Brainstorming Howard Barnstone, a small exhibit at the Architecture and Art Library, makes a persuasive case for the reexamination of Barnstone’s career, which spanned from the 1950s to the 1980s. Barnstone taught at the University of Houston where he influenced generations of students. The exhibition features original portfolios from the firm Barnstone and Partners that are permanently housed in the library’s Kenneth Franzheim Rare Books Room, as well as books he published: including The Galveston that Was (1966) and The Architecture of John Staub (1979), the first book documenting a Houston architect, copies of which are available in the Architecture and Art Library. The Galveston That Was, illustrated by Henri Cartier-Bresson, helped spur restoration of residential and commercial buildings on the island. The exhibit was designed by Library Assistant Chelby King.
The 2014 Student Art in the Library is now available in the UH Digital Library!
Every spring the University of Houston Libraries hosts a juried exhibit of student artwork. This competitive event is open to students of all classifications and majors. A blind jury of arts professionals from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Menil Collection, Blaffer Museum, UH School of Art faculty, and Houston art galleries selects the work that will be included each year. The exhibit is on display in the M.D. Anderson Library during the spring semester. The 2014 selections have been added to the Student Art Exhibit collection, which includes artwork and ephemera from all but the first two mounted exhibits.
The Lucian T. Hood Architectural Drawings are now available in the UH Digital Library. Through his early drawings, this digital collection captures architect Lucian Hood’s eye for detail and exemplifies his artistry and graphic skills. These drawings, done before architects were aided by AutoCAD and other drafting software, embody the craftsmanship and sense of detail from a bygone era. In all, the collection contains 116 drawings done by hand in pencil. The drawings include floor plans, interior and exterior elevations, foundations, and plots.
Many of the drawings are from Hood’s early work on residential homes, which are representative of the architectural trends and influences of the early 1960s. These homes, located throughout the Houston neighborhoods of River Oaks, Tanglewood, and Memorial, are highly sought after in the marketplace, and owners are often interested in the original drawings in order to restore the homes to their original specifications.
Hood was a 1952 graduate of the University of Houston who studied under Donald Barthelme. He was one of Houston’s early Modernist architects and his work was in great demand for more than 40 years, from the 1950s through the 1990s.
The original materials are available in UH Libraries’ Special Collections in the Lucian T. Hood Architectural Collection.
Photographer Nat Finkelstein (1933-2009) entered Andy Warhol’s Factory as a photojournalist in 1964. He, along with Warhol and others, contributed to 1968’s The Andy Warhol Index. In 1992, Finkelstein released – in a limited, numbered edition of 200 copies – A Catalogue as Multiple: Andy Warhol. Newly acquired by the William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library, “the catalogue…consists of a handmade wooden box… the top and bottom of which have a silk screened portrait of Warhol made and signed by Nat Finkelstein. The box contains a mirror with a silk screened portrait of Nico, an Andy Warhol bottle, a rubber ball, and a catalogue – in loose sheets – describing more than a hundred various Andy Warhol items.”–Prospectus.
Both The Andy Warhol Index and A Catalogue as Multiple: Andy Warhol (its contents displayed) are currently on view upstairs at the Architecture and Art Library. Pop in for a peek at some Pop art artifacts.
A Zine Workshop, led by Zine Fest Houston, hosted by the Blaffer Art Museum, and organized by the Jenkins Library Ambassadors, the Architecture and Art Library’s student leadership organization, was held in April. The work created at the workshop can now be viewed on flickr. A printed copy will be available in the Architecture and Art Library collection later this summer. If you are interested in joining the Jenkins Library Ambassadors or learning more about their programming, email archlib@uh.edu or visit the organization’s UH website(requires CougarNet login).
This is the fifth summer that the UH Libraries and the Women’s Resource Center have co-sponsored a book discussion group for UH students, employees, and friends.
Readers will meet at noon on July 9th in the Women’s Resource Center to discuss The Fault in our Stars by John Green. Booklist gave it a starred review: “Writing about kids with cancer is an invitation to sentimentality and pathos or worse, in unskilled hands, bathos. Happily, Green is able to transcend such pitfalls in his best and most ambitious novel to date. Beautifully conceived and executed, this story artfully examines the largest possible considerations life, love, and death with sensitivity, intelligence, honesty, and integrity.”
Readers will meet at noon on August 4th in the Women’s Resource Center to discuss Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love and So Much More by Janet Mock. “Writer and activist Mock came out as a transwoman when Marie Claire profiled her in 2011. In this memoir, she recounts her childhood belief in her true gender, her messy teenaged transition, and her adult life as a woman. A book sure to be both inspiring and important.” – Library Journal
Bring a brown bag lunch and we’ll provide the drinks and desserts.
All students, staff, faculty and alumni are welcome to participate. Contact Catherine Essinger at cwessinger@uh.edu if you wish to borrow a copy of the book through the UH Libraries.
For more information, visit: http://www.uh.edu/wrc/
http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/aahoh
This collection is the result of a partnership between the William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library and the Houston Chapter of the American Institute of Architects. It includes the oral histories of people who strongly impacted the built environment in the Houston Area. Architects, developers, scholars and philanthropists discuss their work, projects, and the influences that shaped Houston. Each subject is interviewed by an architect or architectural scholar who frames the discussion and provides context. The collection of oral histories is ongoing, so Building Houston’s content will regularly expand to accommodate new subjects.
In deference to the post-graduation College of Architecture Awards Ceremony, which will take place in the college’s atrium, the William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library will close from 1-3 pm on Friday, May 9th. It will reopen immediately after the ceremony. Please return books and other library materials to the M.D. Anderson Library or another UH library during that time, so as not to disturb the proceedings.
Mark Rothko: The Houston Connection, at talk by Chelby King, to be held at Rothko Chapel on Tuesday, May 6th at 7 p.m.
How did John and Dominique de Menil come to commission Mark Rothko to create his masterpiece, the Rothko Chapel, in Houston? Art historian Chelby King discusses Houston art professor Jermayne McAgy’s influence on the de Menil’s commission and her connection to Rothko. Chelby King was awarded a M.A. in art history from the University of Houston in May 2013 following a fifteen-year career in arts management. Her organizational work has focused on advancing opportunities for contemporary artists including positions as the director of Lawndale Arts Center and the director of the City of Houston’s civic art program at Houston Arts Alliance. With a fellowship from the University of Houston she completed her thesis on the institutional practices of Jermayne MacAgy. Chelby teaches college classes on art history and is a librarian at the University of Houston Architecture and Art Library. A reception on the plaza follows the program.
Use the following link to RSVP for the event: https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07e81godf9adabd257&oseq=&c=&ch=