This year marks the 50th anniversary of the music festival known simply as Woodstock. As just about everyone knows by now, the festival was not held in Woodstock, New York--although anyone who visits the town today would not be disappointed by the amount of tie-dye and goodwill to be found there--and neither will this 50th anniversary edition, opting instead for the larger space at Watkins Glen International Speedway. From August 16-18, the festival's original producers are planning to bring both music and social activism to a new generation of concert-goers, the children, or more likely, the grandchildren, of original attendees. In a press release, Woodstock 1969's co-producer and co-founder Michael Lang commented, "The original festival in '69 was a reaction by the youth of the time to the causes we felt compelled to fight for - civil rights, women's rights, and the antiwar movement, and it gave way to our mission to share peace, love and music. Today, we're experiencing similar disconnects in our country, and one thing we've learned is that music has the power to bring people together. So, it's time to bring the Woodstock spirit back, get involved and make our voices heard." 
 

Apropos to all this, a vintage Woodstock poster--the iconic red poster featuring a stylized dove perched on the fretboard of a guitar--is headed to auction on January 31 in Philadelphia. Designed by Arnold Skolnick, the groovy poster advertises "3 Days of Peace & Music," in White Lake, NY, and features the names of performers like The Who, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin. The estimate is $800-1,200. 

 

Our Bright Young Librarians series continues today with Elizabeth Lisa Cruces, Hispanic Collections Archivist and Librarian at University of Houston Libraries:

What is your role at your institution?
 
Hispanic Collections Archivist and Librarian
 
How did you get started in special collections?
 
I found Special Collections during a historic preservation and public history internship shortly after graduating from undergrad with my degree in History. In the course of conducting research for a preservation project, I sort of stumbled into archives and shortly thereafter special collections librarianship. It was exciting to find a profession that brought together service, education and history.

Where did you earn your MLS/advanced degree???
University of Texas at Austin, Master of Science in Information Studies, 2012??

Favorite rare book / ephemera that you've handled?

Doodles by Jorge Luis Borges??  

What do you personally collect?

Zines.

What do you like to do outside of work???

Spend time with friends, hike, travel.

What excites you about special collections librarianship.

What excites me most about special collections librarianship is the movement towards making it a more inclusive and diverse--both in terms of the bibliographic objects and the make-up of the individuals in the profession. I really appreciate the strides organizations such as Rare Book School is making towards including more non-Western materials and formats into bibliography. 

Thoughts on the future of special collections librarianship?
   
The future is bright!

Any upcoming exhibitions at your library?
 
Houston Beyond Convention: The Photography of Ben DeSoto, 1980-present??

Houston Beyond Convention: The Photography of Ben DeSoto, 1980-present reflects on nearly four decades of work, past and present, produced by Houstonian Ben Tecumseh DeSoto, whose career spans genres of photography and a diversity of human experiences. After discovering his love for what he has called the "scientific magic" of the photographic process, DeSoto followed his passion for photography to a career chronicling his city. DeSoto has consistently challenged the viewer to see beyond static images of Houston, to look more deeply instead at the individual or community narrative behind the photograph.
 
Presented thematically, the exhibit showcases DeSoto's documentation of Houston: portraits of local visual artists and musicians from fringe music and arts scenes, fine art photography, journalism, as well as his life's work, the Understanding Poverty Project. Through photographs, news clippings, and audiovisual materials, Houston Beyond Convention: The Photography of Ben DeSoto, 1980-present tells the story of Houston--across class and race--and forces the viewer to move beyond conventional thinking.
 

Opening later this week is an exhibition fraught with forgeries. That's by design. It's the collection of William Voelkle, the curator emeritus of Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts at the Morgan Library and Museum, who recently retired after fifty years with the august institution. (He also wrote a fabulous article for us last year on bejeweled bindings). For five decades, Voelkle has sought fake illuminated manuscript leaves and miniatures, particularly the work of the Spanish Forger, on whom he published a book in 1978. 

The exhibition, titled Holy Hoaxes: A Beautiful Deception Celebrating William Voelkle's Collecting, will premiere in New York on Thursday at Les Enluminures, a gallery that specializes in manuscripts founded by Sandra Hindman. "It's with much pleasure that we mount this exhibition to celebrate William Voelkle's collection," said Hindman. "I myself have long worked on fakes, forgeries, and copyists of medieval manuscripts, and this occasion helps me acknowledge my debt to Bill's groundbreaking work."

The works on display include both items that were sold as "real" but later unmasked by Voelkle, and those sold as known fakes. Nothing on exhibit is for sale; it is purely a showcase of the collector's passion and dedication to his subject of choice. 

Read more in this Q & A between Voelkle and Hindman published by Art & Object. The exhibit runs through February 2. Several special lectures are also planned; check here for details. 

