Richard Wagener Lecture and Related Exhibits in Special Collections

The Book Arts Guild and University of Washington Libraries present

An Afternoon at Mithras Bookstore and a Sierra Journey, a lecture by Richard Wagener.  This talk will trace his development as a wood engraver and his involvement in the world of fine press books.

Thursday April 11, 2013, 7-9pm (doors open at 6:45)
Maps/Special Collections Classroom
Suzzallo Library Basement Room B69

Richard Wagener grew up in southern California spending a lot of time with his grandfather in remote parts of the desert and up in the Sierra. Early art classes introduced him to Maynard Dixon and Edgar Payne. After school activities included selling the evening newspapers at the Disney studios where he met many of the illustrators and animators. Richard has an undergraduate degree from the University of San Diego and a graduate degree from Art Center College of Design. He has been engraving wood for over thirty years and his work has been in a number of fine press editions. He currently lives and works in northern California.

There are two related exhibitions that feature relief printing which are on display in Special Collections.  This will be an opportunity to view them.  Both Conor Casey, curator of Images of Labor and Social Justice: The Art of Richard V. Correll and Sandra Kroupa curator of Lasting Impressions: Relief Prints Over 500 Years, will speak briefly and will provide access to the exhibitions.

The World of Tomorrow Continues

Image of the Space Needle at night taken during the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair by an unknown photographer

As the long weekend approaches and the end of the season draws ever closer, why not try to prolong that summertime feeling for at least a little while longer by planning a visit to The World of Tomorrow: Looking Back at the Seattle Worlds Fair next week? The exhibit, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Century 21 exposition, has been extended through September 14, 2012.

You will find the exhibit installed in cases on the Allen Library North balcony and the Special Collections lobby. Both areas are accessible to the public whenever the building is open. Please check the current hours of opening as the library is operating on an interim break schedule.

UW Activists and the Farmworkers’ Movement

Antonio Salazar's photographs of Chicano activists form the core of this exhibit.

UW Activists and the Farmworkers’ Movement

Special Collections, Allen Library South Basement :: April – June 2011

A new Labor Archives of Washington State, UW Special Collections exhibit illustrating the history of activism on the UW campus featuring the photographs of Antonio Salazar, artifacts from Professor Erasmo Gamboa’s personal collection and material from the UW Libraries Special Collections.

For more information, visit the event website.

Seattle Camera Club Exhibition at the Henry

 

“Into the Library,” undated photograph by Frank A. Kunishige. Frank Kunishige Photograph Collection. PH Coll 343. Special Collections Division. University of Washington Libraries.

You also can go out of the library and head over to the Henry Art Gallery for this evening’s reception and panel discussion for the opening of the exhibition, Shadows of a Fleeting World: Pictorial Photography and the Seattle Camera Club. The show draws heavily on material from Special Collections, including the Frank Kunishige Photograph Collection (PH Coll 343) and the Kyo Koike Photograph Collection (PH Coll 262). The panel discussion, features Henry Chief Curator, Elizabeth Brown, as well as David F. Martin and Special Collections Visual Materials Curator, Nicolette Bromberg, who co-authored the catalog for the exhibition. The event begins at 7:00 P.M. in the Henry Auditorium; it is free with museum admission or membership, but seating is limited.

If you can’t make it tonight, the exhibition runs from February 12 – May8, 2011.

A Scrapbook By Any Other Name?

"Mixed Pickles," leaf from the Westmoreland Album (1864/70), watercolor and ink photocollage designed by Victoria Alexandrina Anderson-Pelham, Countess of Yarborough and Eva Macdonald.

While back visiting New York recently, I unexpectedly encountered this delightful exhibition during a routine trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Organized by the Art Institute of Chicago, Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage displays the heretofore little known work of nineteenth century women who compiled these meticulously crafted albums, which contain individual leaves that creatively and often humorously juxtapose and incorporate cut up pieces of studio portrait photography within the artist’s own watercolor designs.

Do these sound like scrapbooks to you?

While I don’t think we have any examples in our collection of scrapbooks that are quite as classy, we have uncovered some pretty interesting ones during the course of the ongoing scrapbook cataloging and preservation project.

And who knows what wonders may be found among the Special Collections Division’s collection of photographic albums?  You may get your chance to ask, when Visual Materials Curator, Nicolette Bromberg, gives a presentation on the photographs of Viretta Denny at the next Seattle Area Archivists membership meeting on March 11, 2010.  You can read more about that event on their blog.

In the meantime, I have checked out the Libraries’ only copy of the exhibition catalog of the photocollage show, but promise to return it soon.

