#historian: c. s. l. davies

[richmond-rex]

Henry VII, far from pushing a ‘propaganda line’ on Richard’s reign or on his own background, did so only very minimally. For any significant detail his tactic was one of obfuscation or concealment rather than propaganda [...] It was not until the early years of Henry VIII that there was an attempt to construct a more coherent narrative of these events, resulting in the well-known accounts by Polydore Vergil and by Thomas More. But even so, there was no rush to publish the results. Vergil did not appear in print until an expensive Latin edition was published at Basel in 1534. More’s work was never completed. Both only became accessible to a wider public when they were plagiarized to form a continuation to The Chronicle of John Hardyng, printed by Richard Grafton in 1543.

— C. S. L. Davies, Information, disinformation and political knowledge under Henry VII and early Henry VIII | Historical Research (2012)

The term ‘Tudor’ is not merely anachronistic but ambivalent [...] the term ‘Tudor tradition’ applied to the sequence of narrators from Vergil to Shakespeare incorrectly suggests sponsorship by the ‘Tudor monarchs’ including Henry VII himself. It will be argued here that neither Henry VII nor Henry VIII, at least in the first half of his reign, was keen to publicize a detailed narrative of the years 1483–5, either in relation to events in England, or to Henry VII’s family antecedents and his activities in exile before his accession.

[natequarter]

The 'Tudor' name for the royal family was hardly known in the sixteenth century. The almost obsessive use of the term by historians is therefore profoundly misleading about how English people of the time thought of themselves and of their world, the more so given the overtones of glamour associated with it. The royal surname was never used in official publications, and hardly in 'histories' of various sorts before 1584. Monarchs were not anxious to publicize their descent in the paternal line from a Welsh adventurer, stressing instead continuity with the historic English and French royal families. Their subjects did not think of them as 'Tudors', or of themselves as 'Tudor people'. Modern concepts such as 'Tudor monarchy' are misleading in suggesting a false unity over the century. Subjects did not identify with their rulers in the way 'Tudor people' suggests. Nor did they situate themselves in a distinct 'Tudor' period of history, differentiated from a hypothetical 'middle ages'. While 'Tudor' is useful historian's shorthand we should use the word sparingly and above all make clear to readers that it was not a contemporary concept.

DAVIES, C. S. L. “Tudor: What’s in a Name?” History, vol. 97, no. 1 (325), 2012, pp. 24–42. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24429363.

[xtruss]

Opinion

From Mona Lisa’s Secret Number to Duchamp’s Hidden Face: 5 Conspiracy Theories That Will Blow Up Your Art World

Did Duchamp lie about finding his readymades? Did Anthony Quinn's painting predict 9/11? The truth is art there.

— Ben Davis, National Art Critic | December 19, 2017

One theory holds that Leonardo da Vinci secretly embedded his initials in the eyes of his most famous painting.

In a lot of ways, this was the Year of the Conspiracy Theory. Fabulations and connect-the-dots conjectures of all sorts found their way from the margins to the center. The phenomenon very much affects art—which makes some sense, in that art is designed as fodder for fantasizing.

Most of the time, such speculation is as consequential as the latest theory about Game of Thrones, playing the same function of agitating the imaginations of superfans. Thus, a great deal of the hype around Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi earlier this year was driven by amateur speculation about its symbolism.

Every so often, art conspiracy crosses over into much more sinister territory, as in last year’s contrived freak out that a Marina Abramovic “Spirit Cooking” performance proved, through circuitous logic, that Hillary Clinton was in league with Satan.

Either way, it’s worth at least keeping these things in the corner of one’s eye. Here are five of the wilder art theories that floated to our attention this year.

Mona Lisa and the Secret Number Two

Pavel Floresco demonstrates the significance of the number 2 in Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

You could write an entire book just about conspiracy theories relating to Leonardo da Vinci and his most famous painting, the Mona Lisa. A new one to come across our radar this year came courtesy one Pavel Floresco. Disputing that the painting is a simple portrait of Lisa del Giocondo, Floresco declares that “[e]verything comes to confirm Sigmund Freud’s conclusion: this masterpiece represents the mother of the artist, Caterina, seen as an ideal of the maternity or femininity.”

How to prove this theory? It’s a bit complicated, so let’s take it step by step. First, Floresco creates an alpha-numeric correspondence between various numbers and the letters of the Italian alphabet, like so:

A = 1 B = 2 C=3 D = 4 E = 5 F = 6 G = 7 H = 8 I = 9 L = 10 M = 11 N = 12 O = 13 P = 14 Q = 15 R = 16 S = 17 T = 18 U = 19 V = 20 Z = 21

He then reduces the names “Mona Lisa” and “Catarina” into numbers, and adds them up. For “Mona Lisa,” the operation looks like this:

MONA LISA = 11 + 13 + 12 + 1 + 10 + 9 + 17 + 1 = 74

He then takes the two numbers in “74,” and adds these up:

7 + 4 = 11

At last, he takes the two digits of the resulting “11” and adds them up again—revealing the secret number 2 hidden in the Mona Lisa:

1 + 1 = 2

Repeat the same operation with the name of Leonardo’s mother, “Caterina,” and, chillingly, you get the same result:

CATERINA = 3 + 1 + 18 + 5 + 16 + 9 + 12 + 1 = 65. 6 + 5 = 11. 1 + 1 = 2

Of course, the name “Mona Lisa” is a nickname derived from Vasari; the painting’s first owner seems to have referred to it as La Gioconda. But Floresco offers more: To illustrate the significance of the number 2 in the canvas, Floresco breaks down the symbolism of the painting: 2 columns in the background; a road in the landscape in the shape of the number 2; a hand flipping the number 2… (She even has 2 eyes and 2 nostrils!)

