La Revue Ford 11 (January 1932). Paris: Ford Motor Company S.A.F.
«Watson Library has over ten thousand serial titles in its collection. Among these, hundreds are rare publications on topics ranging from Japanese folk art to American ballet. A selection of these rare issues, recently purchased with funds from the Friends of Thomas J. Watson Library, is currently on display in the library.»
This French edition of an issue of Ford Motor Company's magazine (above) highlights l'esprit de Noël for the holidays.
La Revue Ford 11 (January 1932). Chromolithograph detail
La Revue Ford 7 (May 1931). Chromolithograph detail
Fine examples of commercial art, these issues of La Revue Ford are marked by Art Deco–era advertisements for the company's automobiles and chromolithographs printed by Draeger Frères.
Divertissements Typographiques (1928–30). Paris: Fonderies Deberny et Peignot.
The colorful graphic art covers above, also currently on display, demonstrate the graphic properties of the paper itself and showcase the work of French typographers and stationers—including Louis Muller et Fils, Les Papeteries Navarre, and Canson et Montgolfier—and were produced under the direction of Maximilien Vox, the pseudonym of Samuel William Théodore Monod (1894–1974).
Ring: Zeitschrift fuer kuenstlerische Kultur (1908–9). Duesseldorf: Ring-Verlag, Ernst Pieper.
Ring: Zeitschrift fuer kuenstlerische Kultur, a rare German-language graphic-arts periodical, was founded by Dutch architect and theorist Johannes Ludovicus Mathieu Lauweriks (1864–1932) and features vibrant, multicolored woodblock prints with Japanese-influenced binding.
Shin seisaku-ha no. 1–5 = 新制作派 no. 1–5 (1936–40). Tokyo: Bijutsu kogeisha.
These colorful issues were published by Shin seisaku-ha (New Production School), a group of sculptors and painters formed in postwar Japan that included artists Shin Hongō (1905–1980) and Yasutake Funakoshi (1912–2002). Issues of this periodical contain lithographs of artists' work as well as advertisements for Mitsubishi pencils and Cray-Pas art supplies. Watson Library owns all five issues of this periodical.
Iskusstvo i khudozhestvennai︠a︡ promyshlennostʹ = Art et industrie = Kunst und Gewerbe = Sztuka i przemysl = Művészet és ipar (1898–1902). Saint Petersburg: Imperatorskoe obshchestvo pooshchrenii︠a︡ khudozhestv.
The dual-language title and Art Nouveau typography visible on the cover of the above publication allude to its multicultural content. Primarily in Russian, this periodical features essays on Western architecture, art, crystalware and decorative arts, painting, sculpture, French poster design, jewelry, Romanian and Russian folk art, and medieval manuscript illumination, among other subjects. Issues are lavishly illustrated with gilded, polychromatic, and black-and-white renderings.
Left: Der Blaue Vogel (1921–22). Berlin: Preuss'Institut Graphik. Right: Jushny's Theater: Der Blaue Vogel (1926). Berlin: "Russische Bühnenkunst" G.M.B.H. Cover illustration by Ivan Yakovlevich Bilibin (1876–1942)
Der Blaue Vogel (The Blue Bird) was a Berlin-based theater troupe of Russian émigrés led by director Jasha (Sasha) Jushny. These Blaue Vogel publications—a souvenir program (left) and a periodical issue (right)—include whimsical Cubist illustrations of theatrical performances and full-color lithographs of stage and costume design by artists A. Chudjakow, P. Tschelsichtschew, and M. Ourwantzoff.
Pages from Jushny's Theater: Der Blaue Vogel. Left: "Evening Late in the Forest" by Lubok Von K. Boguslavskaya. Right: Costume illustrations of "Russian Peasant Songs" by Chudjakow
These will be on display in Watson Library until the end of January.