Pixeum:The Digital Gallery

The Paper Bigelow Art Collection

Welcome to the Paper-Bigelow art collection. This is an example of how Pixeum can help a collector to share the stories of their collection. And in this sequence, I’m going to share just a few of the items in our collection. Eleanor and I love art and maps, but, more than that, we love the artists who created these works. We love their stories and their inspiration. And we especially love the story of how we came to purchase each piece and how each piece inspires us.Tom Papertom@pixeum.orgLink to Item Listing PDF

Harmony Masks Conflict: The Mediterranean in the Medieval Islamic Imagination - Karen Pinto

Professor Karen Pinto has spent three decades at the forefront of the study of Islamic cartographic history. Her first book, Medieval Islamic Maps: An Exploration, came out in 2016, and she is currently working on a second, focusing on Islamic maps of the Mediterranean. Today, she is an Associate Scholar in the Religious Studies Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder."When I was a graduate student at Columbia in 1991, my professor, the late but incredibly great Olivia Remie Constable (1961-2014), suggested that I write a seminar paper on the medieval Muslim geographers. That sent me to the dark recessed of the Islamic history and geography collection on the 11th floor of the Butler Library. There I, literally, tripped over Konrad Miller’s late 1920’s extensive 6 volume: Mappae Arabicae: Arabische Welt und Länderkarten des 9–13. Jahrunderts. (6 vols. Stuttgart, 1926–1931) black and white reprints of hundreds of medieval Islamic maps hidden in Oriental manuscripts hitherto little known in the western history of cartography world.Miller’s dusty, crumbling black-and-white reprints of medieval Islamic maps of the Mediterranean, formed the basis of my first major work on the subject: “Ṣūrat Baḥr al-Rūm: The Mediterranean in the Medieval Muslim Cartographical Imagination,” my MA Essay at Columbia U that went on to win SSRC’s 1992 Ibn Khaldun Prize. That experience led, in turn, to a life-long obsession and hunt for maps scattered in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscript libraries worldwide that resulted in her first book on Islamic maps of the world in “Medieval Islamic Maps: An Introduction” (Chicago, 2016) and a collection of some three thousand images of maps, many not reprinted.

Passion & Conflict: Islamicate Maps of the Maghrib / ‘the West’ (Iberian Peninsula and North Africa)

KMMS Maghrib MapsFor more information on these 8th-15th century KMMS maps of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula check out this detailed article on the subject by Karen Pinto, “Interpretation, Intention, and Impact: Andalusi Arab and Norman Sicilian Examples of Islamo-Christian Cartographic Translation”: https://www.academia.edu/37439184/Interpretation_Intention_and_Impact_Andalusi_Arab_and_Norman_Sicilian_Examples_of_Islamo_Christian_Cartographic_Translation Note that the bulk of the medieval Islamic cartographic tradition is characterized by emblematic images of striking geometric form that symbolize – in Atlas-like fashion – particular parts of the Islamic world to the familiar viewer. They comprise a major carto-geographic manuscript tradition known by the universal title of Kitab al-Masalik wa al-Mamalik (Book of Roads and Kingdoms) that was copied with major and minor variations throughout the Islamic world for eight centuries. It was a stylized amimetic vision restricted to the literati and, specifically, to the readers, collectors, commissioners, writers and copyists of the particular geographic texts within which these maps are encased. The plethora of extant copies dating from the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries produced all over the Islamic world – including Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt, North Africa, Anatolia, and even India – testifies to the long-lasting and widespread popularity of a particular medieval Islamic cartographic vision. Each manuscript typically contains twenty-one iconic maps starting with an image of the world, then the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian Ocean, the Maghrib (North Africa and Andalusia), Egypt, Syria, the Mediterranean, upper and lower Iraq, as well as twelve maps devoted to the Iranian provinces, beginning with Khuzistan and ending in Khurasan, including maps of Sind and Transoxiana.If you want to see more examples check out Pixeum exhibition 412 which contains “Islamic Maps from the Collection of Karen Pinto”: https://pixeum.org/exhibits/412/islamic-maps-from-the-collection-of-karen-pintoIf you have chance do check out my book on “Medieval Islamic Maps” https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/M/bo17703325.html

