Volume 23, Number 2

SHARP News Volume 23 | Number 2 Article 1 Spring 2014 Volume 23, Number 2 Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/sharp_news Recommended Citation (2014) "Volume 23, Number 2," SHARP News: Vol. 23: No. 2. Available at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/sharp_news/vol23/iss2/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in SHARP News by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. et al.: Volume 23, Number 2 SHARP NEWS Volume 23, Number 2 Spring 2014 were also several editions of Harriet Beecher The exhibit even examined unusual speci- EXHIBITION REVIEWS Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, most opened to mens of visual culture from shortly after the engravings of Eliza’s crossing of the Ohio, Civil War. The most fascinating of these was one of the novel’s most iconic scenes. Milton Bradley’s “Myriopticon,” a history of Emphasizing the importance of less the war in 22 color pictures on one continu- Home Front: Daily Life in the popular histories of the Civil War, another ous scroll in a cigar box which readers would Civil War North part of the exhibit examined the impact of have viewed by scrolling from left to right Newberry Library, Chicago the Civil War on Native Americans. This with two wooden knobs. Beside this was an- 27 September 2013 – 24 March 2014 section displayed illustrations of native vio- other series of five stereographs of slave life lence which Northern audiences would have from the Oliver Barrett collection, which visi- Unlike many exhibits commemorating viewed, including extreme engravings of re- tors were able to manipulate and experience the 150th anniversary of the American Civil ported massacres occurring in northwestern using stereograph viewers. These two objects War, the Newberry exhibit focused less on and western territories. One illustration from served as a productive contrast between the scenes from battles and soldier life and more Harper’s poignantly captured the newspaper’s stylized popular military histories of the Civil on Northerners’ general view of their world. patronizing stance on native issues: a scene in War, and the stark realistic photographs of This exhibition’s curators strove to present which a boy survivor of the Minnesota massa- what life was like for many whose lives were a wide range of items that would depict the cre identifies “Indian murderers” provides an directly affected by the war. printed and painted stimuli Northerners ironic visual for Harper’s subtitle—“Journal This exhibit was useful not only to schol- viewed during the war, especially items that of Civilization.” Another sobering engraving ars of the American Civil War but also to don’t receive as much attention in popular depicted the public execution of 38 Sioux those more broadly interested in the printed retellings of the Civil War. The exhibit makes Indians in Mankato, Minnesota. This section and visual culture of the nineteenth cen- abundant use not only of the Newberry’s vast also contained what may have been the most tury. Book historians and those with even a holdings of nineteenth-century newspaper distinctive item in the exhibit - a depiction casual interest in the Civil War also found a engravings from Frank Leslie’s Illustrated of the Sand Creek Massacre hand-drawn and wide array of objects to surprise and inter- Newspaper, Harper’s Weekly, and Vanity Fair colored on a sheet of paper by one of the only est them. but also other print materials such as music Cheyenne survivors. The curators, Peter John Brownlee and scores, books, pamphlets, maps, stereograph Popular culture and domestic life at the Daniel Greene, joined forces with three cards, letters, and even non-printed items home front featured in the exhibit as well: colleagues for a companion volume: Peter such as paintings from the Terra Founda- a tricolor newspaper print depicted Chicago John Brownlee, et al. Home Front: Daily Life tion. Curators also occasionally paired texts cadets in one of the popular Zoave-style in the Civil War North. Chicago: University of by well-known authors such as Emily Dick- regiments, which adopted clothing styled after Chicago Press, 2013. ISBN 022606185X. 219 inson (from the collections edited by Mabel French forces in Northern Africa such as fez- pp. 90 color plates. $35. Loomis Todd and T. W. Higginson) and Walt zes and short cut coats with tasseled edging. Zach Marshall Whitman (including an 1865 Drum Taps) with Nearby was a woman’s dress which had, in University of Wisconsin, Madison exhibit content. turn, been influenced by the soldiers’ Zoave One part of the exhibit explored depic- uniform styles. This section also examined tions of the South and slavery for Northern depictions of women working in cartridge audiences. For example, one display con- factories stuffing bullets into gunpowder car- CONTENTS trasted depictions of contraband slaves in tridges. Like many other sections, the exhibit stereographs and in popular newspaper illus- display text turned a critical eye to its