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May 23 2016

Camera Work

Facts

Title: 
Camera Work: An Illustrated Quarterly Magazine Devoted to Photography

Date of Publication:
January 1903 (No.1) – June 1917 (No.49/50)

Place(s) of Publication:
New York, NY

Frequency of Publication: 
Quarterly

Circulation:
Approximately 1,000 copies per issue

Publisher:
Alfred Stieglitz

Physical Description:
Camera Work was bound with a handsome green/grey cover designed by Edward Steichen. The back cover was most often an advertisement for Eastman Kodak. The magazine was a relatively expensive publication primarily because of the excellence Stieglitz insisted on for the reproduction of photographs. Photographs were printed on photogravure plates made from the original negative. Often they were printed on Japanese tissue and individually placed on colored mounts. It is believed that many of Stieglitz’s reproductions were of better quality than the original photographs.

Price:
$6.50 per year

Editor(s):
Alfred Stieglitz (1903-1917)

Associate Editor(s):
None

Libraries with Original Issues:
Museum of Modern Art, New York University, Yale University, University of Chicago

Reprint Editions:
Nendeln/Liechtenstein : Kraus Reprint, 1969.
PDFs available online at the Modernist Journals Project

Description

After Alfred Stieglitz founded the Photo-Secession in 1902, he created the elite and avant-garde photographic journal, Camera Work. In creating Camera Work, Stieglitz wanted to construct the “finest, most serious, most beautifully produced photographic periodical” in existence, an endeavor in which most critics agreed he succeeded (Bochner 35). Although his publication was dedicated to propagating the principles of the Photo-Secession movement, in the first issue of the magazine Stieglitz asserted that Camera Work “owes allegiance to no organization or clique, and though it is the mouthpiece of the Photo-secession that fact will not be allowed to hamper its independence to the slightest degree” (15). Despite this assertion, Stieglitz did not do much to diversify the contents of his magazine, and most of its contents were from a select group of regular contributors and members of the Photo-Secession movement. In fact, of the 473 photographs published in Camera Work, 357 were the work of fourteen photographers, including Stieglitz himself. The remaining 116 photographs were the work of 39 photographers (Whelan 192). According to Stieglitz, the main goal of the magazine was to publish the photographs that were the best examples in the field and to publicize photography as an art form. Each issue included photographs from about three photographers printed on high-quality paper, and around ten articles including opinion pieces, exhibition reviews, and essays on photographic aesthetic. Throughout the fourteen years of the quarterly journal’s publication, fifty issues were produced and 473 photographs were published. During the magazine’s entire run from 1903 to 1917, Stieglitz served as editor in chief, publisher, and was also one of the magazine’s major contributors.

Gallery

Manifesto

Camera Work’s statement of purpose appeared in the first issue of the publication in 1903. Beneath the manifesto, Alfred Stieglitz listed his name and his position as editor, followed by the names of his associate editors: Joseph T. Keiler, Dallett Fuguet, and John Francis Straus. Titled “An Apology” it reads:

“The time appearing ripe for the publication of an independent American photographic magazine devoted largely to the interests of pictorial photography, ‘Camera Work’ makes its appearance as the logical outcome of the evolution of the photographic art.

It is proposed to issue quarterly an illustrated publication which will appeal to the everincreasing ranks of those who have faith in photography as a medium of individual expression, and, in addition, to make converts of many at present ignorant of its possibilities…

Only examples of such work as gives evidence of individuality and artistic worth, regardless of school, or contains some exceptional feature of technical merit, or such as exemplifies some treatment worthy of consideration, will find recognition in these pages. Nevertheless the pictorial will be the dominating feature of the magazine…

‘Camera Work’ owes allegiance to no organization or clique, and though it is the mouthpiece of the Photo-Secession that fact will not be allowed to hamper its independence to the slightest degree.”

“An Apology.” Camera Work. No. 1 (Jan. 1903): 15

Editors

Alfred Stieglitz (Jan. 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946)
Editor (1903 – 1917)

Alfred Stieglitz was born in on January 1, 1864 in Hoboken New Jersey, to a German-Jewish family. A major figure of the Modernist period, Stieglitz was both an artist and a revolutionary who devoted himself to promoting photography as a major form of artistic expression. After studying in Europe, Stieglitz returned to New York in the 1890s and was profoundly discouraged by the progress of American photography. In 1897 Stieglitz published Camera Notes after co-founding the New York Camera Club, but in 1902 it ceased publication. In 1902, Stieglitz founded and became the director of the Photo-Secession, a movement devoted to photography as an art form and a secession from the opinion of the masses. Stieglitz founded Camera Work in 1903, a publication based off of the ideals of the Photo-Secession and designed to showcase the best examples of American and European pictorial photography. The other major component of the Photo-Secession was Stieglitz’s gallery, 291, located at 291 5th Avenue. Stieglitz served as the editor and publisher of Camera Work until 1917. In 1924, he married the artist Georgia O’Keefe, and continued to promote photography until his death in 1946.