Final AYPE Exhibit Tour Tonight

Former AYPE Forestry building being demolished, 1930.

This evening marks your last chance for a free tour of The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition: When the World Came to Campus, led by exhibit curator, Carla Rickerson.  No RSVP or pre-registration is necessary for this one-hour event.  Just show up at 6:00 pm in the Suzzallo Library Exhibition Room 102 (just inside the main entrance to the building).

Image credit: Post AYPE Building Collection. PH Coll 778.  University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections Order no. UWCO159

UW AYPE Exhibit Tours

A reminder that the first of three free public tours of the  exhibit, “The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition:  When the World Came to the Campus,” led by Carla Rickerson, Head of Public Services,  will take place this Wednesday evening, July 8, from 6:00-7:00 pm in Suzzallo 102.

Additional tours are scheduled for August 12 and October 14 — same time, same location.

No RSVP or pre-registration is required.  For more information about the exhibit, go to http://uwnews.org/uweek/article.aspx?visitsource=uwkmail&id=50023

AYPE centennial exhibits throughout Suzzallo/Allen libraries

In celebration of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition held on the UW campus in 1909, there are three stunning exhibitions in Suzzallo and Allen Libraries.

Admission tickets for the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, Seattle, Washington, 1909. Photograph by Frank H. Nowell.

The biggest display is The Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition: When the World Came to Campus, in the Suzzallo Exhibit Room, 102. This exhibit was curated by Carla Rickerson, Head of Public Services in Special Collections. The unique photographs, ephemera, and documents, as well as the blow-ups of AYPE buildings mounted on the walls give viewers a sense of the beauty and bombast of the 1909 event.

Another exhibition, Women’s Work at the 1909 Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition, is located in the lobby outside Special Collections in the south Allen basement. Michelle Dent, a visiting curator from New York University, examines  the role of women at the exposition, and features items from the Burke Museum which were originally on display at the AYPE.

Finally, the third exhibition,  Capturing the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition: Frank H. Nowell, Exposition Photographer,  is located on the balcony above Allen North lobby. Nicolette Bromberg, visual materials curator in Special Collections, co-curated the exhibit with Rickerson.

Additional photographs of the AYPE by Nowell are mounted in Special Collections on the wall behind the reception desk. Also, soon to be on display in Special Collections is  a newly restored print of the AYPE bird’s-eye-view.

Come by and see the exhibitions! Feel welcome to ask Special Collections curators and staff about the AYPE. Challenge us!

Announcements – September 2008

What’s New in the Archives

Carsten Lien papers (27.36 cubic feet), circa 1980’s-2005. Research files, correspondence, manuscripts, photographs, clippings, government publications, reports, audio reel tapes, microfilm, index card files, and maps, primarily relating to Lien’s books, Olympic Battleground: The Power Politics of Timber Preservation, and; Exploring the Olympic Mountains: Accounts of the Earliest Expeditions, 1878-1890; and a planned book on the Cascade division of the Northern Pacific Railroad.

http://www.lib.washington.edu/specialcoll/findaids/docs/papersrecords/LienCarsten5527.xml

Ronald P. Phillips papers (29.86 cubic feet), 1863-2004. The Ronald P. Phillips papers document the personal and professional activities of long-time Seattle Symphony Orchestra clarinetist Ronald P. Phillips (1906-2004) and his first wife, Gladys Bezeau Phillips (1892-1978). The materials consist of biographical material, books, clippings, correspondence, musical scores, newsletters, notes, pamphlets, periodicals, photographs and photographic material, printed ephemera, scrapbooks, scorecards (golf), souvenir books, and yearbooks/directories. http://www.lib.washington.edu/specialcoll/findaids/docs/papersrecords/PhillipsRonaldP5526.xml

Empty Space Theatre records (62.1 cubic feet), circa 1970-2006. The third and largest accession of the Theatre’s records (51.26 cubic feet) contains productions files­—including audiovisual materials—and administrative files dating from its inception through its termination in 2006.

http://www.lib.washington.edu/specialcoll/findaids/docs/papersrecords/EmptySpaceTheatre4481.xml

New Staff

Jennifer Spamer joined the staff of the University of Washington Libraries Special Collections on April 1 as Acquisitions Specialist. She oversees the accessioning of all new manuscripts/archives/photograph collections. Jeni is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan’s School of Information, and comes to the UW from a contract position at Microsoft.

Upcoming Events

The Pacific Northwest Collection will be highlighting recent archival acquisitions in an exhibit, December 2008-February 2009, in the Special Collections Lobby, Allen Library South.