But there’s more proof still. Floresco also shows that the 2010 discovery (heretofore considered dubious) that the Mona Lisa’s eyes concealed the hidden letters “LV” and “CE” can be explained: Those initials, too, yield up the all-important 2.

LVCE = 10 + 20 + 3 + 5 = 38. 3 + 8 = 11. 1 + 1 = 2

How deep does this thing go? If you find out, it might be wise 2 keep it 2 yourself…

Was Dürer a Secret Jewish Art Terrorist?

Albrecht Dürer, The Four Apostles (1526)

Anyone who has had to search the Internet for information about Albrecht Dürer, pillar of the German Renaissance, will have come across the Albrecht Dürer Blog. The result of the labors of amateur art historian Elizabeth Garner, a collector of Dürer prints, the site posits a cryptic series of coded messages hidden throughout the master’s work that reveal him to have been, secretly, a Jewish rebel bent on annihilating his Christian patrons.

In a 2011 interview with the Connecticut Jewish Ledger, Garner explained the genesis of her theories. It all began when she discovered a secret message in the Dürer print The Promenade (ca. 1498). This led her down the rabbit hole, discovering allusions to Judaism everywhere in the oeuvre of the putatively Christian artist, with world-historical significance: “I am now of the belief that the Holocaust couldn’t have happened as it did,” she said, “were it not for the truth of the whole Dürer story.”

Dürer’s hometown of Nuremberg officially issued its order to expel its Jewish population in 1499. As Garner explains:

The Dürer family knew they couldn’t stop the expulsion of the Jews, and they even knew that their true history was going to be erased. How to survive? Encode the story in the art, for that was their only weapon, and their only chance to get the truth to survive. Except you had to be very careful, and they were. “The Dürer Cipher” breaks down into a Memorbuch [memory book] and revenge upon the villains. The Durers, Jews, won, because Dürer’s art has baffled all—until now.

Garner has continued to develop these theories, including a very lengthy disquisition on penises (“Let’s get real and talk about Dürer’s penis for it is a very important penis indeed”).

Most spectacularly, she now asserts that Dürer’s revenge went beyond encoding secret Jewish references in his painting. While remaining undercover, he actually deployed poisonous pigments in his works, both as a way to punish anyone who tried to tamper with his secret messages, and more generally just to slowly destroy his Christian patrons.

“Notice that these paintings are almost all lead white, vermilions, green, orpiment, and black,” Garner and co-author Joe Kiernan note of the German artist’s Four Apostles, which he gave to the city fathers of Nuremberg. “Albrecht really wanted to take revenge on the whole government, the CITY COUNCIL, where every day they would be inhaling the noxious fumes. He even donated them! and got paid for his work!”

Walter Sickert Was Jack the Ripper

Walter Sickert (1911) by George Charles Beresford

What Dan Brown is to Leonardo conspiracy theories, American crime novelist Patricia Cornwall is to the theory that Victorian serial killer Jack the Ripper was actually British painter Walter Sickert (1860–1942) who was, as his Tate biography put it, “universally acknowledged throughout his life as a colourful, charming and fascinating character, a catalyst for progress and modernity.”

Cornwall claims to have spent well over $6 million of her own money attempting to confirm the theory, and has written two books on the subject. Earlier this year, she told the Telegraph:

Over the past five years I’ve spent thousands of hours as well as another small fortune investing in Sickert’s art, memorabilia and more importantly, other original documents, evidence and technologies.

I’ve continued working with top scientists and art experts, sifting through piles of archival materials, utilising non-destructive forensic paper analysis and special light sources. The upshot is I’ve never been surer of Sickert’s guilt. I believe he was responsible for the Jack the Ripper crimes and other debaucheries as well that include dismemberment, cannibalism, and the murder and mutilation of children.

In 2013, she even purchased, and then destroyed, a Sickert painting looking for clues.

Cornwall’s speculations have been greeted with a collective facepalm by art historians. “[I]n her desire to find answers, she simply hasn’t followed very sound principles of investigation,” Matthew Sturgis, author of a 2011 Sickert biography, told the Independent. “It is a nonsensical misreading of the facts.”

Duchamp Was Playing 3-Dimensional Chess With His Art

Serkan Özkaya’s We Will Wait (detail) (2017). Photo illustration by Brett Beyer and Lal Bahcecioglu. 2017.

Marcel Duchamp loved games and secrets. He famously said he quit art to play chess, concealing from the world that he was working in secret. You never know where you stand with the guy.

This willfully inscrutable character has, in turn, made his work fertile ground for speculation of all kinds. Indeed, this year a particularly awesome example surfaced when Turkish artist Serkan Özkaya unveiled a full-scale recreation of Duchamp’s final work, the diorama known as the Étant donnés. Özkaya hypothesizes that the peephole that allows you to look in through a door on the famous tableau was actually meant to function as kind of projector, throwing the image of a Duchamp self-portrait onto the wall. (Critics are mixed on whether they actually see it, but you have to admit, it’s a cool theory.)

“I find it almost insulting to Duchamp to think he never looked at it this way,” the artist told my colleague Brian Boucher. “There’s no way a master of shadows, and optics, and stereography, and projection didn’t look at it this way.”

It’s not the most out-there Duchamp theory, though. In the ‘90s, freelance scholar Rhonda Roland Shearer irritated the art history community—which has sanctified Duchamp’s idea of making art from “readymade” objects as the basis of Conceptualism—with another hypothesis: What if, she asked, the French artist actually sculpted all of his famous found-object sculptures by hand?

“It is not just one case,” Shearer told the Times in 1999. “It’s one thing after another. You start feeling like a fool for taking him at his word. Does this make him more interesting? Absolutely. He has been dead since 1968, but it’s as if he’s alive now, because we have a whole new set of objects.”

Duchamp’s snow shovel (Prelude to a Broken Arm, 1915), for instance, would never function as an actual snow shovel because its handle was square, she says, while the artist’s famed urinal (Fountain, 1917) is “too curvaceous” to have come from the Mott Iron Works, where he said he purchased it.

(Another Duchamp theory, incidentally, holds that the French expat did not actually dream up his most famous readymade, Fountain, and that it is instead actually the work of one Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven.)

Do scholars buy the “hand-made readymade” theory? Not in general. Would it matter? “[I]f she’s right,” the late philosopher and art historian Arthur Danto once told the Times, “I have no interest in Duchamp.”

Anthony Quinn Predicted September 11

Lithograph of Anthony Quinn’s Facets of Liberty.

Conspiracy theorists have found premonitions of 9/11 everywhere from the writings of Nostradamus to Back to the Future II. This year, add another source to the list: the paintings of the late, beloved Zorba the Greek actor and artist, Anthony Quinn (1915–2001).

Specifically, a book called The Prophetic Imagery of Anthony Quinn, published this year by Quinn’s Maui-based art dealer, Glenn Harte, claims that the actor possessed “precognitive skills.” It points in particular to his 1985 canvas Facets of Liberty as having foretold September 11.

“It was quite a surprise to me, and I kept looking at it and looking at it and seeing more of the images of that day, which included the firemen, the smoke in the sky, the planes crashing into the tower and things like that,” Harte told the Hollywood Reporter. In The Prophetic Imagery of Anthony Quinn, he claims that the painting conceals allusions to both the flaming Twin Towers and a bearded hijacker.

The book gathers proof of Quinn’s psychic powers, including the suggestion that he was visited by the ghost of Paul Gauguin while on the set of the 1956 Van Gogh biopic Lust for Life. In his autobiography, One Man Tango, Quinn claimed that Gauguin’s ghost instructed him on how to hold the paintbrush, resulting in a performance so credible that Quinn won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar.

Among those unconvinced by Harte’s theory of “precognitive painting” is the actor’s widow, Katherine Quinn. She does, however, say that her late husband was haunted by a vision of something terrible shortly before his passing in 2001: “He said something awful is going to happen and nobody even understands on what scale it will be.”

[rocklandhistoryblog]

#TBT Harry L. and Adele Dow Sisco Family (1959). Image appeard in a feature in the Journal News in February, 1979.

HARRY L. SISCO by Isabelle Savell © South of the Mountains 1976-04, Vol. 20, No. 2

It was a short obituary. Harry L. Sisco, a lifelong resident of Rockland County had died, leaving his wife, Adele, and five children. But in South Rockland, where he had lived all his life, memories going back decades and generations began to pour forth. The Siscos have been part of Rockland’s history since long before it was a county. Dr. Carl Nordstrom, the Rockland historian, thinks they may be "the single largest black family in Rockland County", and one of the oldest. It is possible, he thinks, they were descendants of a sailor, named Jan Francisco, who was on a Spanish or Portuguese ship captured by the New Amsterdam Dutch in 1643.

In Rockland history, the earliest Siscos appear in a survey report on the Cheesecocks Patent by Charles Clinton, who noted seeing in 1739 somewhere near the present day Airmont the home of Samuel Francisco, a free Negro. The Siscos appear thereafter in various Rockland records, their names variously spelled. Eventually they gravitated to the southeasterly part of the county and became part of its history. Sometime, possibly before the Revolution, they were among a group of black farmers who settled on land just south of Palisades and now encompassed by the Palisades Interstate Park. They called their little community "The Mountains" also known as “Skunk Hollow”. 

Some Palisadians thought they came there to escape racial tensions in New York. Dr. Nordstrom thought they were drawn there because it was kind of no-man’s land, long claimed by both New York and New Jersey and there¬fore passed over by those looking for secure titles. In any event, the black settlers built houses, cleared and planted enough land to sustain themselves, erected what is believed to have been the first black church in Rockland County and next to it a cemetery. H. Archer Stansbury, an octogenarian of Closter Road, Palisades, recalls visiting the little church on festival days when there was a ceremony called "marching through the wilderness". After hymns and prayers in the church, the congregation did indeed march through the verdant, creation-fresh woods of the Palisades, returning enhanced and exalted to generous refreshments at the church.

The community endured until around 1915 and then vanished. Today there are left only shards and mouldering foundations. Still standing in the cemetery is the gravestone of Jane, the 14-day-old daughter of John and Jane Sisco, "who departed this life March 4, 1846". 

That the history of "The Mountains" survives at all is due in no small measure to Harry Sisco, his daughter, Mrs. Shirley Sisco Swann and his niece, Mrs. Frances Pierson of Piermont. In 1974 they assisted Dr. Nordstrom, Dr. Jacqueline Holland, the Rev. C. J. Ross of the Sparkill’s St. Charles A.M.E. Zion Church, Leonard Cooke and others, in reconstructing its story as well as that of the black community of the Sparkill area. Later Mrs. Pierson assembled and mounted two exhibitions at the Piermont Village Hall—photographs and artifacts relating to the blacks of the area, including the community called "The Mountains".

Priscilla Sisco Swann (L) and Frances Sisco Pierson (R).  Clipped from The Journal News,  04 Jun 1994, Sat,  Page 15

It seems probable there were Siscos in other parts of south Rockland. Frank Bertangue Green in his "History of Rockland County" (A. S. Barnes & Co., 1886) notes that early in the 1800’s a Negro wheelwright, whose daughter was a Mrs. Sisco of Piermont Avenue, Nyack, erected and ran a grist mill and a carding mill at Tappan Slote. Toward the end of the century, the Siscos appeared in the old Nyack and Piermont directories. Peter Siscoe, a laborer, was listed in Piermont in 1894 and Abram Sisco, a coachman of Sparkill in 1897. Abraham Sisco was Harry’s uncle. He became a trustee of St. Charles A.M.E. Zion Church.

The Siscos were living in Sneden’s Landing across from the Presbyterian church in the gray house now occupied by Harry and Dorothy Davis when Harry was born. He was the seventh of eight children. His father Sam, a coachman and barber, worked for some of the well-to-do families of the area —the Winthrop Gilmans, the Agnews and the Foxes. Sam’s children, among them Susan, Sadie, Lenore, and Harry, became an integral part of the life of the community. For a time, the family lived in "The Mountains’’, or, as it was sometimes called, "Skunk Hollow". Harry remembered playing as a boy in the old church which by that time was unused and going to ruin. When school was in session he and his brothers and sisters, in fair weather and foul, walked the dirt road euphemistically called "the Boulevard” from "The Mountains’’ to the Palisades School.

Eventually there came to "The Mountains" a spunky little girl named Adele Dow, great-granddaughter of Hanna Whitehead Oliver, an Iroquois Indian. Harry fell in love with her and on August 13, 1925 they were married by the Rev. R. F. Pile of St. Charles A.M.E. Zion Church. To them were born in the succeeding years, six children, of who five survive. The sixth, Ramon, died suddenly at the age of 21 soon after returning from service in the Korean War.

Frances Sisco (Pierson) and Adele Dow Sisco at the Blacksmith Tea Shop, 1928-1932, in uniform. Courtesy of the Alice Gerard Collection of the Palisades Free Library

The news of Harry’s death on February 28, 1976 set the whole community to reminiscing about him as though an era had passed for in myriad ways he had been a part of many lives. "He was more than a good man; he was an in­stitution," mused Mrs. Mildred Post Rippey. "He and his family knew their worth. They worked their way into our hearts.” Her mind went back to the little school in Palisades, built in 1860’s and now a community center, which she attended with Harry’s older sisters and, later, Harry. Every class day began with the children, in double seats, rising to salute the flag, march around the room, sing a hymn, say a prayer1, and then start classes. On Sundays, Mrs. Rippey remembered, many of the same children, Harry and his sisters among them, would assemble at the Presbyterian Church for Sunday School. One Easter Sunday, she and Susan Sisco were chosen to go through the community bearing Easter lilies to the sick.

Mr. Stansbury remembered Harry as the bugler of Boy Scout Troop No. 1 of Rockland County, which he organized on May 15, 1919. "Harry was a good Scout," he said. "He earned, and I remember giving him a good conduct badge." To Miss Emma Stewart came the memory of Harry as the boy who pumped the organ at the church on Sundays, first for Mrs. Lydia Post and later for Miss Stewart’s sister, Mrs. Everett Martine. For that chore, he received ten cents a week.

Mrs. Eric Gugler, one of the surviving children of Francois and Mary Lawrence Tonetti, the sculptors of Snedens Landing, recalled the Sisco family when they lived across from the Presbyterian Church.

"We played together, we grew up together, we put on plays together, we went to school together, and we all loved Harry’s twinkling eyes and beautiful smile,” she said.

It was the Fox families of Palisades with whom Harry was chiefly identified, however—Seth, Arthur, Miss Jenny, William, and in his last years, William’s widow, Mrs. Violet Fox. For almost a half century Harry served one or another of the families as caretaker, handyman, driving instructor, mechanic, snow plougher, philosopher, counsellor and friend. The adults respected and relied upon him. The children loved him, for Harry had a special no-nonsense rapport with them; he was their stern but unfailing ally. Elizabeth Fox, now Mrs. W. Arnold Finck, recalled that when winter snows came, the little Foxes would take to the long steep hills with their sleds, while Harry, driving a tractor with a flat, triangular wooden snowplow attached, went out to clear the roads. "Somehow,” she said, "Harry always managed to be at the bottom of the hill, ready to start up, just as we reached there on our sleds, so we never had to climb the hill.” Somehow, too, he kept an eye on them, whether they thought they needed it or not. Somehow, he had a sixth sense for danger or mischief or the need for communication or support. He counselled them sternly to obey their parents and to "straighten up and be somebody”.

"He was more successful than anybody else in talking sense into my head,” Dr. Donald Finck told his mother one day, a touch defiantly. To which Mrs. Finck replied smilingly, for she had also benefitted from Harry’s tutelage, "Yes, I expected him to.”

In their own children, Harry and his wife, Adele, instilled the same sense of personal worth and responsibility, with the following results:

Harry L. Sisco, Jr., is director of field services for Henderson Industries Automatic Weighing Systems, West Caldwell, N. J., and also assistant pastor of Berea Seventh Day Adventist Church, Nyack. 

Priscilla Sisco Swann, with an associate degree in applied science, is em­ployed by the Rockland County Health Department in public health education. She is also secretary-bookkeeper for the Seventh Day Adventist Westchester Area Elementary School in New Rochelle, one of the founders and a member of the board of directors of the Nyack Headstart Nursery School, and a board member of the Rockland Community Action Council. 

Barbara Sisco Peterson is a computer programmer at Dairylea Cooperative, Inc., Pearl River. 

Shirley Sisco Swann is quality control department head in electronic stampings, Plessy Montvale of Montvale, N. J. 

Judy Sisco Peaks is assistant supervisor of data processing and control at Burlington Industries, Rockleigh, N. J. 

In his last years, Harry, severely crippled by arthritis and walking with a cane, functioned as a chauffeur for Mrs. William Fox, proudly driving her 1950 Packard, which he kept as sparkling bright as a new-minted gold piece.

On August 16, 1975, the Sisco children gave a dinner-dance for their father and mother at the Holiday Inn, Orangeburg, in celebration of their golden wedding anniversary. It was a grand affair, to which young and old, friends and neighbors, black and white, to the number of 60-odd, came to express their admiration and love. Harry, resplendent in a white Tuxedo and ruffled shirt, was in a mood to match the occasion.

On December 1, 1976 he was hospitalized with a heart attack and family and friends spent anxious weeks of waiting. Mrs. Finck telephoned him at the hospital and Harry chided her gently for not coming to see him.

"I was told that no one but your family could see you,” she explained.

"I know,” said Harry, "but I’ve told them at the desk that you’re my family even if you don’t look like it.”

By the end of the month, Harry was home and feeling better each day. His wife left him in a cheerful mood the morning of February 28 to do some errands. She told friends who inquired about him at the supermarket that he was on the mend. When she returned home, he was gone.

There was a service at the Berea Seventh Day Adventist Church in Nyack. Members of Elks Lodge 424 of Nyack served as pallbearers. Then they took Harry to Palisades and laid him to rest in the old cemetery beside his parents, his brothers and the son he had lost after the Korean War. There, among other notables of Palisades such as Jonathan Lawrence Elder-Senior of pre-Revolutionary note; the redoubtable Molly Sneden, mistress of the Revolution­ary War ferry; Winthrop S. Gilman, the banker, builder and historian; and others who did so much to create and maintain the rare and special aura of the little hamlet, Harry Sisco, now and for 71 years an integral part of its history, is at home.

_________________________

We are pleased and honored to feature Harry L. Sisco during  Black History Month.

To listen to oral histories from Judy Sisco Peaks visit the archive here:  https://www.hrvh.org/cdm/search/collection/larc/searchterm/judy%20sisco/field/all/mode/all/conn/and/order/nosort/ad/asc

www.RocklandHistory.org

[isslibrary]

New Books (late September)

Sorted by Call Number / Author. These are in the New Books section (by the superhero posters in the Reading Room) except the ones marked CI (Confucius Institute Collection titles) and ES which are in the new Spanish Section! It was exciting to put together a core collection of books in Spanish with Ms. Wald and to see her students reading

Buscando a Alaska

on Engel Terrace. Thank you to Dr. Thomas who donated jazz and blues materials.

As always, if you need help finding something or think of something that you need, please ask me or Mrs. VanHorn.

700 H

Harrison, Charles, 1942-2009. An introduction to art. New Haven [Conn.] : Yale University Press, c2009. This original and inspiring book offers clear and wide-ranging introduction to the arts of painting and sculpture, to the principal artistic print media, and to the visual arts of modernism and post-modernism. Covering the entire history of art, from Paleolithic cave painting to contemporary art, it provides foundational guidance to the basic character and techniques of the different art forms, to the various genres of painting in the western tradition, and to the techniques of sculpture as they have been practiced over several millennia and across a wide range of cultures.

701.03 H

Helguera, Pablo. Education for socially engaged art : a materials and techniques handbook.

704.9 T

Living as form : socially engaged art from 1991-2011. 1st ed. New York : Creative Time Books ;, 2012. 'Living as Form' grew out of a major exhibition at Creative Time in New York City. Like the exhibition, the book is a landmark survey of more than 100 projects selected by a 30-person curatorial advisory team; each project is documented by a selection of color images.