Islamic Maps from the Collection of Karen Pinto

Raised in Karachi, Pakistan, of Indian, Russian, French, and 16th century Goan-Portuguese stock, educated at Dartmouth and Columbia, Karen Pinto specializes in the history of Islamic cartography and its intersections between Ottoman, European, and other worldly cartographic traditions. She has spent three decades hunting down maps in Oriental manuscript collections around the world. She has a 3000-strong image repository of Islamic maps—many that have never been published before. Her book Medieval Islamic Maps: An Exploration was published by The University of Chicago Press in November 2016 and won a 2017 OAT (Outstanding Academic Title) award from Choice. She has won numerous grants for her work on Islamic maps, including a 2013-14 NEH fellowship. She has published articles on medieval Islamic, medieval European and Ottoman maps and has on-going book projects on “What is 'Islamic' about Islamicate Maps” and “The Mediterranean in the Islamic Cartographic Imagination.” Along with her work on Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, she is interested in Digital Humanities, Spatial Studies, and in developing 3D spatial modules of places on Islamic Maps. Presently she is an Associate Scholar in the Religious Studies Department at the University of Colorado, Boulder. (The picture of her with Ottoman Turkish Janissary actors was taken on the grounds of Topkapi Saray Palace where she was conducting research on the maps in the library’s primary manuscript collection.)Copies of her publications are available through: https://independentscholar.academia.edu/KarenPintoSeveral important links to her work are included below:Aramco World Calendar 2020article about calendarPDF of calendarKaren's Interactive360 tour of Sülemaniye mosque complex in IstanbulKaren’s talk on 3 Decades+ work on Islamic maps: How did cartographers imagine the “Muslim” world? What is Islamic about Islamic cartography? Why did the cartographers not strive for mimesis and employ a visual language of stylized forms? What are the Late Antique, Ancient, and Prehistoric roots of Islamic cartography? How does it connect to other cartographical imaginations of the time—Christian, Chinese, Indic and otherwise? Was there a conception of dār al-Islam vs. a dār al-ḥarb in “Muslim Cartography? Who was considered us and who was the other in this cartographical rendition of the world? How can absences, presences, and anomalies be investigated to reveal unknown historiographical nuggets? Recording: https://youtu.be/IxOruMB-rUs*Longer Bio of how Karen came America and started working on Islamic maps in 1990:Growing up in Karachi, Pakistan, I somehow became map crazed. Was it the countless jigsaw puzzles (like Daniel Crouch 😉), many with missing pieces, that I broke and remade again and again during childhood, all too often holed up in a hospital bed? Or perhaps it was the wonderful family field trips into the heart of the Sindh desert? During my Convent of Jesus and Mary (CJM) O’Level school days, I excelled in geography for which my own hand drawn maps were well known among my classmates. My teacher loved them and my friends liked to take a peek at them in order to improve their own. ;-)American educational good fortune first smiled on me when Dartmouth decided to take in their first student from Pakistan :) At the Big D I got down to the ground and did some 'real' mapping and even fell into the Connecticut river while trying to map one of its banks! Off the Green, I merged the interests in geography and history that sustain me today.From there I headed to Columbia ostensibly to study International affairs but I took an accidental elective detour into a spell-binding Bulliet class on medieval Islamic history and was hooked thereafter—like a number of other unsuspecting SIPA grads :) Through the accident of stumbling upon a crumbling copy of Konrad Miller's early 20th century Mappae Arabicae in Baker Library in Spring 1990, while hunting for my MA topic I began a medieval odyssey that made me an expert in the world of medieval Islamicate carto-geography. And so was kindled a quest to see as many medieval Islamicate maps in situ as possible. Now, having collected 3,000 plus images from manuscript libraries around the world, I am deeply immersed in the study of medieval Islamic maps. One book is out ("Medieval Islamic Maps"), three others are on the way ("The Mediterranean in the Medieval Islamicate Imagination" (based on my like-named MA essay of 1991), "What is Islamic about 'Islamicate' Maps," and "Islamo-Christian Cartographic Connections." Plus I am working on a digital site MIME (Medieval Islamicate Maps Encyclopedia) to preserve and make the maps available online. Many of the maps are from hard-to-access manuscript libraries in the Middle East and Europe. Starting in 1992 at Topkapi Saray and Sülemaniye libraries in Istanbul, I have devoted 3 decades to examining, dating/redating, and identifying the maps and the manuscripts that house them. I love to travel and am especially fond of finding unknown and lost places and ofc I am always on the lookout for unknown maps—especially those that are not easily identifiable as maps. My special interest is seeing maps where no one saw a map before and explaining how and why that unknown image is a map ;-)In Idaho my favorite “hard-to-figure-out-it’s-a-map” map is "Map Rock" outside Celebration Park :) It is one of the earliest extant maps in the world yet little known in the map world. I will briefly mention it at the outset of my talk. Here’s link to an brief article about it if you want to check it out: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/map-rocksee also from 9/19/24 LOC presentation:https://sims2.digitalmappa.org/36

