Library of Congress bookplates

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Artist: Phil May (1895).

The bookplates housed at the Library of Congress aren’t all available for online viewing which is a shame when their collection includes notable examples such as these. Three of the plates here were designed by the artists whose books they identified; two of the others are for writers—Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jack London—while the sixth one is for Charlie Chaplin. The artists’ plates look like continuations of the work of their creators which makes them less interesting than those of the writers and actor, all three of which say something about the way these men saw themselves reflected in their work: the pantheon of characters from Burroughs’ fiction; Chaplin’s poor boy conquering London; and Jack London’s lone wolf daring you to try to steal his book.

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Artist: Frederic Remington (between 1880? and 1909).

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Artist: Studley Burroughs (between 1914 and 1922).

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Erotic bookplates

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Art by and for the library of Aangel Mendez (1950).

Only the first example here is overtly erotic but the one below is tagged as such on this site which displays a huge variety of bookplate designs. There’s more to be found in the Ex Eroticis Libris, Erotica, and Nude sections. Pretty much everything there is heterosexual, of course; homoerotic bookplates from the earlier decades of the 20th century are scarce for obvious reasons but naked males, equivocal or not, can always be found. (Via Things Magazine.)

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Art by Heino Beddig (1966).

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Art by and for the library of Haagen Bartam-Jensen (no date).

Previously on { feuilleton }
Koloman Moser bookplates
Erotic bookplates by Franz von Bayros
German bookplates
Troutsdale Press bookplates
Bookplates from The Studio
Yuri Yakovenko bookplates
Tranquillo Marangoni bookplates
Book-plates of To-day
Louis Rhead bookplates
Pratt Libraries Ex Libris Collection
The Evil Orchid Bookplate Contest
The art of Oleg Denysenko
David Becket’s bookplates

November

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November Morning, Knostrop Hall, Leeds (1883) by John Atkinson Grimshaw.

The month of November in paintings. John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836–1893) returned continually to autumnal scenes, and became very adept at capturing the light of the season as it manifests in the Northern Hemisphere. Many of the paintings below reflect the gloomier qualities of the month when the leaves are finally stripped from the trees.

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La Belle Jardiniere – November (1896) by Eugène Grasset.

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November (1902) by Koloman Moser.

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Koloman Moser bookplates

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Ex libris Fritz Waerndorfer (1903).

I could happily post things by the indefatigable Koloman Moser (1868–1918) all the time but he’s not exactly an unknown figure even if his work does get overshadowed by his colleague in the Vienna Secession, Gustav Klimt. This handful of ex libris plates almost all date from the Secession period, and include one for Adele Bloch-Bauer, a woman whose name is familiar these days for her being the subject of a very well-known Klimt portrait.

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Ex libris Fritz Schwartz (1900).

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Ex libris Rudolf Steindl (1900).

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Posters: A Critical Study, 1913

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An appraisal of the state of poster design from almost a century ago by Charles Matlack Price. Lots of the names you’d expect from Europe and the United States—Steinlen, Mucha, Beardsley, Will Bradley, Maxfield Parrish, etc—plus a number of examples I hadn’t seen before. Also a surprising scarcity of Italians and Germans. Scroll down for a remarkably advanced dancer with a guitar by Will Bradley from 1895, a design that anticipates the flourishing of Cubism and abstracted graphics a few years later. Price’s book may be browsed here or downloaded here.

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