709.04 K

Kwon, Miwon. One place after another : site-specific art and locational identity. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c2002. Site-specific art emerged in the late 1960s in reaction to the growing commodification of art and the prevailing ideals of art's autonomy and universality. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, as site-specific art intersected with land art, process art, performance art, conceptual art, installation art, institutional critique community-based art, and public art, its creators insisted on the inseparability of the work and its context. In recent years. however, the presumption of unrepeatability and immobility encapsulated in Richard Serra's famous dictum "to remove the work is to destroy the work" has been challenged by new models of site specificity and changes in institutional and market forces." "One Place after Another offers a critical history of site-specific art since the late 1960s and a theoretical framework for examining the rhetoric of aesthetic vanguardism and political progressivism associated with its many permutations. Informed by urban theory, postmodernist criticism in art and architecture, and debates concerning identity politics and the public sphere, the book addresses the siting of art as more than an artistic problem. It examines site specificity as a complex cipher of the unstable relationship between location and identity in the era of late capitalism. The book addresses the work of, among others, John Ahearn, Mark Dion, Andrea Fraser, Donald Judd, Renee Green, Susanne Lacy, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle, Richard Serra, Mierle Laderman Ukeles, and Fred Wilson.

709.4 B

Bishop, Claire. Artificial hells : participatory art and the politics of spectatorship. London ; : Verso Books, 2012. Since the 1990s, critics and curators have broadly accepted the notion that participatory art is the ultimate political art: that by encouraging an audience to take part an artist can promote new emancipatory social relations. Around the world, the champions of this form of expression are numerous, ranging from art historians such as Grant Kester, curators such as Nicolas Bourriaud and Nato Thompson, to performance theorists such as Shannon Jackson. Artificial Hells is the first historical and theoretical overview of socially engaged participatory art, known in the US as "social practice." Claire Bishop follows the trajectory of twentieth-century art and examines key moments in the development of a participatory aesthetic. This itinerary takes in Futurism and Dada; the Situationist International; Happenings in Eastern Europe, Argentina and Paris; the 1970s Community Arts Movement; and the Artists Placement Group. It concludes with a discussion of long-term educational projects by contemporary artists such as Thomas Hirschhorn, Tania Bruguera, Pawel Althamer and Paul Chan.

781.643 C

Nothing but the blues : the music and the musicians. New York : Abbeville Press, c1993.

781.65 H

Havers, Richard, author. Uncompromising expression : Blue note, the finest in jazz since 1939. Purveyor of extraordinary jazz music and an arbiter of cool, Blue Note is the definitive jazz label--signing the best artists, pioneering the best recording techniques, and lead cover design trends with punchy, iconic artwork and typography that shaped the way we see the music itself. The roster of greats who cut indelible sides for the label include Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Bud Powell, Ornette Coleman, Jimmy Smith, Norah Jones, and many more. Published for Blue Note's seventy-fifth anniversary, this landmark volume is the first official illustrated story of the label, from 1939 roots through its celebrated releases in the fifties and sixties to its renaissance today. Featuring classic album artwork, unseen contact sheets, rare ephemera from the Blue Note Archives, commentary from some of the biggest names in jazz today, and feature reviews of seventy-five key albums, this is the definitive book on the legendary label.

781.65 M

Motion, Tim. Jazz portraits : an eye for the sound : images of jazz and jazz musicians. New York : SMITHMARK, c1995.

808.83 C

Mothership : tales from afrofuturism and beyond. College Park, MD : Rosarium, c2013.

809.3 W

Womack, Ytasha. Afrofuturism : the world of black sci-fi and fantasy culture.

951 F

Fairbank, John King, 1907-1991. China : a new history. Enl. ed. Cambridge, Mass. : Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1998.

CI 398.2 S

Song Shuhong. Drama Stories : Classic Stories of China. Beijing, China : China Intercontinental Press, 2011.

CI 495 F

Feng Lijuan. Chinese in Hand : Daily Chinese. Beijing, China : Confucius Institute, 2013.

CI 495 S

Shi Keyan. Chinese in Hand : Transportation Chinese. Beijing, China : Confucius Institute, 2013.

CI 641.3 L

Li Hong. Green Tea : Appreciating Chinese Tea. Beijing, China : China Intercontinental Press, 2009.

CI 641.3 P

Pan Wei. Oolong Tea : Appreciating Chinese Tea. Beijing, China : China Intercontinental Press, 2009.

CI 641.3 W

Wang Jidong. Pu-erh Tea : Appreciating Chinese Tea. Beijing, China : China Intercontinental Press, 2009.

CI DVD For

The Forbidden City : Twelve-episode Historical Documentary Series. Beijing, China : China Central Television and Palace Museum, 2008.

CI DVD Lea

Zhongguo cha yi : gen wo xue Zhongguo cha yi = China's art of enjoying tea : learn China's art of enjoying tea with me = Ch¿±goku no chagei. Beijing : Wai wen chu ban she, [2005]. This DVD introduces the origin of tea, tea sets and most sorts of tea with Chinese, English, and Japanese dialogue.

ES 976.4 C

Canion, Mira. Rebeldes de Tejas. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2009.

ES 92 Alou

Gaab, Carol. Felipe Alou : Desde los valles a las montañas. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2012.