Islamo-Christian Cartographic Frontiers: Views from Medieval Islamic Maps of the Mediterranean

Carta Marina for the "Nuits de la lecture"

Le célèbre cartographe Martin Waldseemüller, décédé en 1520, a réalisé une grande carte du monde en 1507, la première à appliquer le nom "Amérique" au Nouveau Monde, et une autre neuf ans plus tard en 1516, sa Carta marina. Au cours de ces neuf années, il a complètement changé ses idées sur ce que devait être une carte du monde : en réalisant sa Carta marina, il a mis de côté presque tout le travail qu'il avait fait pour sa carte de 1507, et a basé sa nouvelle carte sur une projection différente et des sources différentes, la rendant beaucoup plus riche en textes descriptifs et en images. De plus, alors qu'en 1507 il représentait les 360 degrés de la circonférence de la Terre, dans sa Carta marina, il ne montre que les parties qui étaient raisonnablement bien connues. En résumé, la carte était révolutionnaire.https://www.nuitsdelalecture.fr/a-propos Mon livre sur la Carta marina est disponible en accès libre. Voici les détails et le lien :Van Duzer, Chet, Martin Waldseemüller’s Carta marina of 1516: Study and Transcription of the Long Legends (New York: Springer, 2020)https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-22703-6

A.K. Lobeck Geography Pamphlets

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_K._Lobeck

Eight Interesting Aspects: Narragansett Bay and the Invention of Rhode Island - Andrew Middleton

Enter Andrew's first DOT story here. Enter Andrew's second DOT story here.Hidden in this British invasion map is the history of a state's founding identity.As of August 2024, Andrew Middleton has owned the Map Center, the oldest map store on the East Coast, for nine months, on his quest to introduce cartography enthusiasts to a new generation of maps. You can visit Andrew at the Map Center at 545 Pawtucket Ave, Pawtucket, Rhode Island and at https://www.mapcenter.com/. Andrew Middleton - DOT story - Eight Interesting Aspects - Narragansett Bay and the Invention of Rhode Island - 8/8/24Andrew Middleton - DOT story - Eight Interesting Aspects - The Myths of Rhode Island - 8/8/24

French Posters / Jules Cheret - Rich Breiman Collection - Curated by Gabrielle Ly

April 2024 - Born in 1836 to a family of artisans, Jules Cheret is known today as the father of modern lithography. His artistic influence began at an early age: his father was a typographer. Due to his family’s poverty, Cheret was apprenticed to a lithographer at the age of 13. He eventually invented color lithography as it exists today, transforming dull prints into veritable rainbows of color.Surprisingly, Cheret’s only formal art training was a single course at the Ecole Nationale de Dessin in Paris. He eventually moved to London, England to study photography and design from 1859 to 1866. His experience and exposure to further lithography techniques inspired him to establish his lithography firm in Paris in 1866. Eugene Rimmel, a perfume manufacturer, funded Cheret’s firm after hiring him to create packaging. Cheret imported the lithography machines from London as they did not exist in France yet.Cheret created his first poster in 1858, commissioned for the operetta Orpheus in the Underworld in London. At first, his posters only used three colors, made from three overlapping prints in the lithographic process. (He also influenced artists such as Henri de Toulous-Lautrec who used the same process of color lithography.)The artist was awarded the Legion of Honor by the French government in 1890 for his contributions to the arts. He designed over a thousand posters for different venues and performances. Cheret passed away at the age of 96 in 1932, having retired to the French Riviera in Nice, France.The term “Cherettes” was coined to describe how Cheret portrayed women in his posters. In contradiction to his time, he depicted women not as puritans or prostitutes but as lively and elegant, free and bold individuals. They appeared as individuals with their own lives and desires, making some call Cheret a pioneer in female liberation.Over time, his style evolved. With “Cherettes” taking the center focus, his compositions became more dynamic and typography-heavy. His posters, influenced by Rococo painters and Japanese woodblock prints, featured simplified backgrounds, flanked by glowing colors and textures. His work elevated lithography to an art form and became popular as it portrayed the gaiety of the time.VOICE NOTE TRANSCRIPT:Jules Cheret, 1836 to 1932, was the pioneer of color lithography and invented a new way of printing color.He started his artistic journey at 13 as an apprentice to a lithographer. Surprisingly, he barely had any formal art training, having taken only one formal course at the Ecole Nationale de Dessin in Paris. He moved to London to study photography and design from 1859 to 1866, later moving back to Paris to open his own firm. His firm was originally funded by a perfume manufacturer who loved Cheret’s design. Cheret imported his lithography machines from London as they did not exist in France at the time. He was known for his poster designs and prints, often printing his and other artists’ works at his print shop Imprimere Chaix in Paris during the Belle Epoque era. This generation of artists ushered in a more colorful period in printed works. He released a collection of 250 prints called the Les Maitres de l'Affiche. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jules_Ch%C3%A9retkeyword: richbreiman

