#ryerson and burnham libraries

“Come, and take choice of all my library…”
Titus Andronicus, Act 4, Scene 1

During his birthday week we’re thinking of William Shakespeare, and we’re excited to share this recent acquisition. Here you see a first edition copy of William Noel Humphreys’Sentiments and Similes of William Shakespeare, published in London in 1851. The elaborate chromolithographed border on the title page was printed in Paris then returned to London to be overprinted with the text. A black papier-mâché binding over gold foil contains a terracotta portrait of Shakespeare. The commercially-produced binding would have been created with the use of a mold.

These beautifully-produced books were popular in the Victorian era, and they come in a variety of sizes. In addition to this quarto, which could have been used as a gift or prize book, the Library collections contain Owen Jones’ Psalms of David, an oversized folio with a similar binding and illustrations.

A number of women who collected art are profiled in our current library exhibition, Deering, Palmer, Harding, Ryerson: Major Donors of Medieval and Renaissance Art. On view through April 24, the exhibition details the collecting habits of Bertha Honore Palmer (shown here in a portrait by Anders Zorn that is on view in the reading room); Marion and Barbara Deering (shown here in a portrait by Ramón Casas); and Carrie Ryerson, whose portrait is just visible in the upper right portion of this photograph of her Chicago home showing some of her art collection. Many of the artworks that these patrons gave to the Art Institute will be on view starting on March 20 in Saints and Heroes: Art of Medieval and Renaissance Europe.

It’s no secret that the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries are participating in the SAIC Biblioderive this Friday, February 24, from 10:30 am until 5:00 pm. Gather your friends and come in to the reading roomto Collage Your Own Art History Canon using the works of Max Ernst and resources from our reference collection. We’re not lion when we tell you that it will be a festive day in the reading room.

McCormick Place on the Lake(built 1968-1972), later known as McCormick Place East, and currently Lakeside Center was constructed on the foundations of the original McCormick Place (built 1958-1960), which was destroyed in a fire in 1967. Both the 1971 and 1960 buildings were named after Robert Rutherford “Colonel” McCormick (1880-1955), an editor and publisher of The Chicago Tribune. McCormick had long advocated for a convention center to be built and located at site of 2nd world’s fair on Chicago’s lakefront shore; though construction did not begin until after his death. When the original convention center burned down, Mayor Richard J. Daley was determined to replace the convention center structure on the same location. McCormick Place is self-described as “the largest convention center in North America located in the most American of American cities.” [http://mccormickplace.com/]

A lineage through three of Chicago’s most significant modern architects is tracked by McCormick’s Place on the Lake. Its chief architect Gene Summers (1928-2011) was recommended by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) to design the building for C. F. Murphy Associates. Summers was previously van der Rohe’s assistant, during commissions such as the Seagram Building (NYC) and the Chicago Federal Center. Summers invited the then young architect Helmut Jahn (b. 1940) to assist him on the project. Jahn later designed Chicago’s Thompson Center.

McCormick Place on the Lake’s existence was recently threatened when Mayor Rahm Emmanuel offered to demolish the building in 2016 to bid for a Lucas Museum of Narrative Art (it was recently announced that LA will receive that instead). More recently the extensions of McCormick Place were celebrated on January 7, 2017 as the location of President Obama’s Farewell Address.

TheMcCormick Place on the Lake Collection in the Ryerson and Burnham Archives includes correspondence, holograph papers, typescript papers, black and white photographic prints, color photographic prints, color slides, drawings, and printed materials.

Included in this post are:

–An aerial photograph (1960) showing the original McCormick Place’s foundations and facade remains. Photo credited to Hedrich-Blessing Harr.   Call Number: 2003.4, Box 1, Folder 7.

–A Holiday card, from C. Blunt (of Industrial Construction Division, Minn.) to Barry Goldberg, 1968, featuring McCormick Place’s silhouette.  Call Number: 2003.4, Box 1, Folder 6.

–Black and White detail photograph of construction (c.1968-1970) Call Number: 2003.4, Box 1, Folder 8.

Additionally, the Architecture and Design Department’s Collection includes “McCormick Place, Perspective View looking Toward Lake” (1969), Gene Summers for C.F. Murphy.

Chicago Restaurant Week starts today, and to celebrate we’re looking back at Kinsley’s Restaurant, located in the Opera House, and celebrated as “the resort of the elite of fashionable society” in this 1866 guidebook, Chicago. A Stranger’s and Tourist’s Guide to the City of Chicago.

Following the Chicago Fire, Kinsley’s reopened at 62 W. Adams Street. The last photograph, from our Historic Architecture and Landscape Image Collection, shows the restaurant as it appeared ca. 1891, when it was serving diners prairie chicken and cardinal punch.