Contributors

Annie W. Brigman
“The Brook”
“The Cleft of the Rock”

Alvin Langdon Coburn
“Broadway & the Singer Building by Night”
“Notre Dame”

Frank Eugene
“Adam and Eve”
“Mr. Alfred Stieglitz”

Eduard J. Steichen 
“Bartholmé”
“Experiment in Three-Color Photography”
“The Flatiron—Evening”
“Pastoral—Moonlight”

Alfred Stieglitz
“Old and New New York”
“The Steerage”
“The Terminal”

Paul Strand
“Wall Street”
“The White Fence”

Clarence H. White
“Boys Going to School”
“Morning”
“The Orchard”

Bibliography

Bochner, Jay. An American Lens: Scenes from Alfred Stieglitz’s New York Secession. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005.

Green, Jonathan. Camera Work: A Critical Anthology. Millerton: Aperture, Inc., 1973.

Hathi Trust Digital Library.

Hoffman, Frederick J., Charles Allan, and Carolyn F. Ulrich. The Little Magazine: A History and a Bibliography. 2nd ed. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1947.

Mancini, J.M. Pre-Modernism: Art-World Change and American Culture from the Civil War to the Armory Show Princeton: Princeton UP, 2005.

Scholes, Robert and Sean Latham. “Modernist Journals Project.” (n.d.): MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. Web. 13 Sept. 2010.

Richter, Peter-Cornell. Georgia O’Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz. Munich: Prestel, 2001.

Stieglitz, Alfred. Camera Work: A Pictorial Guide. Ed. Marianne Fulton Margolis. New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1978.

Stieglitz, Alfred. “An Apology.” Camera Work. No. 1. July 1903.

“Stieglitz, Alfred.” Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers. London: Continuum, 2005. Credo Reference. Web. 19 September 2010.

Whelan, Richard. Alfred Stieglitz. Boston/New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 1995.

“Camera Work” compiled by Liza Winship (Class of ‘11, Davidson College)

Written by Peter Bowman · Categorized: American

Apr 07 2016

Bruno’s Weekly

Facts

Title:
Bruno’s Weekly

Date of Publication: 
July 1915 (1:1) – Dec. 1916 (3:26)

Place(s) of Publication: 
Greenwich Village, NY

Frequency of Publication: 
Weekly

Circulation:
Unknown

Publisher: 
Charles Edison

Physical Description: 
Approx. 16 pages per issue. Published essays, poems, short stories, short plays, reviews of theater, “The Monday Matinee” Section, “Children’s House” section, and small illustrations, many by Clara Tice. Cover page read: “Edited by Guido Bruno in his Garret on Washington Square.” Magazine title on first page followed by a poem, often a handwritten copy. Special sections included: “Books of the Week” (1:11); “In Our Village” (1:11); “Why and How I Got Married” (3:13); “Splitting the Ears of the Groundlings” (3:18). First advertisements appeared in December 1915.

Price: 
5 cents per issue / $1 per year (1915)
5 cents per issue / $2 per year (1916)

Editor(s): 
Guido Bruno

Associate Editor(s):
Unknown

Libraries with Complete Original Issues: 
Library of Congress; Columbia University; Brown University
PDFs available via Princeton University’s Blue Mountain Project

Reprint Editions: 
Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI, 2004 (Little Magazines. American 1910 – 1919) [microform]

Description

Founded by Guido Bruno in 1915, Bruno’s Weekly celebrated Greenwich Village and its people. It was edited from Bruno’s “garret, a Brownstone flat in Washington Square,” where he also published Bruno’s Chap Books, Greenwich Magazine, and other little magazines. The weekly issues contained local news and gossip as well as poetry, short stories and artwork by local artists.

Many articles were written in poetic prose that romanticized the Village, while others highlighted newcomers to the area. Alfred Kreymborg, Clara Tice, Djuna Barnes, Ilonka Karasz, and Guido Bruno himself were regular contributors. Published by Charles Edison, the magazine was a great supporter of the New York theatre scene, specifically the Thimble Theatre. As Edison was the owner of this theatre, the back cover typically listed the upcoming week’s performances.

Gallery

Manifesto

Bruno’s Weekly issued no formal manifesto, but one issue offered a simple statement of purpose:

“BRUNO’S WEEKLY: Published by Charles Edison, son of the inventor, and edited by Guido Bruno in his Garret on Washington Square. Pictures, Stories, Poetry, History, and Music With One Purpose Only:
TO PLEASE YOUR EYES AND EARS.
A weekly show you will applaud.”

