Mervyn Peake, Self-portrait, submitted to the Royal Academyin 1931. Now in the National Portrait Gallery.(All Images Courtesy of the Mervyn Peake Estate, mervynpeake.org )He's been been likened to Tolkien, Dickens, Kafka, and Poe, but the work of poet, painter, playwright, author, and illustrator Mervyn Peake (1911-1968) defies comparison. Anthony Burgess wrote in his introduction to the first volume of the Gormenghast Trilogy, Peake's most famous work: "There really is no close relative to it in all our prose literature. It is uniquely brilliant..." Now scholars and readers have a chance to see the creative process of such a singular talent....
Sacco & Vanzetti: Jazz Age Terrorists?
Criminals or Patsies? Bartolomeo Vanzetti (left), Handcuffed to Nicola Sacco. Dedham, MA Superior Court, 1923.(Courtesy Boston Public Library)It was a crime so sensational that the label "crime of the century" was inevitable. What else would you call a case featuring anarchists, communists, socialists, terrorists, politicians, celebrity protesters, global crusaders, innocent victims, scapegoats, Jingoism, Xenophobia, a payroll heist, two murders, and executions in the electric chair? April 15, 2010 marks the 90th anniversary of the day of the events that set it all in motion. And the town where it happened, Braintree, Massachusetts, is remembering by holding a three-day event, "Sacco...
Thomas Hardy Stays At Home, Thanks To 104 Year Old Friend.
Norrie Woodhall has a new claim to fame when it comes to Victorian novelist Thomas Hardy. She's just provided the inspiration for a successful campaign to keep some valuable Hardy manuscripts in his native Dorset. At 104 years-of-age, Norrie might seem an unlikely muse for Dorset's die hard Hardy fans. But she's been connected with the writer since before she was born: Norrie Woodhall says her mother was the inspiration for Hardy's tragic heroine, Tess of the D'Urbervilles.Augusta Noreen "Norrie" Bugler Woodhall is one of the last people alive who actually knew Thomas Hardy. When she was but a lass...
Chicago Library is Turning Japanese
Tadanori Yokoo, Made In Japan, silk screen, 1998.(Images Courtesy Of University of Chicago Libraries.)Critics trying to sum up the work of artist Tadanori Yokoo have called him, "The Japanese Andy Warhol." That's like calling James Joyce, "The Irish Dr. Seuss." Both artists use silk-screen techniques to create prints, and that's where the similarity ends. Warhol's clear, linear, flat, and repetitive surfaces have a visceral visual impact. The eye instantly recognizes and grasps the content, often a colorful take on an already iconic image. Throw away all of that pop-art kapow, replace it with chaos, complexity, commotion, clutter, and more layers...
Yale Exhibit Romances The Last Of The Gentleman Scholars
Pierre-Joseph Redoute, Plum Branches Intertwined, 1802-04, watercolor on vellum. (Images Courtesy Of Yale Center For British Arts.)When Charles Ryskamp was interviewed in 2004, he found the reporter's questions about his background so tedious he snapped: "I don't want this to be an obituary." Ryskamp needn't have worried. The one-time director of both the Morgan Library and Museum and the Frick Collection died on March 26, 2010, with the best possible remembrance of his life and career on display at the Yale Center For British Art. Varieties of Romantic Experience: Drawings from the Collection of Charles Ryskamp, an exhibit of 200...