Report of the Cruise of the Steamer Corwin in the Arctic Ocean - 1885

I became aware of this book after reading Hampton Side's amazing book, In the Kingdom of Ice, which tells the story of the 1880's De Long expedition of the Jeanette to the North Pole. As a part of the Jeanette story, Sides tells the story of the Corwin, which had a famous crew member, John Muir, who later wrote a book called The Cruise of the Corwin. This exhibit is an official report of one of the cruises of the Corwin, in 1885, led by Michael A. Healy, although it was not the same cruise during which Muir was a crew member, in 1881. However, in that 1881 cruise, whose purpose was to find the De Long expedition, Healy was in command and Muir was one of the crew. keyword: 19thCentury

Eight Interesting Aspects: The Sea Returns to Mission Bay - Fred DeJarlais

Enter the DOT story here.Fred DeJarlais is a retired urban planner with interests in both tech and the arts. He is the past president of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UC Santa Cruz, on the Board of the Santa Cruz Opera Society, past president of the and current treasurer of Espressivo Chamber Orchestra, past president of the California Map Society, and the current publisher of their cartographic journal, Calafia. As a planner, he worked on the Mission Bay Project in San Francisco from 1982 to 2000. He was his firm’s infrastructure and entitlement manager on the project.

Eight Interesting Aspects: Orienting Yourself in a Lost Landscape - Jim Schein

Jim and Marti Schein have owned and operated Schein & Schein Antique Maps and Prints since 2003. Recently, Jim wrote the book Gold Mountain, Big City: Ken Cathcart's 1947 Illustrated Map of San Francisco's Chinatown, which is available on the Schein & Schein website and other places where you can buy books online. Today, Jim presents one of his favorite maps: the 1853 U.S.C.S map of San Francisco and its vicinity.

Eight Interesting Aspects: Mapping the Solar System - Nick Kanas

Dr. Nick Kanas is an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He trained at Stanford University (B.A. Psychology); UCLA Medical School (M.D. 1971); University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston (Internship); and UCSF (Psychiatry Residency 1975). After training and serving in the United States Air Force as a psychiatrist, he joined the faculty at UCSF and the affiliated San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, where he conducted clinical and research work on people suffering from stressful conditions. He has over 230 professional publications and is the recipient of the Dr. J. Elliott Royer Award for academic psychiatry. He directed the Group Therapy Training Program for the UCSF Department of Psychiatry; supervised and led patient therapy groups; conducted training workshops; wrote a book entitled Group Therapy for Schizophrenic Patients, and for over 20 years edited the Research Reviews section of the International Journal of Group Psychotherapy. In 2021, he published a book entitled: Integrative Group Therapy for Psychosis: An Evidence-based Approach. Since 1969, Prof. Kanas has studied and written about psychological and interpersonal issues affecting people living and working in space. He has done space-related research since the late 1980s, and for over 15 years he was a NASA-funded principal investigator, doing psychological research with astronauts and cosmonauts. He is a member and former trustee of the International Academy of Astronautics, and he has been a consultant to SpaceX. In 2017, he gave the Psi Chi Keynote Speech on space psychology at the Eastern Psychological Association Convention in Boston; he was invited by the Buzz Aldrin Space Institute to participate in a Mars mission workshop at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida; and he was invited to give a series of lectures on space psychology to students at Beihang University, Beijing, China. For over 20 years, he has chaired the paper session on Behavior, Performance and Psychosocial Issues in Space for the yearly International Astronautical Congress, and he has presented papers and plenaries at Humans in Space Symposia (most recently in 2017 and 2021), and at NASA Human Research Program Investigators’ Workshops (most recently in 2021, 2022, and 2023). In 1999, Prof. Kanas received the Aerospace Medical Association Raymond F. Longacre Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in the Psychological and Psychiatric Aspects of Aerospace Medicine. In 2008, he received the International Academy of Astronautics Life Science Award. He has written three book on space psychology. Together with Dietrich Manzey, he is the senior author of the book Space Psychology and Psychiatry (now in its 2nd edition), which was given the 2004 International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) Life Science Book Award. His book Humans in Space: The Psychological Hurdles was given the 2016 IAA Life Science Book Award. In 2023, he published a textbook entitled Behavioral Health and Human Interactions in Space, which won the IAA Life Sciences Book Award for that year. He continues to write and consult on the psychosocial aspects of human space travel. Prof. Kanas has collected antiquarian celestial maps for over 40 years and has given a number of talks on celestial cartography at public venues, such as the Adler Planetarium, the Lick Observatory, and the California Academy of Sciences (as a Benjamin Dean lecturer). He also has presented at the International Conference on the History of Cartography at Harvard; International Map Collectors Society Conferences in Wellington (New Zealand) and Vienna; the Society for the History of Astronomy Conference in Birmingham (England); and the Flamsteed Astronomical Society meeting in Greenwich (England). He has published articles on celestial cartography in magazines and journals, such as Sky and Telescope, Imago Mundi, and the Journal of the International Map Collectors Society. He is a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (London). He has written two celestial map books: Star Maps: History, Artistry, and Cartography (now in its 3rd edition), and Solar System Maps: From Antiquity to the Space Age. He has been an amateur astronomer for over 60 years and is an avid reader of science fiction. He has presented talks on space psychology and on celestial mapping at several regional and World Con science fiction conventions; published three factual articles on space psychology in Analog Science Fiction and Fact magazine (one of which won the annual readers’ poll award for 2015 Best Fact Article); and has published three science fiction novels: The New Martians, The Protos Mandate, and The Caloris Network. He has written a screenplay for The New Martians, which currently is being reviewed by various producers. Prof. Kanas is a docent (human evolution track) at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. He enjoys interacting with the public (both adults and children) and helping them learn about the marvels of science. Website: nickkanas.com. E-mail: nick.kanas@ucsf.edu.

Eleven Interesting Aspects: The (True) Center of the World - Leonard Rothman

Pictured: Dr. Rothman, surrounded by his books and globes.Dr. Leonard Rothman, M.D. is an obstetrician gynecologist, map collector, and former president of the California Map Society. He has made almost a thousand images of his collection available to the public at Stanford Searchworks and will be taking you through one of his favorite maps: Braun and Hogenberg's 1575 map of Jerusalem.Enjoy!To go to Dr. Rothman's tour, click here or on the pin icon on the left.

Eight Interesting Aspects: The Biggest Little Battle in American History - Ron Gibbs

In this exhibit's DOT story, Dr. Ron Gibbs takes us through a 1777 British map of the "biggest little battle in American history." The battle involved fewer than 4,000 soldiers, but it saved the cause of American independence at one of its lowest ebbs.Ronald S. Gibbs, M.D. is a physician, map collector, medical researcher, and author at Stanford University now serving as the president of the California Map Society. He has written several articles on 18th-century military medicine, as well as two novels about the American Revolution: The Long Shot: The Secret History of 1776 and The Rogue's Plot: The Untold Story of 1777.You can see more of his work at https://ronaldsgibbs.com/about-american-revolution.