In honor of the Women’s March,here’s the cover of the first issue of It Aint Me Babe (July, 1970). This underground publication was drawn entirely by women artists. 

Joel Sternfeld’s photograph The National Civil Rights Museum, Formerly the Lorraine Motel, 450 Mulberry Street, Memphis, Tennessee, August 1993 as it appears in On This Site: Landscape in Memoriam. The facing page reads:

Speaking at a rally on April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said:

Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up the mountain. And I’ve looked over and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want to let you know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. And I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

The next day, he was assassinated on this balcony outside room 306.

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the reading room will be closed on Monday, January 16.

Happy New Year from the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries. This Edward Steichen photograph comes from the January 1, 1934 issue of Vogue, which is available in our stacks. The Reading Room will be closed on Monday, January 2. We look forward to assisting you with your research in 2017.

It’s cold out there, but Chicago has a long history as a winter wonderland. Here you see Chicagoans ice-skating at the Marina City ice rink in the 1960s in a photograph available in the Ryerson & Burnham Archives’ Bertrand Goldberg Papers. 

Look closely to spot someone enjoying a snowy walk in Jackson Park in the late 19th/early 20th century in a lantern slide from the Ryerson & Burnham Archives’ Historic Architecture and Landscape Image Collection. 

The libraries will be closed from 5:00 pm on Thursday, December 22, until 1:00 pm on Tuesday, December 27. We hope that you enjoy the snow, and that your holiday weekend is merry and bright!

We hope that you are all raising a glass to celebrate Repeal Day, marking the end of Prohibition. A lovely Prohibition-era book, Petits & grands verres: choix des meilleurs cocktails, came to us through the Walter Brewster Collection. A 1928 letter from the art dealer César Mange de Hauke is tipped into the binding of this book of cocktail recipes. De Hauke tells Brewster:

I think you will enjoy seeing [the book] - first, because it is illustrated by Laboureur and furthermore, because its contents would be particularly dear to every American, I am sure. But, when I remember the nice parties I attended with you, I think that you will not learn very much from it.

Jean Laboureur, the illustrator of the volume, is an artist who was part of the Cubist circle in Paris. The illustrations in this book demonstrate the accuracy of this description of the artist’s work, from the Benezit Dictionary of Artists:

Laboureur sought to produce work that was attractive but without making concessions to frivolity. He possessed the gift of charm. His art also reveals a very personal concern with elegance.

Cheers!

Japanese artist Shinro Ohtake’s vast, decades-long career incorporates a multitude of formats, from sketched portraits to a public bath house. However, he is perhaps best known for his Scrapbooks, a series that spans over thirty years’ time and revolves around themes such as neglect and the inability to maintain interest. Ohtake notes that for the project he utilized discarded items found around the house, a habit which he first developed as a child by collecting scraps from the disposal area in a plastic factory near where he grew up. Books about the life and work of Shinro Ohtake can be found at the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, including a life-spanning retrospective that numbers over 1000 pages in length.

Happy Birthday to Pong! Learn more about the game and its influence on game design and art in Supercade: A Visual History of the Videogame Age, 1971-1984.

Happy Thanksgiving from the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries. The reading room will be closing today at 4:00 pm, with paging ending at 3:00 pm. We will be closed on Thanksgiving Day and Friday, November 25. We look forward to seeing you in the reading room on Monday, November 28.Come in during reading room hours that day to view items such as Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500-2005, where we found this charming child’s silver set, produced by Tiffany & Co., New York, ca. 1915.

Happy#Movemberfrom the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries. This anti-Dali tract issued by members of the Surrealist movement includes a mustache made of wire and thread. The tract was published to protest the inclusion by Marcel Duchamp of work by Salvador Dali in the international surrealist exhibition of November 28, 1960-January 14, 1961 at D'Arcy Galleries, New York. The signatories include André Breton and José Pierre, who with Duchamp had organized the exhibition. Our copy is number 17 of 25 copies that include the mustache multiple. You can view this item from our Mary Reynolds Collectionduringreading room hours.

This Memorial Day, Monday, May 27, the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries will be closed in celebration and remembrance of those who have served in the military.

The works you see here are by Jasper Johns and Norman Rockwell. Jasper Johns’ Three Flags (1958) and White Flag (1955) are only two of the many works by the artist that featured the American flag. Johns gave a new form to a familiar symbol that many were starting to look over, causing people to look at it with fresh eyes.