Images courtesy of Les Enluminures

On Tuesday, January 15, Heritage Auctions in Dallas will sell the John Silverstein Collection of African American Social History, in 383 lots. James Van Der Zee's Eighteen Photographs (1974), a portfolio of photographs taken between 1905 and 1938, has an opening bid of $8,750. A collection of more than a hundred letters from Charles A. Hill to his wife Lydia relating to his Civil War service in the 1st Regiment Infantry, U.S. Colored Troops has a reserve of $7,500. A poster believed to be the first use of black panther imagery, issued for a voter drive in Lowndes County, Alabama and predating the formation of the Black Panther Party, is currently bid up to $4,200. A collection of forty-one issues of the National Anti-Slavery Standard has an opening bid of $2,000.

Kestenbaum & Company holds an online sale of Printed Books, Holy Land Maps, Posters & Jewish Graphic Art on Thurday, January 17. The 173 lots include a 1917 poster issued as part of a campaign in which Russian Jews were to be allowed to elect members of their own Congress ($4,000-6,000) and a 1929 poster for the second lottery held by OZET, the Society for Settling Toiling Jews on the Land ($3,000-5,000; pictured). A copy of the 1518 Basle edition of Trithemius' Polygraphiae also rates a $3,000-5,000 estimate. At $2,000-3,000 we find a four-sheet copy of the Tabula Peutingeriana, showing the layout of the roads of the Roman Empire. A number of early printed books and a good selection of maps to be had in this sale.  

Among the 484 lots in the Collection of Anne H. & Frederick Vogel III, to be sold at Sotheby's New York on Saturday, Janaury 19 there are a few Audubon plates, including the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker ($50,000-80,000); the Fish Hawk (Osprey) at $30,000-50,000; and the Ruffed Grouse ($20,000-30,000), among others. A framed copy of the fourth state of John Smith's map of New England is estimated at $20,000-30,000, as is a copy of the second edition of William Wood's New England's Prospect.

Ah, January: that month touted as the time to refresh everything from one's diet and wellness to home decor. Why not apply the same mentality to your daily Insta scroll with some new bibliocentric feeds.

Special collections libraries, rare booksellers and collectors have embraced Instagram as an ideal platform to virtually share their treasures with the world. Fellow FB&C writer Nate Pedersen wrote the inaugural "rare Books on Instagram" post back in 2016, profiling institutional accounts like those of the British Library (@britishlibrary), the American Antiquarian Society (@americanantiquarian), and others. Follow-up posts looked at librarian accounts and collector feeds. Keeping with that theme, below, in no particular order, are ten noteworthy institutional Instagram accounts that excel at showcasing rare books, manuscripts, and other works on paper.     

Don't have an Instagram account? No problem: All of these accounts are freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection.                                                                                                                                  

La Bibliothèque nationale France (@labnf)

The Barr Smith Library at the University of Adelaide (@uofaspecialcollections)

The New York Public Library (@nypl)

Musée de Cluny (@museecluny) 

The Harry Ransom Center (@ransomcenter) 

The Emily Dickinson Museum (@emilydickinson.museum) 

The Printing Museum (@theprintingmuseum)

The HuntingtonLibrary (@thehuntingtonlibrary)

The Johns Hopkins University (@jhuspecialcollections)

The Alaska Digital Newspaper Project (@alaskahistoricalnewspapers)

It's not often that we hear breaking news about medieval manuscripts or, more especially, women's role in manuscript production. But here we are! In a fascinating (and open-access) article published yesterday in the journal Science Advances, researchers have concluded that the rare blue pigment known as ultramarine, being present in the dental plaque of an 11th- or 12th-century nun's skeleton unearthed in rural Germany, provides proof of women's work on illuminated medieval manuscripts. Specifically, it is suggested, the women acted as painters and illuminators -- painting and licking the tip of the brush, according to Monica Tromp, study co-author and microbioarchaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. 

Ultramarine, made from the lapis lazuli stone, is "rare and expensive as gold," the researchers note in the article. "Within the context of medieval art, the application of highly pure ultramarine in illuminated works was restricted to luxury books of high value and importance, and only scribes and painters of exceptional skill would have been entrusted with its use." 

They go on to conclude, as summarized in the article's abstract, that "The early use of this pigment by a religious woman challenges widespread assumptions about its limited availability in medieval Europe and the gendered production of illuminated texts."

More on this story in the Atlantic, CNN, and the New York Times. 

New York based rare book dealer and collector Stephan Loewentheil, owner of the largest known collection of Chinese photography in private hands, currently has 120 early Chinese photographs on exhibition at the Tsinghua University Art Museum in Beijing.

The exhibition covers the 1850s, when the first Western photographers arrived in China, through the 1880s, and offers an exceedingly rare glimpse into the daily lives and landscapes of a country previously known to the West only through paintings and travelouges. It includes examples of early photographic technology, such as albumen prints and the "wet plate" process.

"People wanted to bring back great images that they could sell in other places," said Loewentheil in an interview with CNN. "People who traveled there, everyone from diplomats and businessmen to missionaries, all wanted to bring home a record of this beautiful culture of China that was so unique."

In addition to photographs taken by visiting Westerners, Loewentheil's collection and exhibition contain numerous examples of photographs taken by early Chinese photographers who acquired their equipment from departing Westerners or designed their own cameras after observing Western cameras in action.

