picture

A rare illustrated German nursery rhyme children’s book, Paradisefibel features colored illustrations by Richard Seewald (1889-1976), a German visual artist. With highly stylized illustrations, this fairy tale includes humorous animals in human situations, such as singing frogs and playing monkeys. Written by husband and wife Joseph and Maria Koch, the rhythmic flow of the text works in conjunction with Koch’s development of the “finger-reading” method of sign language.

Alpine Flowers Tales (Alpenblumenmärchen) is a 1922 illustrated storybook that describes the woodland adventures of two acorn children who get swept away by the autumn winds. Author Ernst Kreidolf (1863-1956) was a Swiss painter largely known for his watercolor illustrations for children's books about flower fairies and small creatures in nature. The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library has a large collection of 19th century illustrated children's books in many languages.

This is one of over 1,600 titles at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library classified as a pop-up and movable book. Some of these titles have been in the collection since the founding of the Cooper Union Museum in 1897. However, the majority of the pop-up collection was acquired in the 1980s and continues to grow through donations from collectors and select purchases. Spanning over 500 years, these action-packed works of art were intended to calculate, educate, entertain, and amaze. This book is a particularly rare example on astronomy published in the USSR in 1982.

Charles-Antoine Jombert (1712–1784) was a French bookseller and publisher descended from a dynasty of booksellers. This book serves as a manual on techniques for figure drawing, featuring over 100 copper engravings representing different parts of the human anatomy. Some plates are based on original designs done by masters such as Titian and Raphael with various tips for mastering drawings such as anatomical proportions, academic scenes, and landscapes.

Christophe Huet (1700-1759), French artist of the Rococo period, illustrated this rare first edition depicting examples of “singerie.” Singerie, derived from the French word “monkey trick," a visual genre which features fashionably attired monkeys humorously imitating human behavior became a popular and amusing diversion for the upper classes in 18th century France. Singerie were depicted in paintings by such artists as Jean-Antoine Watteau as well as motifs in marquetry, textiles, and porcelain.

This first and only edition of the earliest book on decorative arts designer Dagobert Peche (1881-1923), written by art historian and Vienna University professor Max Eisler (1881-1937), includes 100 full plates of Peche’s designs for lamps, glass, textiles, ceramics, jewelry, silverware, wallpaper, and interiors. Peche became artistic director of the Wiener Werkstätte in 1915, a production community of visual artists founded by Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann in Vienna in 1903.

This beautifully illustrated pattern book, part of a five volume study of mid-19th century French architecture by artist and chromolithographer Victor Petit, includes fifty color lithographs of designs for gardens. The colorful, full-page illustrations provide designs for the placement of paths, flowerbeds, waterways, and garden structures for properties ranging from one sixth of an acre to more than seven and a half acres.

Eadweard Muybridge (1830–1904), the creator of Animals in Motion, was an English photographer who pioneered photographic studies of motion and early works in motion-picture projection. His massive portfolio was the culmination of 15 years of work that contributed to developments in the science of biomechanics and athletics. Muybridge’s experiments developed new visual technologies that produced objective and accurate movements of humans and animals. Each movement is presented as a measurable phenomenon.

Controversy and Hope is an immersion into not only the 54-mile Voting Rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, but also a view into a range of civil rights events from 1960 to 1965. Photojournalist James Karales was also an acquaintance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library owns over 4,000 photographs by American photographer and journalist Thérèse Bonney, (1894-1978), who documented life in Paris from 1925-35.

A Collection of Alphabets Dedicated to Artists is a small pattern book of decorative and ornamented typefaces for alphabets and numbers. Containing variations of common Roman, Gothic, and Italian letter forms, it offers letters of the alphabet formed by human figures, silhouettes of human figures, and animals. Interestingly, it also has a page of the letters formed by hands in sign language alphabet.

Wendingen (Dutch:Inversions / Upheaval) was an art magazine published from 1918 to 1932. It was a monthly publication aimed at architects and interior designers, and included discussions on graphics, sculpture, ceramics, glass, and theatrical design. The magazine gained recognition not only through its content but also by its remarkable square format, striking typography, and beautiful covers. In 1924, vol.

This extremely rare 1940 trade catalog represents the output of 10 state owned ceramics factories in small towns and villages all over the Ukraine after industry was nationalized in 1918. Today, we are more familiar with the graphic arts of Communist Russia as vehicles for propaganda, such as posters. The decorative arts of utilitarian objects, like the tableware featured in this catalog, were also important vehicles for disseminating political concepts of the new social order and Soviet nationalism to the masses in everyday life.

With over 500 photographs dating from the turn of the 20th century to the present day, Black: A Celebration of a Culture exhibits the vivacious landscape of black culture not only in America, but also around the world.

James Bateman (1811-1897) was a renowned horticulturist, specifically focused on orchidology. He was a highly regarded researcher and landscaper who promoted the analysis and cultivation of flowers and hosted several scholarly expeditions to Mexico and South America.

English architect, George Perry (b. 1771) authored this groundbreaking scientific book on conchology, the study of shells. It is the only shell book illustrated with hand-colored aquatint plates by the engraver John Clarke. The illustrations were based on natural specimens mostly from private collections and the British Museum, including shells from across the globe, from Sri Lanka to New Zealand. Some names assigned to shells by Perry are still in use today.