Bruno’s Weekly 1:13 (Oct. 1915): 131.

Editors

Guido Bruno (1880 – 1942)
Editor: June 1915 – Dec. 1916

Guido Bruno was a significant figure in Greenwich Village, NY. From his garret in Washington Square, he published the little magazines Bruno’s Weekly, Bruno’s Chapbooks, and Greenwich Magazine. He is best known for the authors he published, including Alfred Kreymborg, Marianne Moore, George Bernard Shaw, Djuna Barnes, Oscar Wilde, Sadakichi Hartman, Alfred Douglas, and Richard Aldington. He also published the artwork of numerous well-known artists, such as Clara Tice and Ilonka Karasz. He was a regular contributor of articles, short stories, and translations for Bruno’s Weekly.

Contributors

Richard Aldington
“Happiness”

Djuna Barnes
“The Cabaret Dancer” and numerous drawings

Guido Bruno
Articles, short stories, and translations

Ernest Dowson
“Amantium Irae”

Sadakichi Hartman
Poems and drawings

Ilonka Karaz
Drawings

Alfred Kreymborg
“Washington Square,” excerpts from Mushrooms 

Marianne Moore
“The Just Man and I”
“In ‘Designing a Cloak to Cloak his Designs,’ You Wrested from Oblivion a Coat of Immortality for Your Own Use”

Clara Tice
Many drawings between July 1915 and December 1916

George Bernard Shaw
“On Going to Church”

Oscar Wilde
“Rabboni”
“The Disciple”
“La Mer”
“Impressions of America”

Bibliography

Bruno’s Weekly. 1916. Microfilm. Little Magazines, American, 1910 – 1919. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI, 2004. Reel 1.

Images. Blue Mountain Project. Princeton University. Web. 29 Jun 2016.

Wetzseon, Ross. Republic of Dreams: Greenwich Village, the American Bohemia, 1910-1960. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002.

Written by Peter Bowman · Categorized: American

Apr 07 2016

Broom

Facts

Title: 
Broom: An International Magazine of the Arts

Date of Publication: 
Nov. 1921 (1:1) – Jan. 1924 (6:1). Nothing published Mar. 1922 and Apr.- Jul. 1923

Place(s) of Publication: 
Rome, Italy: Nov. 1921 – Sept. 1922 (1:1 – 3:2)
Berlin, Germany: Oct. 1922 – Mar. 1923 (3:3 – 4:4)
New York, New York: Aug. 1923 – Jan. 1924 (5:1 – 6:1)

Frequency of Publication: 
Monthly

Circulation: 
Approx. 4000 by 1923

Publisher: 
The Broom Publishing Company, Inc.

Physical Description: 
33 cm in length. Contained book reviews, illustrations, criticism, short stories, plays, poems, reviews of cinema and theater. Frequent reproductions of paintings, sculptures, and woodcuts. Advertisements began appearing in April 1922 (2:1). Issues typically ran approx. 100 pages in length.

Price:
50 cents per issue / $5 per year

Editor(s): 
Harold A. Loeb (Nov. 1921 – Jan. 1924)
Alfred Kreymborg (Nov. 1921 – Feb. 1922)
Lola Ridge (American editor)

Associate Editor(s):
Slater Brown
Matthew Josephson
Malcolm Cowley

Libraries with Complete Original Issues:
Harvard University, Houghton Library; Ohio State University

Reprint Editions: 
New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1967
Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI, 2004 (Little Magazines. American, 1920 – 1929) [microform]
PDF of Aug. 1922 issue (3:1) available online at GoogleBooks

Description

In 1920 novelist Harold Loeb convinced Alfred Kreymborg to join him in editing a magazine that would publish any European or American writer they deemed worth reading. With Loeb’s financial backing Broom became a reality in November 1921. The magazine was “heavy of weight, rich in color, fine in binding and printing…nothing quite like its aristocratic format had ever been seen in America” (Hoffman 103). Yet after one year of publication Kreymborg left, as he felt the magazine was too conservative and didn’t feature enough American experimental writers. Loeb moved the magazine from Rome to Berlin, where he produced only four more issues before his money ran out. Matthew Josephson took over the funding of the magazine in New York, but he published only five more issues, the last of which never circulated.

During its time in Europe, Broom had an international tone and “introduced unknown or little known European writers and painters to America” (Hoffman 105). The loose editorial policy, wishing only to publish the best living artist and writers, made for a wide cross-section of contributors, from the up-and-coming to the well-established. The magazine reproduced the art of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Joseph Stella, Juan Gris, Man Ray, Jacques Lipschitz, Rockwell Kent; it also showcased literary contributions from William Carlos Williams, E. E. Cummings, Jean Toomer, Gertrude Stein, Wallace Stevens, Hart Crane, Sherwood Anderson, Waldo Frank, Amy Lowell, John Dos Passos, Kay Boyle, and many more. Broom is not known for being a pioneering little magazine, but its “importance lies in the fact that it was in the vanguard of an intellectual movement, in the fact that it helped win the fight against the sentimentalities of the genteel tradition” (Hoffman 107).

Gallery

Manifesto

Broom‘s first and only manifesto appeared in the magazine’s opening issue. Below is an excerpt:

“Broom is selecting from the continental literature of the present time the writings of exceptional quality most adaptable for translation into English.
These will appear side by side with the contemporaneous effort in Great Britain and America.
The painters and sculptors will be represented by the best available reproductions of their work.
Throughout, the unknown, path-breaking artist will have, when his material merits it, at least an equal chance with the artist of acknowledged reputation.
In brief, Broom is a sort of clearing house where the artists of the present time will be brought into closer contact.
The permanence of this project is assured absolutely if supported by the subscriptions of those sympathetic to it.”

Broom. 1:1 (Nov. 1921): inside back cover.

Editors

Harold Albert Loeb (Oct. 18, 1891 – Jan. 20, 1974)
Editor: Nov. 1921 – Jan. 1924

Born into a wealthy family with investment bankers on his father’s side and Guggenheims on his mother’s side, Harold Albert Loeb seemed an unlikely candidate to have become a little magazine editor and writer. Indeed, it wouldn’t be until 1917, after exhausting cattle farming, concrete pouring, and a New York City desk job, that Loeb looked to writing as a more interesting occupation. When he began working for the Sunwise bookstore in Greenwich Village, he became acquainted with a number of writers and artists. Among them was Gilbert Cannon, who took Loeb abroad to Paris. Once there, Loeb joined Alfred Kreymborg in establishing Broom. After editing the Little Magazine for four years, Loeb devoted his time to his own writing. He wrote several novels, including Doodab (1925) and The Professors Like Vodka (1927), and a memoir, The Way It Was.

Alfred Kreymborg (Dec. 10 1883 – Aug. 14 1966)
Co-Editor: Nov. 1921 – Feb. 1922

Alfred Kreymborg grew up in a working class family in New York City and became interested in modern art, photography, and writing while living in Greenwich Village. He founded The Glebe in 1913, which was “one of the first periodicals to sponsor experimental writing” (Hoffman 46). With a donation of $276 from Walter Conrad Arensberg, Kreymborg went on to found Others, a magazine dedicated to experimental poetry. Editor of Broom and American Caravan and contributor to Little Magazines well into the 1950s, Kreymborg achieved popular acclaim touring America with his puppet plays (1920-1) and a radio play he produced (1938). When he died in 1966, he had published forty books and served as president of the Poetry Society of America and as judge for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.

Lola Ridge (Dec. 12 1873 – May 19, 1941)
American Editor: Feb. 1922 – Jan. 1924

Lola Ridge’s personality and her sympathy for the proletariat gave her considerable fame as a writer and a revolutionist in the 1920s. The Irish native attended Trinity College in New South Whales, Australia, before moving to San Francisco in 1907 to pursue writing and exercise her radical political viewpoints. Even when she gained literary fame for a sequence of poems titled “The Ghetto” published in New Republic, she and her husband lived a life of poverty as an exhibition of her devotion to the working poor. She served as associate editor to Alfred Kreymborg’s Others until it ceased publication in 1919, and then rejoined the writer in 1922 when she began to serve as American editor to Broom. In this position she ran a Broom salon, where she broke her vow of poverty to mingle with American writers. Ridge left Broom when she felt it was becoming overly avant-garde and modernist, and spent the rest of her career publishing increasingly conservative and politically-minded pieces.

Matthew Josephson (Feb. 5, 1899 – Mar. 13, 1978)
Associate Editor: 1922 – Jan. 1924

Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1899, Matthew Josephson graduated Columbia University in 1920 and became a highly experimental poet, enjoying the company and influence of poets Kenneth Burke, Hart Crane, and Malcolm Cowley. When he moved to Paris in 1921 he became entranced by the Dadaists, whose interests in American modernism and industrialism helped Josephson embrace his culture. In 1922 he joined with Gorham Munson to publish Secession, a magazine he hoped would enlighten the world as to the aesthetic importance of the machine age. When Kreymborg offered him an editorial position with Broom in 1922, Josephson seized the opportunity and monopolized on the magazine’s large circulation to dispel his artistic beliefs. Although widely embraced in Europe, his Futurist and Dadaist literature and his collection of poems, Galimathias, failed to impress an American audience when Broom moved to Manhattan. When Broom collapsed in 1924, Josephson took a position on Wall Street for two years which transformed him into a new writer by 1926, and he denounced his former Dadaist ways. He turned to nonfiction, and produced a best-selling biography of Émile Zola, Zola, His Time: The History of His Martial Career in Letters (1928). From 1928-29, he worked as American editor for transition, and blasted William Carlos Williams and Ezra Pounds for being expatriates who refused to embrace their culture. At his death, Josephson was a renown biographer, particularly interested in American capitalism and French literature.

Contributors

Conrad Aiken
“Portrait of a Girl”

Sherwood Anderson
“The Contract”

Kay Boyle
“Morning”

Malcolm Cowley
“Mountain Farm”
“Young Man with Spectacles”

Hart Crane
“The Springs of Guilty Song”

Gordon Craig
“Dedicated to the Enemy”
Tragic Mask

e. e. cummings
“Three United States Poems”
“Sunset”

André Derain
Portrait

John Dos Passos
“Two University Professors”

Feodor Dostoyevsky
“Stavrogin’s Confession”

John Gould Fletcher
“To a Starving Man”

Waldo Frank
“Candy Cigar and Stationary”

Juan Gris
Painting
Drawings
Still Life

Matthew Josephson
“Made in America”
“After and Beyond Dada”

Rockwell Kent
The Young Sailor
Newfoundland Dirge

Harold Loeb
“The Mysticism of Money”

Amy Lowell
“Lilacs”

Henri Matisse
Interior
Still Life

Marianne Moore
“Snakes, Mongooses, Snake-Charmers and the Like”
“Hymen”

Pablo Picasso
Drawing of Igor Strawinsky
Ballerinas

Man Ray
“Seguidilla”

Lola Ridge
“Capital Nights”
“Waste”
“Maple-Sugar Song”
“Hospital Nights”

Carl Sandburg
“Four Steichen Prints”

Gertrude Stein
“If You Had Three Husbands”

Joseph Stella
The Swans
On Painting

Wallace Stevens
“Hymn from a Watermelon Pavilion”

Jean Toomer
“Kabnis”
“Seventh Street”

William Carlos Williams
“Fish”
“Hula-Hula”

Yvor Winters
“Drifting Deer”

Virginia Woolf
“In the Orchard”

Bibliography

Broom: An International Magazine of the Arts. 1924. New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1967.

Hoffman, Frederick J., Charles Allen, and Carolyn F. Ulrich. The Little Magazine: A History and a Bibliography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 1947.

“Lola Ridge.” Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit, Gale 2000. Literature Resource Center. Davidson College Lib., Davidson, NC. 26 June 2009 <http://galenet.galegroup.com>.

Sarason, Bertram D. “Harold A(lbert) Loeb.” American Writers in Paris, 1920-1939. Ed. Karen Lane Rood. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 4. Detroit: Gale Research, 1980. Literature Resource Center. Davidson College Lib., Davidson, NC. 23 June 2009.

Shi, David E. “Matthew Josephson.” American Writers in Paris 1920 – 1939. Ed. Karen Lane Rood. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 4. Gale Research, 1980. Literature Resource Center. Davidson College Lib., Davidson, NC. 23 June 2009.

“Broom” compiled by Simone Muller (visiting student), Theodore Emerson (Class of ’06, Davidson College) and Emily Smith (Class of ’06, Davidson College)

Written by Peter Bowman · Categorized: American, European

Apr 07 2016

Bradley, His Book

Facts

Title: 
Bradley, His Book

Date of Publication: 
May 1896 – Aug. 1896; Nov. 1896 – Jan. 1897

Place(s) of Publication: 
Springfield, Massachusetts

Frequency of Publication: 
Monthly, suspended September and October of 1896.

Circulation: 
25,000 copies

Publisher: 
The Wayside Press

Physical Description:
5 1/8″ X 10 1/4″

Price: 
10 cents per issue (first two issues)
25 cents per issue (last five issues

Editor(s): 
William H. Bradley

Associate Editor(s): 
None

Libraries with Original Issues:
Occidental College, Middlebury College, Davidson College, The University of Kansas, and searchable PDFs of full collection through JSTOR

Reprint Editions: 
None. Various libraries hold re-prints of the commercial designs from Bradley’s magazines including the New York Public Library and Columbia University Libraries

Description

In 1896 William H. Bradley, in his late twenties, began publishing Bradley, His Book out of the Wayside Press in Springfield, Massachusetts. He published literature and artwork produced by his peers (including Audrey Beardsley and William Morris), as well as several up-and-coming authors of his generation such as Percival Pollard, Maxfield Parrish, and Margaret Christine Whiting. The magazine emphasized art criticism, artist biographies, and arts and crafts techniques. Bradley, His Book also featured poetry and short stories from authors like Harriet Monroe and George W. Cable. Special editions of the magazine, like the July 1896 “Women’s Issue” and the December 1896 Christmas issue, highlighted experimentation in typeface and content. The magazine prioritized quality of visual design over literary quality.

The tall, narrow format of this little magazine mirrors the artwork that Bradley intended to sell. He designed posters and print works that were available for purchase through the Wayside Press. At the back of the magazine, Bradley inserted advertisements for other magazines, journals, or household items. The most common advertisements were for fine paper companies and printing. Many of these advertisements were printed on samples of the paper these companies intended to sell. Bradley designed many of these advertisements himself, resulting in an aesthetically pleasing, diverse, and effective advertising strategy. One could say these were the precursor to the “advertorial” found in almost every magazine today, luring the reader in with an appealing illustration attached to a well-worded advertising hook.

Though only seven issues were published, the quality of the artwork in its short run exemplifies a unique combination of the Art Nouveau style and the Arts and Crafts movement of the 1890s. As editor, printer, contributor, and owner of the magazine, Bradley was often overworked yet refused to pass on responsibilities to his employees. His inability to dole out tasks to others and bouts of sickness led to the magazine’s irregular publication from August 1896 to November of that year. Along with the magazine’s profits, Bradley’s health declined. He eventually sold Wayside Press in February 1897 resulting in the cancellation of the magazine.

Gallery

Manifesto

Although Bradley, His Book never issued an explicit manifesto, the editor, William H. Bradley stipulated what art and advertising would do in the magazine in this prospectus piece:

Screen Shot 2015-11-08 at 3.24.59 PM

Editors

William H. Bradley (Jul. 10, 1868 – Jan. 25, 1962)
Editor: May 1896 – Jan. 1897

William H. Bradley was born in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, Aaron Bradley, was a cartoonist for a local newspaper and “provided Will with his first exposure to the world of printing and the motivation to be an artist” (Bambace xiii). His mother, Sarah, was a seamstress. At the age of six, Bradley purchased a small printing press from an advertisement in Youth’s Companion for $3.50. He used this printing press to print cards for his friends. His parents recognized William’s artistic talents but art schooling was beyond his “family’s finances” (xiii). Instead, his father encouraged him to “learn wood engraving by working as an apprentice at a printing or publishing company” (xiii). When his father died in 1880, William and his mother moved to Michigan. He began his apprenticeship education in 1882 where he operated the printing press for a local newspaper and “designed and hung posters for local business concerns,” on the side (xiii). He also experimented with typefaces and print layout. Chicago printing firms began noticing his designs, and he moved there in 1888 to work for the Knight & Leonard printing firm. Throughout the 1890s, he established his own, small design studio while working for commercial enterprises as well as his own artistic ventures.

Heavily influenced by Art Nouveau style, especially by Audrey Beardsley’s work, William H. Bradley’s characteristic, colorful style was the product of these late-1900s aesthetics combined with a resurrection of colonial and medieval type fonts. Throughout his career Bradley designed hundreds of layouts, covers, and illustrations for magazines, including Vogue, The Echo, Harper’s Bazar, and The Ladies’ Home Journal. In many of these publications, he contributed written works about printmaking and design. An industrious artist, he illustrated and sold hundreds of high-quality posters while designing several covers for special edition prints of novels, such as Washington Irving’s Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle. After purchasing his own printing press in 1895, The Wayside Press in Springfield, Massachusetts, he funded the production of Bradley, His Book through heavy advertising from paper companies and other local printing presses. This little magazine, while not a profitable or enduring venture, allowed Bradley to experiment as an artist, editor, writer, and businessman.

By his death in 1962, William H. Bradley was one of the most well-respected and iconic type composers, layout designers, and illustrators in the United States.

Contributors

Arthur Hoeber
“Philistinism In Art.”

August F. Jacacci
“Parisian Notes”

Aubrey Beardsley
Illustration of “Rape of the Lock, Title Page”

Edward Burne-Jones
Illustration of “A Page from Chaucer”

George W. Cable
“At the Edge of the Woods”

Harriet Monroe
“Life and Death”

William Morris
“Gossip About An Old House”
“The Life and Death of Jason”
“The Story of the Glittering Plain”

Madeline Yale Wynne
“In Nether Spaces”

Margaret Christine Whiting
“The City in Which I Died”

Maxfield Parrish
“The Philadelphia Horse Show”
“No Gentleman of France”

Percival Pollard
“After Many Days”

Tudor Jenks
“In An Old Library”
“An Island Queen”

William H. Bradley
Multiple illustrations and written contributions in every issue

Bibliography

Bambace, Anthony.Will H. Bradley: His Work : A Bibliographical Guide. New Castle, Delaware: Oak Knoll Press, 1995. Print.