ES 92 Kahlo

Placido, Kristy. Frida Kahlo. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2015.

ES F Ano

Anonymous. Vida y muerte en la Mara Salvatrucha. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing.

ES F Bak

Baker, Katie. La Llorona de Mazatlán. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2013.

ES F Bla

Blasco, Melissa. Los Baker van a Perú. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2007.

ES F Can

Canion, Mira. Pirates : del Caribe y el mapa secreto. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2008.

ES F Col

Collins, Suzanne. En Llamas. Barcelona : RBA Libros, 2012.

ES F Col

Collins, Suzanne. Los Juegos del Hambre. Barcelona : RBA Libros, 2012.

ES F Col

Collins, Suzanne. Sinsajo. Barcelona : RBA Libros, 2012.

ES F Gaa

Gaab, Carol. Brandon Brown quiere un perro. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2013.

ES F Gaa

Gaab, Carol. El nuevo Houdini. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2010.

ES F Gaa

Gaab, Carol. Esperanza. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2011.

ES F Gaa

Gaab, Carol. Los Piratas del Caribe el Triangulo de las Bermudas. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2012.

ES F Gaa

Gaab, Carol. Problemas en Paraíso. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2010.

ES F Gre

Green, John. Bajo la Misma Estrella. New York, NY : Vintage Español, 2012.

ES F Gre

Green, John. Buscando a Alaska. Mexico : Castillo de la Lectura, 2014.

ES F Gre

Green, John. Cuidades de Papel. New York, NY : Vintage Español, 2014.

ES F Kir

Kirby, Nathaniel. La Guerra Sucia. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2011.

ES F Kir

Kirby, Nathaniel. La maldición de la cabeza reducida : Written by Spanish students from Pinelands Regional High School under the direction of Nathaniel Kirby. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2009.

ES F Pla

Placido, Kristy. Brandon Brown Versus Yucatán. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2013.

ES F Pla

Placido, Kristy. Noche de oro. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2014.

ES F Pla

Placido, Kristy. Robo en la noche. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2009.

ES F Row

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter y el c©Łliz de fuego. 4th ed. Barcelona : Salamandra, c2001. Tras otro abominable verano con los Dursley, Harry se dispone a iniciar el cuarto curso en Hogwarts, la famosa escuela de magia y hechicer©Ưa.

ES F Row

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter y el misterio del pr©Ưncipe. 1. ed. Barcelona : Salamandra, 2006. Sixth-year Hogwarts student Harry Potter gains valuable insights into the boy Voldemort once was, even as his own world is transformed by maturing friendships, schoolwork assistance from an unexpected source, and devastating losses.

ES F Row

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter y el prisionero de Azkaban. 11a. ed. Barcelona : Salamandra, 2010, c2000. During his third year at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry Potter must confront the devious and dangerous wizard responsible for his parents' deaths.

ES F Row

Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter : y la orden del F©♭nix. 1a. ed. Barcelona : Salamandra, 2004. As Harry faces his upcoming fifth year at Hogwarts Academy, there are increasing rumors of dark times coming and of Lord Voldemort's return to power, and a secret anti-Voldemort society, The Order of the Phoenix, begins meeting again.

ES F Row

Rowling, J. K., author. Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal. 1a edici©đn. Rescued from the outrageous neglect of his aunt and uncle, a young boy with a great destiny proves his worth while attending Hogwarts School for Wizards and Witches.

ES F Row

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter y la camara secreta. Barcelona : Salamandra, 1999.

ES F Tot

Carrie Toth. La Calaca Alegre. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2013.

ES F Tot

Toth, Carrie. Bianca Nieves y Los 7 Toritos. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2015.

ES F Tot

Toth, Carrie. La Hija del Sastre. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2012.

ES F Pla

Placido, Kristy. Noches misteriosas en Granada. Chandler, AZ : TPRS Publishing, 2011.

[amazingstories]

In an article last month, I noted that this past April (April 2016), Amazing Stories had celebrated its 90th anniversary.

This is not entirely true. As many may know, magazine cover dates are the date after which the periodical should be removed from the shelves (and presumably replaced with the next issue). A magazine with a cover date of April is “out dated” come May 1st.

If you are familiar with that concept, then you also know that the “April” issue is usually placed on the stands approximately mid-way through the preceding month. In Amazing’s case, that would be March 12th, 1926 for the first (April 1926) issue.

Thanks to many SF and pulp historians (chief among them Michael Ashley), we actually have a birth date for the world’s first magazine devoted entirely to scientifiction.

But this presents a quandary.  Most people looking at the magazine’s first issue when confronted with a March celebration will, at best be confused.  At this present time in history, if they seek clarification, most sources will tell them that the first issue of the magazine was dated April.  Surmounting that potential confusion will required an explanation every single time the birthday is announced.

So I’ve decided to split the baby.  Hence forth, Amazing Stories birth day is March 12th.  The magazine’s anniversary is celebrated in April, in honor of its cover date,

With that out of the way, we can celebrate Amazing Stories’ 90th January today (with no explanation needed or required).