Audubon Birds - Rich Breiman Collection - Curated by Katharine Griswold

April 2024 - From the collection of Rich Breiman. (shot 2023-07-29)John James "JJ" Audubon was a French-American artist and naturalist, most known for his work in ornithology, published in various editions of “Birds of America.” Born in Haiti, raised in France, Audubon spent his childhood fascinated with birds, and once he headed to the states at 18, his interests only grew. His father had given him an estate in Pennsylvania, where he began a series of drawings of American birds: he would observe the birds’ habitat and behavior, then would shoot and hang it and draw it as close to life as possible. He was never too concerned with making money, remarking in his diary: “birds were birds then as now, and my thoughts were ever and anon thinking toward them as the objects of my greatest delight. I shot, I drew, I looked on nature only; my days were happy beyond human conception, and beyond this I really cared not.” He abandoned or failed at most business ventures; he and his wife spent their young adulthood in poverty, and Audubon even spent some time in debtor prison. He began to spend months at a time in the woods, hunting, drawing, and writing biographies. With a large collection, but just a fraction of what he would come to produce, Audubon sailed to England in search of a friendlier market for his work. His American bird series sold well, and he was able to find a printer for his work in London, as well as a collaborator in William MacGillivray, an ornithologist who assisted him in the descriptions of each bird. Audubon’s work was becoming pretty popular, but the huge folios he was producing were not accessible to everyone. The octavo edition, which is a smaller edition that was meant to be more accessible, was produced in Philadelphia beginning in 1840. Most of the prints in this collection are from the first two editions of the octavo “Birds of America.” In his work, Audubon made use of his extensive research, and of his from-life models. The majority of his images are exactly true to life, with every feather and limb being placed meticulously. To recount his process, he would use wire to pose the birds in positions that would have been the most natural in the wild, while also considering what parts of the bird should be visible to the viewer. There is an obvious compositional effort in the pieces, as well: no bird is alone on the canvas, and while some are more intricate than others, Audubon does his best to place each bird within a fitting habitat. Whether these scenes are real or imagined is indeterminate―it’s probably a bit of both.Audubon’s legacy is fairly complicated for a number of reasons. While he was not the first to do what he did, not even in America, he was the most influential by far. Often praised in his life for his artistic ability, Audubon’s works were beautiful and lifelike. He was respected enough as an ornithologist and natural historian that the Audubon Society, a non-profit that works towards the conservation and habitat preservation of endangered birds, was named after him. But there are also rumors of fraud and theft, for example, that he drew imaginary birds. It's true that there are some birds that he drew that are unidentified, some think that he drew hybrids or was forced to draw in some cases from memory, and some think this was more intentional. There is a controversy regarding his plate of the Bird of Washington, for example, which Audubon claimed to be a new species closely related to the bald eagle, but seems to be just a youngling of that species. This is a fascinating read, and it is linked below. He also in his field notes describes the taste of many of the species he records. In his hunting, it seems, he also killed many more birds than were necessary just for survival and for drawing. Most important to mention was his lifetime of opposition to the abolition movement. He produced writings against emancipation, and he himself bought enslaved people for his estate when he still owned it, and for his expeditions before setting off to England. Despite the importance of his art, and the good that has come from his legacy, it is important to recognize that the man behind them was imperfect, to say the least. For more information:The Myth of John James AudubonJohn James Audubon(Audubon Society)John James Audubon(Britannica)Five Mystery Birds Among Audubon's PaintingsAudubon's Bird of Washington: unravelling the fraud that launched the Birds of AmericaAudubon and his JournalsAll About BirdsBirds of AmericaAudubon Society: Guide to North American BirdsAuthored by Katharine GriswoldKeyword: richbreiman

Larmessin Whimsical Costumes of Professions - Rich Breiman Collection - Curated by Gabrielle Ly