This book is a compilation of prints of covers (or envelopes) and postcards from the California Gold Rush featuring detailed information about each illustration. It portrays the adventure involved in prospecting for gold. Mining expert Kenneth Kutz begins his story with the discovery of gold in California and explores the connection between the gold rush and philately. Then he discusses mining law. Finally, he presents the reader with 20 years of correspondence to and from people working in the gold fields, beginning with the initial discovery of gold in 1848.

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.

Elementa Ornithologica by Jacob Christian Schäffer (1718-1790), a German philosophy and divinity teacher, botanist, mycologist, entomologist, ornithologist, and inventor, is a detailed, beautifully illustrated ornithological study in which birds are divided into two classes: Nudipedes (those with naked legs) and Plumipedes (with feathered legs). Schäffer, who created this classification system, also developed and named colors on charts that would imitate as closely as possible the natural hues found in plants and animals.

This book takes an illustrative scientific approach towards understanding how interwoven conditions such as hydrology, oxygen levels, and plant canopies impact the types of species that can be found in freshwater wetlands. These ‘abiotic’ factors contribute to the overall development and adaptation of microorganisms, invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants in wetlands. Even with the scientific approach, The Biology of Freshwater Wetlands is easy to read for researchers, students, and others interested in ecology.

Although only about two percent of the population of India is Christian, it is common to find both Christian and non-Christian Indian artists who have used Christian themes in their art. The beginnings of Christianity in India are not well known but tradition has it that the apostle Thomas founded a number of churches in Kerala in 52 AD. Vasco da Gama (1469-1524), the Portuguese explorer, landed in Calicut in 1498 and by 1542 the Roman Catholic missionary Francis Xavier (1506-1552) had reached Goa. These contacts with the west brought examples of European art into the Indian subcontinent.

In 19th century America, as the middle class grew, more people had time to garden for pleasure. That is when books on flower gardening became popular. Chrysanthemum Culture for America (1891) by James Morton was one of the earliest American publications on the history and care of chrysanthemums. At the time, the famous horticulturist Liberty Hyde Bailey considered it the best book “written by an American” on the flower.

Lectures on Painting contains three lectures given by James Barry (1741-1806), John Opie (1761-1807), and Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), with an introduction by Ralph Nicholson Wornum (1812-1877). The three lecturers were all members of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and they were, as well as Wornum, prominent artists of their time. In addition to being an artist, Wornum was also an art historian, administrator, Keeper of the National Gallery in London, and Secretary for the National Gallery's Trustees.

Africa is rising—fashion, design, wax prints redeux, eco-architecture, floating schools, hammocks in libraries, AK-47s into chairs,  popular culture, récupération, safari lodges, curated dining, LGBT haute couture, Afronauts, sapeurs—where art and design and popular culture collide. Today’s African designers share an unflinching reverence for the past and draw smartly on that heritage in the novelty of their creations. This is not your Africa of yore.

“Let your motto be resistance! resistance! resistance! No oppressed people have ever secured their liberty without resistance. What kind of resistance you had better make, you must decide by the circumstances that surround you, and according to the suggestion of expediency.” This powerful quote from Henry Highland Garnet inspired the title of this book. Dr.

From the smallest cells to vast, swirling nebulae; from plumes of volcanic ash and rock to the relationships of primates; William L. Staley carefully details life on Earth as we know it.  He does so with the help of My Pal, a cartoon bacterium.  The result is a bit silly but informative and inviting.  Printed on coated paper and frequently dotted with illustrations, cartoons, and photographs (of special note is the fold-out photo of the skeleton from fish to man at the end).  This first edition copy is signed and dated by the author. 

While the pleasure of most coffee-table books lies in their exquisite photographs, the true delight of this book lies in Elisabeth Mann Borgese’s succinct and moving narrative. Among the brilliant, saturated photos are long essays detailing the origins, breadth, and depth of the oceans, those who use them, and the particular threats facing them. Prior to her death in 2002, Ms.

This children's book is filled with colorful art on every page by artist Daniel Minter. The book consists of 12 short poems, each poem named after a month of the year. The author, Katharine Boling, grew up in the Gullah region of South Carolina, an area on the coast populated with descendants of freed slaves. At the end of the book is a glossary of Gullah terms. Some words in the poems include puntop (on top of), bittle (food), and bex (angry). Each poem describes what life is like during the seasons of the Gullah year, in Gullah country, in Gullah language.

This beautiful coffee table book book is signed by the author, Jonathan Green of South Carolina. It contains 108 color portraits and paintings, with captions describing each work of art. The first thirty pages share a biography of the artist and describe his life’s work. The rest of the book is devoted entirely to nothing but beautiful art. The images depict the artist’s upbringing. He was raised on a farm in Gullah country, the coastal areas of South Carolina and Georgia, inhabited by the descendants of freed slaves from the area. 

This children's book tells the story of how Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) fought his slave master and claimed his freedom from slavery. It is based on the true story of Douglass' escape from slavery and tells of how he earned the respect of the slave masters and his fellow slaves. The book features many beautiful color illustrations by Cedric Lucas, bringing to life Douglass' inspiring and enthralling story.