If you have read any of my earlier blogs, you know that I like to point out the connections between items from different collections housed in the Prints & Photographs Division. Keep reading to see what links a travel poster and a stereograph. This gorgeous travel poster of Rome by Roger Broders was published in 1921: Rome, par le train de luxe “Rome Express”. Lithograph by Roger Broders, 1921. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3g12901 Not much is known of Broders. Many of his posters feature a distinct foreground and background and use the object in the foreground, here the Arch of Titus, to frame the object in the background, here the Colosseum. Compare the poster to this early twentieth-century stereograph that shows the same…
Category: Picture this
Happy 100th Birthday, Victor A. Lundy!
Victor Lundy. Photo, circa 1960. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ds.11067 On February 1, 2023, American architect Victor A. Lundy will turn 100 years old. We will mark this milestone in several ways, so please read on for how you can join in and learn more about this mid-century designer. The Lundy Archive, held by the Prints & Photographs Division, numbers more than 56,000 items, and includes sketches and renderings, hundreds of journals, as well as photographs and correspondence between 1940 and 2008. After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Lundy completed a degree in architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, where he studied under Walter Gropius. In 1954, Lundy opened an architectural firm in Sarasota, Florida, where many…
Caught Our Eyes: More Brünnhilde the Cat
Who could resist this purrfect profile? Brünnhilde. Photo copyrighted by Adolph E. Weidhaas, 1936. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.51533 This unassuming – and apparently quite tolerant – tabby cat appears in an exhibit now at the Library of Congress: Not an Ostrich: & Other Images from America’s Library. The exhibit spans the history of photography from 1839 to modern times, as found in the Library’s collections. In this 1936 photo, the cat, complete with winged helmet and breastplate armor, is costumed as the legendary Brünnhilde. Whether her depiction is drawn from Wagner’s opera Der Ring des Niebelungen or from earlier Norse mythology or Germanic legend, we don’t know, but we do know she has become one of the most-loved faces of the exhibit. Reference Specialist…
Winter Poster Masterpieces
Featured in it is a poster advertising the December 1895 issue of Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine. Designed by Joseph J. Gould, it shows a holly-festooned woman carrying the latest issue of the magazine as the snow swirls around her: