American Art and Architecture Commons^™

The Huntington Mansion In New York: Economics Of Architecture And Decoration In The 1890s, Isabelle Hyman

The Courier

In 1889 railroad millionaire Collis P. Huntington (1821-1900) and his wife Arabella (d. 1924) purchased a large property on the southeast comer of New York's Fifth Avenue and Fifty-seventh Street, the most fashionable residential neighborhood of the period, and undertook to build there another of the great stone piles that constituted the habitats of the very rich during the city's Gilded Age. Aspects of the history of the Fifty-seventh Street Huntington mansion have been recounted, but supplementary information about its decoration and about the artists and craftsmen who embellished it can be found in the George Arents Research Library at …

The New School Of Wood Engraving, Edward A. Gokey

The Courier

This article traces the history of modern wood engraving, including the argument in the art world that took place regarding whether wood engraving could be considered "art" in the first place. As the art form gained popularity with print publishers due to its convenience and beauty, internal debates took place about which direction the art form should take, especially within the "New School" of wood engraving that had emerged. Research for the article was aided by Syracuse University's Special Collections.

Audubon's "The Birds Of America": A Sesquicentennial Appreciation, David Frederic Tatham

The Courier

This article details the unique copy of John James Audubon's The Birds of America which now resides in Syracuse University's Special Collections. The author describes the backstory and traces the journey of this extremely rare work. Audubon's work continues to stimulate interest in diverse fields in academia, from art history and science to literature.

Audubon/Au-Du-Bon: Man And Artist, Walter Sutton

The Courier

This article highlights some of the works of the legendary work of John James Audubon, drawn from the collection located in Syracuse University's Special Collections. The author gives special attention to the 1820-21 journal of his voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi (which has been preserved intact), the English and Scottish journal of 1826 (also in its original form), and the descriptive sketches of early pioneer life in the Ornithological Biography. These early journal sources dramatically reveal, at first hand, Audubon's long struggle through many failures and obstacles to win the success and recognition he craved and also enduring status …

The Drawings And Papers Of Alan Dunn And Mary Petty At Syracuse University, Elisabeth Kaltenbrunner Melczer

The Courier

Alan Dunn and Mary Petty were cartoonists whose wit and humor enlivened the pages of The New Yorker from 1926 to 1974. Though they were man and wife as well as teacher and student, their output was distinctively separate in style, mood, and content. Their work has been recognized internationally as providing incisive commentary on the social conventions, the values, and the arts of their New York contemporaries. The bulk of their roughs and finished cartoons are held in the Syracuse University Art Collections and their papers, including correspondence and diaries, are in the George Arents Research Library at Syracuse …

Benson Lossing: His Life And Work, 1830-1860, Diane M. Casey

The Courier

Benson J. Lossing's interest in reaching a popular rather than an elite audience, his journalistic style, and the changing methods of historical research, which began to develop at the end of the nineteenth century, have all led to the current opinion of him-that he was a popularizer of history, and not a historian. However, an examination of his long and varied career suggests that his work deserves consideration in the study of antebellum American life.

The "Modern" Skyscraper, 1931, Carol Willis

The Courier

This article details the history of The Philadelphia Saving Fund Society (PSFS) building, constructed through the partnership of William Lescaze and George Howe in 1932. The author argues the building to this day remains "modern", displaying complexity and a varitey of color and materials. The building is also, the author says, the first skyscraper designed in the International Style. The author also examines the PSFS in the context of other tall buildings of the period, usually described as belonging to the Art Deco style.

The William Lescaze Symposium Panel Discussion, Dennis P. Doordan

The Courier

This article is an adapted form of a panel discussion that took place discussing the architect William Lescaze. Overall, the panel seemed divided between those who judged Lescaze's achievements acoording to the established tenets of orthodox modernism and those who sought a new critical framework for evaluating Lescaze's contribution to the rise of modern design in American based upon typological, professional, and commercial criteria.

William Lescaze And Cbs: A Case Study In Corporate Modernism, Dennis P. Doordan

The Courier

During the period 1934 to 1949, the Columbia Broadcasting System provided William Lescaze with a series of commissions that, considered together, constitute one of the largest, most varied, and most important bodies of work in his entire career.

Lescaze was responsible for the design of a major new broadcasting facility, the interior design of studio and office spaces, the design of a variety of studio furnishings such as microphones and clocks, the design of a mobile broadcasting vehicle, and the graphic design for CBS facilities across the country. A careful review of the material indicates that Lescaze made a major …

A Brief Survey Of Architectural Holdings At The Syracuse University Libraries, Werner Seligmann

The Courier

This article gives a brief look at the various holdings regarding modern architecture located at Syracuse University. Among special note are the Lescaze papers, which the rest of this Courier issue examines in detail.

William Lescaze Reconsidered, William H. Jordy

The Courier

This article gives a critical look to William Lescaze's architectural career. While he had early success, his later career seems to pale in comparison. Regardless, the author praises Lescaze for remaining eclectic and not adhering too strongly to the orthodoxy of modernism.

Roy Crane—Pioneer Adventure Strip Cartoonist, Ray Thompson

The Courier

The newspaper comic strip was well established in the United States by World War I. It had become a part of every American's cultural background long before the Disney cartoon films of the 1930s. The George Arents Research Library for Special Collections at Syracuse University has a large collection of original drawings for comic strips. There are cartoons from the early days of the comic strip to the work of artists still drawing strips which many Americans read every day.

Some of the comic strips have extraordinary lives, continuing past their creator's lifetimes. Buzz Sawyer and his friend Roscoe Sweeney …

Irene Sargent: Rediscovering A Lost Legend, Cleota Reed Gabriel

The Courier

Professor Irene Sargent was a distinguished teacher of the history of fine arts at Syracuse University for thirty-seven years, from 1895 to 1932. As a noted author and critic in these years, she was influential in promoting and maintaining the values of the Arts and Crafts Movement in America; yet, since her death in 1932, she has been largely forgotten. We can begin to form an image of her as an awesome pillar of knowledge and a great lady with a colorful personality through the vivid memories of her former students.

Archimedes Russell And Nineteenth-Century Syracuse, Evamaria Hardin

The Courier

In November 1978 the Syracuse architectural firm of King and King gave an extensive collection of the papers of Archimedes Russell to the Archives of Syracuse University. The gift drew attention to a man who did as much as any other to shape the face of both the Syracuse University campus and the city of Syracuse. Archimedes Russell's commissions included Park Presbyterian Church, the churches of St. Anthony of Padua and St. Lucy, the First English Lutheran Church, the Yates Hotel, Dey Brothers Department Store, and the Snow Building, as well as Central High School, the fourth Onondaga County Courthouse, …

Bud Fisher—Pioneer Dean Of The Comic Artists, Ray Thompson

The Courier

The George Arents Research Library for Special Collections at Syracuse University has an extensive collection of original drawings by American cartoonists. Among the most famous of these are Bud Fisher's "Mutt and Jeff."

Bud Fisher set the pattern of a new phase of visual entertainment that has endured and blossomed to this day. Everybody knows of "Mutt and Jeff" - an American institution and a synonym for "tall and short." Fisher was one of the most copied of the early cartoonists. One can trace his influence through dozens of strips created between 1910 and 1920.

Notes From A Cartoonist, Edward D. Kuekes

The Courier

Edward D. Kuekes, who was a Pulitzer Prize winning political cartoonist for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, gives a retrospective on his career and life. Also includes reproductions of some of his cartoons, three thousand of which can be found in the Syracuse University Special Collections.

The Significance Of The Equestrian Monument "Joan Of Arc" In The Artistic Development Of Anna Hyatt Huntington, Myrna Garvey Eden

The Courier

The manuscript collection of Anna Hyatt Huntington, sculptor, 1876-1973, left to the George Arents Research Library at Syracuse University by Mrs. Huntington is of special interest to students and scholars of American culture. Her correspondence, scrap-books, and diaries are a record of a long and successful career as a sculptor.

By drawing upon archival materials and personal interviews, the present article demonstrates the mergence of two major characteristics of Mrs. Huntington's work in this equestrian monument of Joan: technical precision and idealism.

The Sculpture Of Anna Hyatt Huntington In The Syracuse University Art Collection, Myrna Garvey Eden

The Courier

Anna Hyatt Huntington (1876-1973), one of the foremost American sculptors of her time, presented a large quantity of her personal and professional papers and sculpture to Syracuse University. In addition to the Huntington Manuscript Collection located in the George Arents Research Library at Syracuse University, the University owns diverse and numerous examples of her art. These statues, numbering over sixty pieces, represent a variety of subject matter, mood, and grouping completed throughout a career that spanned seventy years of artistic activity. Her general approach continued the French naturalistic tradition of Barye, Fremiet, and Falguiere. Although both wild and domestic animals …

Margaret Bourke-White And Erskine Caldwell: A Personal Album, William A. Sutton

The Courier

Margaret Bourke- White presented her personal and professional papers, including hundreds of prints and negatives of her photographs, to Syracuse University before her death in 1971. Following her death, the Library received additional thousands of photographs and negatives from her estate. As a result, the Bourke- White Collection at Syracuse provides an invaluable store of research materials for photographers, journalists, and historians.

Dr. Sutton has chosen in this essay to portray Margaret herself during one seven-year period ofher life, with the addition of a few photographs from the books You Have Seen Their Faces and North of the Danube, published …

Frederic W. Goudy, "Type Man" Extraordinary, Edmund C. Arnold

The Courier

Edmund C. Arnold comments on the work of Frederic Goudy, America's foremost type designer. Along with Vassar and the Library of Congress, the Goudy collection at Syracuse University is one of the most complete in the world.

Four Bachrachs, Bradford Bachrach

The Courier

The art collections in the George Arents Research Library are greatly enhanced by the Louis Fabian Bachrach Sr. Papers, the gift of the Bachrach family, documenting the career of a leader in the photographic arts. In addition to manuscripts of magazine articles, speeches and interviews, correspondence and subject files, the collection includes some 200 photographs made by Mr. Bachrach and members of his family: his father, David, and his sons, Louis Fabian, Jr. and Bradford Bachrach.

With the exception of a few early scenes of the Maryland District of Columbia area, the photographs are examples of the fine portraiture for …