January 2005, Volume 74, Number 1

Jeff Berkwitz, Editor Paizo Publishing

$5.99 per copy

Bedsheet 84 Pages

Contents

Nowhere in Particular by Mike Resnick The Wisdom of Disaster by Nina Kiriki Hoffman Brainspace shortstory by Robin D. Laws Jimmy and Cat shortstory by Gail Sproule Wishful Thinking shortstory by J. Gregory Keyes      

Summer, 1998, Volume 70, Number 1*

Kim Mohan, Editor Wizards of the Coast

$4.00 per copy

Bedsheet 100 Pages

Contents Unbelievable – but True by Kim Mohan Dispatches (Amazing Stories, Summer 1998) by The Editor The Observatory: It All Started by Being Amazing by Bruce Sterling Scientifiction: From Silver Screen to Superstore       

January, 1987 Volume 61, Number 5

Patrick Price, Editor TSR. Inc.

$1.75 per copy

Bedsheet 162 pages

Contents Among the Stones by Paul J. McAuley Forward from What Vanishes by Mark Rich Harbard by Larry Walker Max Weber’s War by Robert Frezza Kleinism by Arthur L. Klein Temple to a Minor Goddess by Susan Shwartz Upon Hearing New Evidence That Meteors Caused the Great Extinctions by Robert Frazier Transients by Darrell Schweitzer Light Reading by John Devin Vergil and the Caged Bird by Avram Davidson Snorkeling in The River Lethe by Rory Harper Able Baker Camel by Richard Wilson      

March, 1977 Volume 50, Number 4*

Ted White, Editor Ultimate Publishing

$1.00 per copy

Digest 134 Pages

Contents Alec’s Anabasis Robert F. Young Shibboleth by Barry N. Malzberg Our Vanishing Triceratops by Joseph F. Pumilia and Steven Utley The Bentfin Boomer Girl Comes Thru by Richard A. Lupoff The Recruiter by Glen Cook Two of a Kind by Rich Brown Those Thrilling Days of Yesteryear by Jack C. Haldeman, II An Animal Crime of Passion by Vol Haldeman      

February, 1967 Volume 40, Number 10*

Joseph Ross, Editor Ultimate Publishing

50 cents per copy

Digest 164 pages

Contents Two Days Running and Then Skip a Day by Ron Goulart Tumithak of the Corridors by Charles R. Tanner Methuselah, Ltd. by Richard Barr and Wallace West The Man with Common Sense by James E. Gunn Born Under Mars (Part 2 of 2) by John Brunner      

January, 1957 Volume 31, Number 1

Paul W. Fairman, Editor Ziff-Davis Publshishing Company

35 cents per copy

Digest 132 pages

Contents Quest of the Golden Ape (Part 1 of 3) • serial by Paul W. Fairman and Milton Lesser [as by Ivar Jorgensen and Adam Chase ] Savage Wind • shortstory by Harlan Ellison Reluctant Genius by Henry Slesar Heart by Henry Slesar Before Egypt by Robert Bloch      

January, 1947 Volume 21, Number 1

Raymond A. Palmer, Editor Ziff-Davis Publishing Company

25 cents per copy

Pulp 180 Pages

Contents I Have Been in the Caves by Margaret Rogers Rejuvenation Asteroid by William L. Hamling The Secret of Sutter’s Lake by Don Wilcox Like Alarm Bells Ringing by Robert Moore Williams The Mind Rovers by Richard S. Shaver Death Seems So Final by Richard S. Shaver Mr. Wilson’s Watch by H. B. Hickey      

February, 1937 Volume 11, Number 1*

T. O’Conor Sloane, Editor Teck Publications

25 cents per copy

Pulp 148 pages

Contents The Planet of Perpetual Night by John Edwards Prometheus by Arthur K. Barnes “By Jove!” (Part 1 of 3)by Dr. Walter Rose Denitro by Stanton A. Coblentz The Last Neanderthal Man by Isaac R. Nathanson      

January, 1927, Volume 1, Number 10

Hugo Gernsback, Editor Experimenter Publishing Company

25 cents per copy

Bedsheet 108 Pages

Contents The Red Dust by Murray Leinster The Man Who Could Vanish by A. Hyatt Verrill The First Men in the Moon (Part 2 of 3) by H. G. Wells The Man with the Strange Head by Miles J. Breuer, M.D. The Second Deluge (Part 3 of 4) by Garrett P. Serviss  

Perhaps the most interesting statistic is that we’re producing a series of anthologies and facsimile reprint editions, drawn from all of these years of STF goodness and keeping them accessible.

If art is your thing, take a gander at the posters we’ve got for sale; if fiction is what you’re after, here are the titles we’ve currently got on sale – with more coming every month; (click on any cover to purchase).

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Best of 1926

Best of 1927

Best of 1928

Best of 1940

35TH Anniversary Issue

May 1940 Facsimile Edition

September 1940 Facsimile Edition

Amazing Stories Annual Facsimile Edition

Amazing Stories Classic Novels

Ammazing Stories 88th Anniversary Issue

Also note: this article could not have been prepared without the resources of ISFDB.ORG and Galactic Central – Philsp.com. We are continually grateful for the work that they do in preserving genre history.

*As always, we try to get as close to an actual anniversary issue as possible, but given Amazing’s interesting publishing history, this is not always possible.

The Amazing Years – January 2017 In an article last month, I noted that this past April (April 2016), Amazing Stories had celebrated its 90th anniversary.