April 2024 - To view voice note transcript, scroll to the bottom. Gabrielle's text:Nicolas de Larmessin I (1632-1694) was a printmaker, known for his portraiture. Apprenticed to Jean Mathieu in 1647, de Larmessin later married the daughter of publisher Pierre Bertrand in 1654 and took over his stock in 1678. Bertrand published many of Larmessin’s works.His collection “Grotesque Costumes,” also known as Habits des meters et professions or Les costumes grotesques et les metiers, features tradesmen and tradeswomen with the wardrobe and tools of their craft. Portraying each tradesperson in the standard costume stance of the time, Larmessin’s portrait combines the influence of ballet costumes, portraying them in a fanciful documentary style. Though the costumes were first created by de Larmessin, his brother or son Nicholas de Larmessin II expanded on this idea of portraying the trades and added thirty-two plates to the collection. To have the full collection of roughly one hundred designs in one place is quite rare.These prints are “productively positioned between the fantastic and lived experience” (Pullins). Created by a tradesman like Larmessin, the portraits ought to be seen in reference to his time (representing trades, fashions, and culture of the time) and referring to the art world. The portraits walk a fine line, in tension between two opposing worlds. To the viewer, this collection deals with familiar materials of French life, though framed like an ethnography print. It lends a fantastical lens to the domestic, changing one’s preexisting perspective.Sources: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG34865https://www.martayanlan.com/pages/books/5488/nicolas-de-larmessin/les-costumes-grotesques-et-les-metiers-habits-des-metiers-et-professions?soldItem=truePrint of Louis XIV from https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2023/01/the-dancing-sun-king/ David Pullins, Techniques of the Body: Viewing the Arts and Métiers of France from the Workshop of Nicolas I and Nicolas II de Larmessin, Oxford Art Journal, Volume 37, Issue 2, June 2014, Pages 135–155, https://doi-org.stmarys-ca.idm.oclc.org/10.1093/oxartj/kcu005_____________________________________________________Katharine's TextNicolas I de Larmissin was a French engraver. Born in 1632, he produced a vast portfolio of work in his lifetime. Most of his work was portraiture, and was often in series: this exhibit features his costumes of professions. Absurdly impractical and opulent, these costumes draw attention to features of various professions in a playful and mocking way. Intricate details give insights into the professions depicted, yet there is an obviously exaggerated aspect of the pieces. Sources: British Museum, Fashion History_____________________________________________________Nicolas de Larmessin was a French engraver born in Paris in 1632. He came from a family of famous generational engravers and printers who worked in the 17th and 18th centuries. Nicolas de Larmessin is known for creating etched pictures of various artisans and skilled laborers. His work, characterized by attention to detail, is part of a series of satires and grotesques of the professions from the 1700s. Little is known about his life, but he is recognized for engraving a number of portraits. He was the elder brother of Nicolas de Larmessin II, who was also a French artist. The goal of Nicolas de Larmessin's artwork depicting artisans and skilled laborers is not fully documented.Source: Perplexity.aiVOICE NOTE TRANSCRIPT:Nicolas de Larmessin I (1632-1694) was a printmaker, known for his portraiture and his works on the different trades. He began learning the trade while apprenticing to the engraver Jean Mathieu in 1647. In 1654, de Larmessin later married the daughter of print-publisher and print-seller Pierre Bertrand, and worked for his father-in-law, taking over his stock in 1678 at Bertrand’s death. His collection “Grotesque Costumes,” also known as Habits des meters et professions or Les costumes grotesques et les metiers, features tradesmen and tradeswomen with the wardrobe and tools of their craft. Though the costumes were first created by de Larmessin, his brother or son Nicholas de Larmessin II expanded on this idea of portraying the trades and added thirty-two plates to the collection. To have a complete collection of roughly one hundred designs in one place is quite rare. Keyword: richbreiman

250th Anniversary of the American Revolution - by Ron Gibbs

Images for presentation by Ron Gibbs at The California Map Society's Spring Conference, June 29, 2024, at the David Rumsey Map Center. Images from the collection of Jane and Ronald Gibbs.Source: SearchWorks at Stanford University keyword: rongibbs

Atlas to Marshall's Life of Washington - from the Jane and Ronald Gibbs Collection