Bradley, His Book. Springfield, Massachusetts: The Wayside Press, 1896-1897. JSTOR collection.

Brooker, Peter and Andrew Thacker. The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines. Vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Print.

Koch, Robert, 1918-2003. “Will Bradley and the Art Nouveau Poster.” Magazine Antiques 134 (1988): 812–821. Print.

“Bradley, His Book” complied by Hannah Grace Heartfelt (Davidson College, Class of ’16)

Written by Peter Bowman · Categorized: American

Apr 07 2016

The Blindman

Facts

Title: 
The Blindman (April 1917)
The Blind Man (May 1917)

Date of Publication: 
April 1917 (1.1); May 1917 (1.2)

Place(s) of Publication: 
New York, NY

Frequency of Publication: 
Twice

Circulation:
Unknown

Publisher:
Henri Pierre Roché, 33 West 67th Street, New York

Physical Description: 
Issue 1: 8 pages
Issue 2: 16 pages
Deluxe Version : 19.5″ x 12″ printed on fine Japanese Vellum paper
Standard Version : 19.5″ x 12″ printed on standard non glossy paper

Price:
15 cents

Editor(s):
Marcel Duchamp
Beatrice Wood
Henri Pierre Roché

Associate Editor(s):
None

Libraries with Complete Original Issues: 
The Whitney Museum of American Art Library; University College of London; The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Thomas J. Watson Library (1:2); University of Iowa (1:2)

Reprint Editions: 
PDF of second issue available online at the University of Iowa’s International Dada Archive

Description

Marcel Duchamp, Beatrice Wood, and Henri Pierre Roché collaborated on The Blindman in an effort to provide a forum for new artists, poets, and writers to display their experimental work. In the first of only two issue of the magazine, the editors wrote that “New York, so far ahead of its time in so many ways, yet indifferent to art in the making, is going to learn to think for itself, and no longer accept, mechanically, the art reputations made abroad” (2). Although none of the editors ever labeled the magazine an explicitly Dadaist publication, The Blindman is considered to be one of the first publications of the New York Dada movement.

The first issue was dedicated to the opening of the Independent Exhibition, an exhibit crafted by Marcel Duchamp, Katherine Dreier, and Walter Arensberg and funded for by the Society of Independent Artists. The concept behind the exhibit was the same as that of the magazine: to open the eyes of the public to the work being created that went ignored by elitist art critics and scholars. Nevertheless, Duchamp’s “readymade” Fountain, signed under the name “R. Mutt,” was rejected by the Independent Exhibition‘s selection committee. The second and last issue of The Blind Man expressed support for “R. Mutt” and criticized the Society for their narrow-mindedness. The issue also featured work by Mina Loy, Francis Picaba, Walter Conrad Arensburg, and others. Despite the magazine’s note that “Brave people who like to run risks may send to The Blind Man five dollars as subscription and encouragement,” the magazine failed to produce a third issue. The reason the editors changed the spelling of the magazine’s title in the second issue is unknown.

Gallery

Manifesto

Although the editors of The Blindman never published an explicit manifesto, the first issue did include a paragraph detailing the little magazine’s goals:

“The Blindman’s procedure shall be that of referendum.
He will publish the questions and answers sent to him.
He will print what the artists and the public have to say.
He is very keen to receive suggestions and criticisms.
So, don’t spare him.

Here are his intentions:
He will publish reproductions of the most talked-of works.
He will give a chance to the leaders of any ‘school’ to ‘explain’ (provided they speak human).
He will print an annual Indeps for poetry, in a supplement open to all.
He will publish drawings, poems, and stories written and illustrated by children”

The Blindman. 1:1 (10 April 1917): 4.

Editors

Marcel Duchamp (Jul. 28, 1887 – Oct. 2, 1968)
Co-Editor: Apr. – May 1917

Marcel Duchamp was born into an artistic family in Blainville, France. Both his brother and half-brother were painters. Duchamp’s 1913 painting Nude Descending a Staircase sent shockwaves through the New York modernist scene for “its depiction of a nude, its nonrepresentational character, and its expression of motion,” and in 1915 Duchamp relocated from war-torn Paris to left wartime Paris to New York’s receptive art scene (Scott 66). Upon his arrival he joined the Arensberg circle, a group of radical artists, poets, and philosophers who convened at the home of Walter and Louise Arensberg. In 1917 Duchamp helped conceive the Independent Exhibition, a show in which any artist would be able to put his or her works on display. Duchamp submitted one of his first “readymades,” the infamous Fountain, under the pseudonym R. Mutt; to his outrage, the urinal was rejected by the Society (Scott 68). Undeterred, Duchamp stayed in New York until 1918, working on his masterpiece The Large Glass. Returning to Paris, Duchamp joined Tristan Tzara, Francis Picabia and Man Ray in making Paris the international center for Dada (Scott 68). Duchamp eventually gave up producing art to pursue his lifelong passion for chess, and became an American citizen in 1955.

