 student
The Typophiles is a New York City organization, founded in the 1930s, which is devoted to the advocacy of fine typography. It’s name, typophiles, refers to those who loves printed matter and typography. In addition to hosting social events and lectures for its members, the group published books and other material, including chapbooks, such as this one, which is now housed in…
-
The Baltimore Bibliophiles by Linda G. Hall, MALA 6000 Student
The images below are from a keepsake book printed for members of the Baltimore Bibliophiles in May of 1960. The coverboards are decorated with handmade marbled papers, made in England by Douglas Cockerell, the best known twentieth-century marbler. The pattern looks like the skin of a snake or a bird’s wing feathers. Marbling is a…
-
The Danish Aesop by Sandra Flavin, MALA 6000 student
The Danish Aesop is a book of fables written by Aesop, a Greek fabulist. It is not known if Aesop actually existed, although the writings of Aristotle and Phaedrus say he was born around 620 BCE in Phrygia. Aesop’s fables have been translated into many languages, and in The Danish Aesop, the fables are re-told by R. Broby-Johansen, a Danish historian,…
-
Volumes on Ikebana (Japanese Flower Arranging) by Chelsea Able, MALA 6000 student
The book that I chose to discuss for this post is an unusual one. It may have listed the title and other details of the book, but it is in Japanese. While I studied Japanese in my undergrad program, it has been a while, and I only got to the fourth class for Japanese language.…
-
MALA 6000: Experiencing Rare Books
MALA 6000 is a foundational course for MTSU’s Master’s of Arts in Liberal Arts. This semester, the seminar was organized on the theme of “Experience.” For the Art History block, which was taught by Laura Cochrane, the students got to handle and explore the rare books and other materials in the Department of Art and…
-
Bruce Rogers’s Utopia
This time, we are continuing our exploration of the work of the book designer, Bruce Rogers. In 1934, Rogers designed and published a translation of Thomas More’s Utopia for the Limited Editions Club of New York. For that, he printed 1500 signed and numbered copies. The next year, the book was accurately reproduced and issued…
-
Marbled papers in the MTSU Art and Design Historical and Teaching Collection.
Below are images of marbled papers from our historical collections. Examples range from the early eighteenth century to the mid twentieth century. Web sites with more information on identifying historical marble patterns: https://content.lib.washington.edu/dpweb/index.html https://content.lib.washington.edu/dpweb/patterns.html http://www.payhembury.com/Payhembury_Marbled_Papers/Patterns.html#grid https://marbleart.us/Examples.htm http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2010/11/marbled-paper-designs.html
MTSU Book and Printing Arts and History 