Norman Rockwell was a prominent artist during both world wars, showing his support for the armed forces through his art. The oil painting with the little girl handing the soldier a flower is titled The Tribute. This image was featured on the cover of Judge in August of 1918, shortly before World War I ended. The American Way (1944) is a World War II poster honoring disabled American veterans.

Come view more works by these artists, as well as other works about art and the military, when the reading room opens on Tuesday, May 28, at 1:00pm. These images are from:

Francis, Richard. Jasper Johns. First ed. Modern Masters Series ; v. 7. New York: Abbeville Press, 1984.

Rockwell, Norman, and Rockwell, Thomas. Norman Rockwell : My Adventures as an Illustrator. New York: Abrams, 1988.

Rockwell, Thomas. The Best of Norman Rockwell. Philadelphia, Pa.: Courage Books, 1988.

Thank you for all those who have served and those who continue to serve our country. Thank you to the artists who honor the members of our military forces with their work.

Please join us this Thursday, April 11, for a lecture on Interior Design in the 1930s – Making America Modern.

The Ryerson and Burnham Libraries and the Chicago Art Deco Society invite you to join design historian Marilyn Friedman, author of Making America Modern: Interior Design in the 1930s, for a lecture on the development of interior design in America during the 1930s as seen in exhibition displays, model homes, and private commissions.

Friedman’s book demonstrates how fifty designers embraced influences as diverse as art deco, the Bauhaus, the Viennese Secession, Shintoism, and streamlining to create a quintessentially American modern interior design using innovative construction techniques and new materials.

Prior to the lecture some collection materials, including the image shown here (a photograph of the bar in Elizabeth Arden’s penthouse at 834 5th Avenue from our Historic Architecture and Landscape Image Collection) will be on display in the Ryerson & Burnham reading room from 5:00 until 6:00.

This event is free with museum admission, which is free of charge for Illinois residents on Thursdays from 5:00 until 8:00.

The feasting season is here, and the reading room will be closed for the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, November 22, and Friday, November 23. We hope that all of you have a delicious holiday.

All of the artworks shown here are in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago and, although the museum will be closed on Thursday, November 22, the galleries will be open on Friday. Still Life: Corner of a Table (1873) by Ignace Henri Jen Theodore Fantin-Latour is on view in gallery 225. Charles Demuth’s Eggplant and Plums(1922-23), Doris Lee’s Thanksgiving (1935), and Wayne Thiebaud’s Cakes No. 1 (1967) currently are not on view.

The reading room will reopen at 1:00 on Monday, November 26, when you can come in to review Feasting: A Celebration of Food in Art, the 1992 collection catalog that contains the images you see here, as well as other works on food in art, including 2013′s Art and Appetitecatalog.

Welcome back to school, SAIC students! Please come visit the reading room today (until 8:00) and tomorrow (10:30-5:00) to see the exhibition Forever “Egypt!”: Works from the Collection of Harold Allen.  

The exhibition was curated by SAIC students Margarita LizcanoHernandez and Alejandra Vargas as the culminating exercise in their two-year Mellon Undergraduate Curatorial Fellowship. Here you can see some installation images of the show and the curators, Alejandra and Margarita, introducing the exhibition to a class. Don’t miss your chance to see this thoughtful introduction to Harold Allen, Egyptomania, and the nature of collecting, which closes this Friday, August 31.

The Ryerson & Burnham Libraries will be closed on Monday, September 3, but the reading room will be open for research at 1:00 on Tuesday, September 4, when you can come in to view I’ll Show You: Posters and Promos from Chicago’s Famous Artists, and whet your appetite for Hairy Who? 1966-1969, opening in the museum galleries later next month.

We’re hoping for a “surging sea of humanity” at tomorrow’s block party! Come join us in the reading room to learn about and view examples of stereocards at 11:00, noon, and 1:00, and to collage a postcard from the World’s Columbian Exposition at 11:30, 12:30, and 1:30.

If you cannot make it tomorrow, please enjoy these stereocards from the World’s Columbian Exposition Collection. We can retrieve these for you to view during our public hours (we keep a stereoscope at the reference desk).

We aren’t going to let any possible rain on Saturday interrupt our block party; join us in the Ryerson & Burnham Libraries at 11:30, 12:30, and 1:30 to collage your own postcard from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition using copies of images such as these, from The World’s Fair in Water Colors.

At 11:00, noon, and 1:00 join the curators of our current library exhibition, Forever “Egypt!” Works from the Collection of Harold Allen, to view 19th-century stereocards and other library materials depicting the long history of Egyptomania from printed architectural fantasies of the18th century, to the Streets of Cairo at the World’s Columbian Exposition, through the present day.