illustration

Bernard Berenson (1865-1959), the well-known art historian and author of classic texts on Renaissance art including Paintings of the Florentine Renaissance, also had an early interest in Asian and Islamic art.

This book, with examples of 1935 French advertising design, is part of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library’s Special Collections materials on typography and graphic design. With text, design, and layout by Alex Pinon, this volume is a fascinating look into advertising typography by one of the leading French type foundries of the period. Alex Pinon (1900-1961) started his career in typography and fashion illustration after the First World War; during the 1950s he was a prominent cover illustrator of bestsellers of popular literature.

The Kreuterbuch of Adam Lonicer (1528-1586), first published in 1557, is an early example of a bestseller—the book remained in print in various forms through 1783, which is a testament to its popular appeal. Although the name Kreuterbuch literally translates to “herb book,” and most of it is indeed about plants, a great deal of the book is devoted to describing the natures and uses of animals, metals, and gemstones.

This little astronomical work contains 104 beautifully hand-colored lithographs of the moon, planets, and constellations, along with eclipses and atmospheric phenomena. The constellations dotted with golden stars are great examples of the elegance and simplicity of the book’s execution. Author Charles Blunt’s introduction to the book explains that it was created so that a family need not “quit their own parlour, or drawing-room fireside, to enjoy the sublime ‘beauty of the heavens.’” With every plate comes a ‘lecture’ or description designed to be read aloud, facilitating at-home learning.

Four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie...Imagine those blackbirds popping out at you! The Pop-Up Mother Goose includes surprises on every page. Author Harold Lentz was a commercial artist who delved into the world of book publication in the 1930s, when he designed a series of colorful fairy tales, incorporating imaginative drawings and paper engineering. Lentz and his publisher were the first to coin the term "pop-up" to describe their surprising design. Produced and sold during the Great Depression, these imaginative books provided readers a joyful distraction.

Brown Gold traces the development of African American children’s literature from the 1870s to the 2000s. The book includes literary criticism and pedagogy, as well as literary history and cultural analysis. The author discusses the use and impact of racial terms such as Afro, Negro, African American, and others. The book also focuses on African American illustrations, and on how African Americans were portrayed and caricaturized in children’s picture books. The discussion addresses the impact of these portrayals on the experiences of African Americans in their daily lives.

This is a comprehensive work on numerous types of birds, many not normally considered pets or cage-birds. Some also consider it a classic work on canaries. Each author contributed chapters in one of three sections: Blakston wrote about canaries; Swaysland, in his role as an “authority” on the subject, contributed the section on British cage-birds; and Wiener wrote the section on foreign birds. Blakston’s chapters on canaries include more detailed information on breeding, hatching and rearing, exhibiting, and diseases than the other two authors’ sections.

The eponymous “stubborn dirigible,” Zep, goes against orders during a flight in order to save his crew and passengers from a terrible storm in this children's book. In the wake of many zeppelin disasters in the 1930s—both in America and abroad—this book resists disaster and excites the young imaginations who looked to the sky for inspiration and adventure. Published by Rand McNally and Company in 1935, The Stubborn Dirigible was one of many children’s books released by the famous cartographic corporation.

Krazy Kat was a well-known American comic strip which ran from 1913 to 1944, written by George Herriman. The premise, a carefree and quirky love triangle of sorts, nearly always put Krazy Kat in the line of fire of Ignatz the mouse, who often found himself at odds with the police dog, Offisa Pupp. The antics in the Krazy Kat comic were always set against a desert landscape, inspired by the vistas at the author's summer house in Arizona. 

This 1892 folio reproduction of a Tlaxcala codex was originally developed in the 16th century. The Lienzo de Tlaxcalla uses detailed drawings to depict the time of contact and conflict between Hernando Cortez and various groups of people in and around the Tlaxcala region of Mexico. The Lienzo de Tlaxcalla is comprised of images with accompanying text in Nahuatl. One such stunning image portrays a sumptuous banquet. The 16th century original is now lost, but its imagery is available thanks in part to this recreation by Alfredo Chavero.