Lowentheil's eventual goal is to house his collection, with over 15,000 photographs, in China. In the meantime, the exhibition in on display at Tsinghua University Art Museum in Beijing through the end of March.

The Winter Show, a fair dedicated to art, antiques, and design, returns to the Park Avenue Armory in New York City on January 18 for its 65th annual run. And this year, Nantucket, the tiny island known as much for its whaling history as for its upscale beaches, is a focal point. One of the fair highlights, for example, is this lithograph from 1881 by Beck & Pauli depicting a bird's-eye view of Nantucket. It is being exhibited by the well known Philadelphia map and print dealer Graham Arader. 

The offering is apropos to the Winter Show's loan exhibition, Collecting Nantucket, Connecting the World, which celebrates 125 years of collecting by the Nantucket Historical Association (NHA). It will present an array of exceptional paintings, craft, and folk arts related to the beautiful summer vacation spot. On Saturday, January 19 at 2:00, the director of the NHA will speak to this in "Connecting the World: 125 Years of Collecting on Nantucket." And, relatedly, Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the National Book Award-winning In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, will give a lecture on the enduring power of Moby-Dick on the fair's final day, Sunday, January 27, at 2:00. 

A return to action in the auction rooms this week, with two sales on Thursday, January 10:
  

Forum Auctions holds an online sale of Books and Works on Paper, in 174 lots. A complete-to-date set of the definitive edition of the works of Voltaire (121 volumes published between 1969 and 2018) is estimated at £1,500-2,000, while a copy of the 38-volume Centenary Limited Edition of Churchill's works could fetch £1,000-1,500. A collection of 155 vellum-bound (or at least vellum-spined) volumes is estimated at £600-800. Other items of interest here include a New Jersey manuscript receipt book from the 1820s (£200-300); a large collection of bookseller and auction catalogues (£200-300); and a collection of about 600 20th-century Portuguese bookplates (£200-300; one pictured). There are also several large lots of bibliographies and other bibliographical publications.

At PBA Galleries, Literature of the 19th & 20th Centuries, with the Glenn Todd Collection of Arion Press & Beat Literature, in 433 lots. The top-estimated lot is the Arion Press edition of W. B. Yeats' Poems (1990), with an additional suite of six etchings by Richard Diebenkorn ($15,000-25,000). Glenn Todd's copy of the Arion Press Moby-Dick (1979) is estimated at $10,000-15,000. The Arion Press edition of Brillat-Savarin's The Physiology of Taste (1994) rates a $7,000-10,000 estimate.

Beyond the impressive Arion Press selection, expected highlights from this sale include a rebacked first printing of Tom Sawyer ($4,000-6,000); a signed first edition of John Williams' Stoner ($2,000-3,000); a first edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin with a later laid-in inscription by Stowe ($2,000-3,000). A complete collection of Sue Grafton's Alphabet series, with some related ephemera, is also estimated at $2,000-3,000. Lots 337-443 are being sold without reserve.

New Orleans has a rich literary history--William Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson, Walker Percy, and many others called the Big Easy home or featured it in their work. And now, the city's National World War II Museum offers veterans a haven for their stories of war and sacrifice.

Over two decades ago, authors and historians Stephen Ambrose and Nick Muller originally envisioned a museum in recognition of New Orleans-based manufacturer Andrew Higgins, whose landing craft, vehicle, personnel (LCVP) boats ferried platoons onto the beaches of Normandy during the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944. The D-Day Museum opened in 2000 but by 2003 had outgrown its original scope, when it was redesignated the official National World War II Museum by Congress. (Note: As an independent non-profit, the museum is unaffected by the current government shutdown.) Today, the six-acre campus sprawls across the city's Historic Warehouse District and offers sweeping immersive and interactive displays exploring WWII and its aftermath.

And the museum isn't done growing: by January 2020, the Liberation Pavilion will open to the public: a three-story building encompassing a second-floor library with space for 22,000 volumes.

"Currently, we've got approximately 10,000 written and oral histories from WWII veterans that will be housed in the new library," said Toni Kiser, the museum's assistant director for collections management. "Some of these histories were originally collected by Ambrose for his books like Band of Brothers and D-Day, while others arrived as part of larger acquisitions." The testimonials vary by length and scope. Some veterans put pen to paper when the war was still fresh in their minds and had their memoirs printed, bound, and even distributed. Others are more modest and informal, spanning a few pages at best.

Some of the memoirs exist only as oral histories committed to film--Ambrose conducted many such interviews for his books, for example. Conversely, some recorded narratives have lost their original visual or aural component. "Interestingly, Ambrose would use the same tape to record his interviews--after transcribing each interview, he would record over the old interview with a new one," explained Kiser. "Other, older oral histories came to us on VHS. The museum is having them digitized and transcribed so that anyone who comes in can access them."

Kiser hopes that these memoirs will help future generations to understand this war once open to the public. Though non-lending, the library will be open to scholars and other visitors. "We're getting to the point where most of the veterans from WWII have passed away. And each story is a unique wartime experience. These memoirs will serve as a beacon for future generations as a reminder of what these brave men fought for and what the war meant for America."