5/11/24 - This book was shared by Ron Gibbs at Bay Area Map (BAM) Group meeting at Rothman residence. Ron has written two historical novels about George Washington around the time of the revolution. More info can be found on Ron’s website here.An atlas made as a complement to the famous biography of George Washington, written by Supreme Court Justice John Marshall. From the collection of Jane and Ron Gibbs.From Wikipedia: John Marshall (September 24, 1755 – July 6, 1835) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the fourth chief justice of the United States from 1801 until his death in 1835. Marshall remains the longest-serving chief justice and fourth-longest serving justice in Supreme Court history, and he is widely regarded as one of the most influential justices to ever sit on the Supreme Court. Prior to joining the Supreme Court (and for one month simultaneous to his tenure as Chief Justice), Marshall served as the fourth United States Secretary of State under President John Adams.After his appointment to the Supreme Court, Marshall began working on a biography of George Washington. He did so at the request of his close friend, Associate Justice Bushrod Washington, who had inherited the papers of his uncle. Marshall's The Life of George Washington, the first biography about a U.S. president ever published, spanned five volumes and just under one thousand pages. The first two volumes, published in 1803, were poorly-received and seen by many as an attack on the Democratic-Republican Party.[119] Nonetheless, historians have often praised the accuracy and well-reasoned judgments of Marshall's biography, while noting his frequent paraphrases of published sources such as William Gordon's 1801 history of the Revolution and the British Annual Register.[120] After completing the revision to his biography of Washington, Marshall prepared an abridgment. In 1833 he wrote, "I have at length completed an abridgment of the Life of Washington for the use of schools. I have endeavored to compress it as much as possible. ... After striking out every thing which in my judgment could be properly excluded the volume will contain at least 400 pages."[121] The Abridgment was not published until 1838, three years after Marshall died.[122]Keywords: RonGibbs

George Washington and the American Revolution, 1775-1776 - by Ron Gibbs

During the first two, precarious years of the American Revolution, the outcome was often in doubt. The Digital Gallery is pleased to present the exhibit, “George Washington and the American Revolution, 1775-1776,” to chronicle these critical times through historic maps, iconic paintings, and explanatory text. Here you can explore the maps and images related to both the defeats and eventual victories of these campaigns.See Ron Gibbs' historical novel about George Washington and the American Revolution, The Long Shot.October 2021: “Terrain and Tactics, British War Plan of 1776,” new article by Ronald Gibbs, Courtney Spikes and Thomas Paper. British General William Howe’s “War Plan illustrates the dichotomy of…[his]…tactical brilliance and his characteristic delays that thwarted his ultimate success. In contrast, General Washington was able to maintain the integrity of his army and keep the cause of American independence alive despite his initial defeats” (excerpt from the article). The article was published on-line in Journal of the American Revolution on October 12, 2021. To read the article, click here.See video of Ron's February 2021 presentation to the Washington Map Society here. See pdf of Ron's October 2020 presentation to San Francisco Map Fair here.keyword: rongibbs

1777: Decisive Year of The American Revolution - by Ron Gibbs

9/8/23 - The Digital Gallery is pleased to present the second exhibit in the American Revolution Series. Previously, in Exhibit 40, "George Washington and The American Revolution, 1775-1776," we displayed, through historic maps and iconic images, the course of the first two years of the war. The cause of American Independence went from elation when the American militia forced the British to retreat from Concord, Massachusetts (April 1775), to horror at the carnage at Bunker Hill (June 1775), and back to victory when the British Army was forced to evacuate Boston (March 1776). But a huge British force returned to New York (July 1776) and defeated General George Washington's army in a series of battles through late summer and autumn. The American cause was on the brink of disaster (December 1776) when Washington decided upon a bold stroke of war to save the American Revolution--and the future of the United States.Come with us now as we jump back to catch up with the momentous story of the Campaign of 1777 and why it proved to be the Decisive Year of the American Revolution.Note : I wish to acknowledge the contributions of my good friend Tom Paper to the development and production of this exhibit.keyword: rongibbs

Artists We Love Gallery Show - August 16 & 17, 2024

Tom Paper and his daughter Sarah Paper, on behalf of Pixeum, are pleased to be hosting Artists We Love Gallery Show on August 16 & 17.We have known each of the featured artists for a number of years and have recently digitized and created an exhibit for each of the artist’s work. Links to each of the exhibits are shown below.On the 16th, from 5 to 7pm, and on the 17th, from 11am to 1pm, each of the artists will be displaying and offering their art for sale.If you are interested in attending, please email Sarah Paper at sarah@pixeum.org to receive the address in Pacific Heights for this show.Hope to see you there!Sarah & TomAlp Ozberker artwork exhibit on PixeumLily Shanahan artwork exhibit on PixeumMiriam Sweeney artwork exhibit on PixeumMegan Bigelow artwork exhibit on Pixeumkeyword: featuredartists

Artists We Love Gallery Show - December 27 & 28, 2024

Sarah Paper and her father, Tom Paper, were delighted to host our second Artists We Love Gallery Show on December 27th and 28th, 2024.Paula Pietranera on InstagramMiriam Sweeney on InstagramMoeko Machida on InstagramKeyword: featuredartists