Beatrice Wood (Mar. 3, 1893 – Mar. 12, 1998)
Co-Editor: Apr. – May 1917

Although her wealthy San Franciscan family discouraged it, Beatrice Wood was determined to become an artist. Gaining admittance to the prestigious Académie Julian in Paris to study painting, Wood’s dreams seemed to be coming true until the onset of the First World War forced her return to America. She began acting in New York City, where she would meet Marcel Duchamp, her lifelong friend and occasional lover. Duchamp first introduced Wood to Henri Pierre Roché. Through the influence of these two men that Wood became involved in New York Dada: as she once proclaimed in a lecture, “What is Dada about this lecture is that I know nothing about Dada. I was only in love with men connected with it, which I suppose is as near to being Dada as anything” (Franklin 105). In 1916 Wood’s drawing Mariage D’une Amie (Marriage of a Female Friend), appeared in the little magazine Rogue, and her following year’s painting un peut d’eau dans du savon (A Little Water in Some Soap), received wide praise at the Independent Exhibition (Franklin 112). In 1918 Wood left New York for a brief stint in Montreal theater. When she returned to New York, Wood found that her old circle of friends had dissolved, so she moved west to Los Angeles to be close to the Arensbergs. There she pursued pottery and created magnificent glazes and forms for the rest of her life. Before her death in 1998 she was the sole surviving member of the Arensberg circle. She was 105.

Henri Pierre Roché (May 28, 1879 – April 9, 1959)
Co-Editor: Apr. – May 1917

Parisian Henri Pierre Roché was an avid art collector and dealer, journalist, and novelist. Accompanying Marcel Duchamp to New York in 1915, he became a member of the Arensberg circle, where he became famed for his many liaisons with Dada women, including Beatrice Wood, Clara Tice, and Louise Arensberg herself (Franklin 105). At the end of World War I Roché returned to France, where he wrote and continuing to collect and deal artwork. His most famous novel, Jules et Jim, was adapted into a movie by the French director François Truffaut in 1962. Roché died in Sèvres, France in 1959.

Contributors

Anonymous
“The Richard Mutt Case”

Walter Conrad Arensberg
“Axiom”
“Theorem”

Robert Carlton Brown
“Eyes on the Half Shell”
“A Resolution Made at Bronx Park”

Gabrielle Buffet
Marie Laurencin

Frank Crowninshield
“From a friend”

Charles Demuth
“For Richard Mutt”

Marcel Duchamp
Cover Drawing (No. 2)

Charles Duncan
“Third Dimension; Portrait Sketch”

Alfred Frueh
Cover Illustration (No. 1)

Mina Loy
“In…Formation”
“[Untitled Poem]”
“O Marcel—otherwise I Also Have Been to Louise’s”

Allen Norton
“[Untitled Poem]”

Louise Norton
“Buddha of the Bathroom”

Francis Picabia
“Medusa”

Henri Pierre Roché
“The Blind Man

Erik Satie
“Tale by Erik Satie”
“Poem”

Joseph Stella
Coney Island

Francis Simpson Stevens
“[Untitled Poem]”

Alfred Stieglitz
Fountain, R. Mutt
“Letter to the Editors”

Clara Tice
Drawing

Beatrice Wood
“Why I Come to the Independents”
“Work of a Picture Hanger”
“Dream of a Picture Hanger”

Bibliography

“Biography of Beatrice Wood.” Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts. 2006-2009.

Franklin, Paul B. “Beatrice Wood, Her Dada…and Her Mama.” Women in Dada: Essays on Sex, Gender, and Identity. Ed. Naomi Sawelson-Gorse. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998. 104-137.

Image, Apr. 1917 issue. “Rarities from 1917: Facsimiles of The Blind Man No. 1, The Blind Man No. 2, and Rongwrong.” Tout-Fait: The Marcel Duchamp Studies Online Journal. 1.3 (Dec. 2000). Web. 14 July 2009.

Images, May 1917 issue. “Digital Dada Library Collection.” The International Dada Archive. 2007. University of Iowa. Web. 14 July 2009.

Kimmelman, Michael. “Forever Dada: Much Ado Championing the Absurd; Much Ado over the Absurd.” The New York Times 22 Nov. 1996: C1.

Razutis, Al. “Marcel Duchamp.” The American Beat Museum. 2003. Web.

Scott, William B., and Peter M. Rutkoff. New York Modern. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
University Press, 1999.

“The Blindman” compiled by Katharine Schulmann (Class of ’07, Davidson College)

Written by Peter Bowman · Categorized: American

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