Arts, Performing & Graphic Arts
"Oh chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the hole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
―
Documents recording creative expression through a multitude of mediums and genres are featured in this section. All items, across their formats, genres and content, express and embody the close dialogue between culture and the arts and the socio-political realities of individuals and groups. In their ability to embody important historical and cultural memories and experiences, and to influence as well as express and explore the role of creativity during times of political turmoil or specific social realities, they bear witness both to the evolution of aesthetic norms and standards, cultural and aesthetic practices generated or imposed by various socio-political paradigms, (constructivism, realism, etc.) as well as the exchanges between various cultures and artists straddling various periods and socio-political as well as aesthetic outlooks genres, and “norms”. In that sense, these expressions of creativity bear witness to humans’ infinite resilience and resourcefulness in expressing their realities through aesthetic means, and to the power of art to heal, expand understanding and connect people across cultures, eras, languages, and social realities. Manuscripts, booklets, drawings and sketches, comics, chapbooks which deal with a variety of topics and genres (including racism, colonialism, totalitarianism, constructivism, realism) and employ a variety of techniques and mediums (e.g. photomontage, collage, foldouts, pochoir, musical notes, etc.) are on display.
Gómez-Peña, Guillermo, Chagoya, Enrique, Rice, Felicia
Codex Espangliensis : from Columbus to the Border Patrol
BOOKART Z232.M86 1998 G58
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
This book is a collaborative project with text from performances by Gomez-Peña, collage images by Chagoya and bookwork design and printing by Rice. The book juxtaposes images from American comics with images from indigenous codices (to which the book’s form also alludes), and is written in the Spanglish of Gomez-Peña’s performances.
Miller, Walter M., Jr., 1923-1996
Letter from Walter Miller to Lanman, dated June 5, 1923, from Charles Rockwell Lanman letters, 1916-1937
MS#0740,
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
This collection consists of 25 letters about the study of Sanskrit exchanged between C.R. Lanman and his colleagues and former students. This particular letter concerns Lanman’s Sanskrit Reader, originally published in 1906 and a staple of introductory Sanskrit courses through the present day.
Hofman, Vlastislav (1884-1964).
The Double (Dvoinik). Original sketch of Dostoyevsky’s character Goliadkin. Circa 1917.
Rare Book PG3328.Z7 C476 1917g; the two original sketches are kept in the vault Art Collection.
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Trained as an architect, Hofman displays his talents as a graphic artist and set designer strongly influenced by Cubism in his illustrations for F.M. Dostojevskij: Cyklus třiceti kreseb. [Dostoyevsky: Cycle of Thirty Drawings] (Praha: F. Borový, 1917). This recently-acquired work suggests the intertwining of European literary and artistic cultures on the very eve of the momentous collapse of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires. Displayed here is one of two original sketches by Hofman included in Columbia’s copy of the rare printed volume.
Arellano, Humberto
Untitled (Dancers in the Street)
Not dated
Photograph
El Diario Photo Archive (unprocessed)
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
This photograph from El Diario (one of the nation’s oldest continuously published Spanish-language newspapers) is an example of Latino, Latin American and Caribbean immigrant community coverage throughout New York City. The photograph captures one of the city’s cultural pride events, occasions which the newspaper covered widely.
20th century European comic book covers featuring "Black" characters
Item 1: Tabu: El Vengador de los Esclavos (PN6678 .T83 1940z)
Item 2 : Zembla (PN6748 .Z46 )
Here are two examples of African diaspora heroes as imagined by twentieth century European cartoonists. These Black "heroes" and “sidekicks” from 1946 and 1989 are still limited to exotic or secondary roles in the stories told, but they nevertheless seem to go beyond the physical stereotypes found in most images of the “ black” in European and Euro-American cartoon art. [Consists of 2 items:Tabu, Issue 7; Zembla, no. 412 ]
Unknown Artist. William Christopher (“W.C.”) Handy (1873-1958), Composer.
Dzhogo bliuzy [Jogo Blues]
(Leningrad: Triton, n.d.)
BA#0543
Rare Book, Bakhmeteff Archive
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Unknown artist. Rudol’f Ivanovich Mer’volf (1887-1942), Composer.
I Would See You Often.
(Leningrad: Modpik, 1927)
BA#0543
Rare Book, Bakhmeteff Archive
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
In 2013, Columbia acquired 173 examples of Russian sheet music with illustrated covers, all published between 1904 and 1938. Virtually all of the major sheet music illustrators of the period are represented in the collection, and one sees in the variety of aesthetics and subject matter the artistic and cultural evolution of Russia from late Tsarism, through Constructivism and the imposition of Socialist Realist norms in the late 1930s. Shown here is a work by the Alabama-born “Father of the Blues” Handy, and a piece by a Russian composer who straddled the pre-Revolutionary and Soviet periods. Both covers clearly reflect NEP-era Soviet Russia’s embrace of American music and aesthetics of the “Roaring ‘20s.”
BA#0543 and the sheet music collection is available digitally, in its entirety: https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/12570342
Soviet film programs from 1926-1930
Rare Book, PN1995.9.P5 S685 1926g 13V Folio & Flat file
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Item 1: Prot︠s︡ess o 3.000.000 [The Case of the 3 Million] (Moscow-Leningrad: Kinopechat, 1926).
Item 2: Savur-mogila [The Savur Tumulus] (Moscow-Leningrad: Kinopechat, 1926).
Item 3: Mat’ [Mother] (Moscow-Leningrad: Kinopechat, 1926).
In 2010, Columbia purchased a collection of twenty heavily-illustrated early Soviet film programs with notes on the production. Shown here are those for films that concern, respectively: a crime caper; the Russian Civil War; and a film adaptation of Maksim Gorky’s (1868-1936) novel of the 1905 Revolution, directed by the influential film theorist Vsevolod Pudovkin (1893-1953). All three exhibit the artistic trends of the period, with the use of bold design and creative photo-montage.