materials, EXHIBITION REVIEWS 1 trations; the stereographs emphasized slaves’ noting that Harper’s celebratory illustrations THE PREZ SPEAKS 3 three-dimensional humanity when observed of women packing the cartridges elided the BOOK REVIEWS 4 through the viewer, whereas many newspaper terrible dangers of the work. Of particular EXHIBITION REVIEWS CONT. 14 engravings reverted to stereotyped, often significance to Chicagoans was a part which CONFERENCE REVIEWS 17 “minstrel-ized,” images of slaves, which trivi- displayed illustrations, badges, and newspaper SCHOLARSHIP REPORT 19 alized slave suffering. In addition to plantation clippings related to the Chicago Sanitary Fairs maps of the lower Mississippi and illustra- of 1863 and 1865, the latter of which was THE SHARP END 19 tions of the cotton production process, there overshadowed by Lincoln’s assassination. BIBLIOGRAPHY 20 Published by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst, 2014 1 SHARP News, Vol. 23, No. 2 [2014], Art. 1 2 c SPRING 2014 SHARP NEWS VOL. 23, NO. 2 The Human Comedy: Chronicles haunted by shadows of text showing through SHARP NEWS of Nineteenth-Century France from the verso of their supports. These Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, Ohio shadows are a reminder for viewers that these lithographs were part of everyday life, not cre- EDITOR 3 September – 22 December 2013 Sydney Shep, Wai-te-ata Press ated for the few but for the masses. Just a few Victoria University of Wellington of the lithographs on display were printed as PO Box 600, Wellington, New Zealand 6140 Intrepid print lovers are in for a treat on part of a numbered series for individual sale. [email protected] the second floor of the Allen Memorial Art Described by print scholar Peter C. Marzio as Museum in Oberlin, Ohio. French satirical “democratic art,” the lithographs were created EDITORIAL ASSISTANT – 23.2 prints, lithographs to be precise, sketched and for a mass audience and were available to any- Sara Bryan printed by Honoré Daumier, Paul Gavarni, one who read or saw the newspapers. Unlike Publication Assistant, Wai-te-ata Press and other French artists, adorn the walls American contemporary artists Currier and of the Ripin Gallery. Oberlin is well known Ives, best know for their colored lithographs REVIEW EDITORS for its art collection and this exhibit is no that were sold to the masses, almost all the Joanna Howe, Books – Europe exception. The curators of this exhibit bring images in this exhibition are black line and Bath Spa University, UK together a selection of the museum’s nine- shading on newsprint. Color lithographs by [email protected] teenth-century prints focusing on the human Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre Bonnard, comedy, à la Honoré de Balzac and Émile and others are a treat amidst the more subtle Millie Jackson, Books – Americas Édouard Charles Antoine Zola. Contempo- grey tones. University of Alabama, AL, USA rary drypoint etchings, engravings, charcoal This exhibition is curated by Libby [email protected] or graphite drawings, and woodcut prints Murphy, associate professor of French at are also included in the exhibition. Here and Oberlin College, with assistance from AMAM Susann Liebich, Books –Australasia/Pacific there albumen and silver print photographs Curatorial Assistant Sara Green and Curator James Cook University, QLD, AUS are hung alongside prints portraying similar of European and American Art Andaleeb [email protected] topics. Political events and everyday life are Badiee Banta. The curators focus the exhibit captured in the pen strokes, prints, and within captions on content and graphics, not on Abhijit Gupta, Books – South Asia photographic emulsions. Groupings of prints the lithographic process itself. There are Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India by topic are introduced in short paragraphs no examples of printing plates or partially [email protected] discussing the artists, the times, and the completed drawings. Each image is complete subjects. Each print is accompanied by text unto itself. Nevertheless, the evolution of the Lisa Pon, Exhibitions that sets the image into cultural and political lithograph, as both political commentary and Southern Methodist University, TX, USA context. French captions are translated into ephemeral object, is evident to the observant [email protected] English for easy comprehension. student of prints. As the viewer enters the gallery, he or she Historians of print hoping to study the BIBLIOGRAPHER sees external walls and exhibition cases hold- lithographs after the exhibit closes (when Cecile M. Jagodzinski ing lithographs. The inner walls are adorned they will again be available in the research Bloomington, IN, USA with photographs and other prints with rooms of the museum) will be disappointed [email protected] subjects that echo the lithographs they face. that the exhibition lacks a catalog of images Subdued lighting and quiet ambience are jux- and captions.

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