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Summer Book Club meets in August

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Join us for our second and last meeting on Friday, August 19 at 12 noon. The book is Pym: A Novel by UH creative writing professor Mat Johnson.  A Booklist Review by Julie Hunt pronounces it: “Funny, insightful, racially important, Pym is a death-defying adventure and a probing examination of notions of race, even at the farthest ends of the earth. ” The Summer Book Club is co-sponsored by the UH Libraries and the Women’s Resource Center.  Refreshments will be provided.  The Summer Book Club is open to all UH students, staff, faculty, and affiliates.

Copies of Pym are available through the Libraries’ fabulous and free Interlibrary Loan service.  The Interlibrary Loan department will borrow an extra copy of the book from another library for you.  You can retrieve your copy at the M.D. Anderson Library’s service desk when it arrives.  Visit their website to set up an account.

Join us for the fun!

Decorative Arts for Decorative Arts’ Sake: The Birth of Art Deco now on display

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The Jenkins Architecture and Art Library in the Hines College of Architecture invites you to stop by for a look at our new Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Book Room display. Two volumes from the collection – French portfolios of heliogravure (photogravure) printed plates – provide an intriguing snapshot of a pivotal point in design history.

From 1923, La Ferronnerie Moderne, by Gabriel Henriot, documents the fanciful, exquisite metalwork of the late Art Nouveau style.  La Sculpture Décorative à l’Exposition des Arts Décoratifs de 1925, by Henri Rapin, features the work of designers exhibited in the titular event. With its focus squarely on the decorative arts and its singular preoccupation with pure decoration, the 1925 exposition boldly explored and employed myriad, unrelated impulses and inspirations. The juxtaposition of these two, rare volumes tantalizingly suggests the ultimate transition of late Nouveau to a burgeoning new and fresh “modern” style, a style borne of l’Exposition des Arts Décoratifs de 1925 – Art Deco.

The library’s display, assembled by Evening Supervisor Chris Conway, is further enhanced by the inclusion of text from the Victoria and Albert Museum’s website and by reproductions of postcards from l’Exposition des Arts Décoratifs de 1925.

Come have a look; when did you last have the opportunity to admire some rare, French, heliogravure (photogravure) printed plates?