The Architecture & Art Library will close from 2 pm on Friday, May 11th, until the College of Architecture and Design’s graduation has commenced, approximately 90 minutes.
Sketches Abroad has been digitized for the UH Digital Library. The oversized portfolio features sketches made by Julius A. Schweinfurth during a nine month tour Spain, Italy, France, and the South Kensington Museum in 1886. Mr. Schweinfurth earned a Rotch Travelling Fellowship from the Boston Society of Architects, which allowed him to travel and publish his sketches. He later became chief designer at Peabody and Sterns, one of the most prominent American firms of the late nineteenth century, before launching his own firm in 1895. His notable works include several dormitories at Wellesley College and the Bradley Chapel at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, NY. He and his family endowed the Schweinfurth Art Center, which continues to operate in Auburn.
This rare portfolio is part of the William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library’s Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Room collection. Contact Catherine Essinger at cwessinger@uh.edu to schedule a time to view this or other rare books on art and design.
An installation of prints and multimedia artwork by UH alumnus Lisa Marie Kress is on view on the William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library’s upper mezzanine through May 2018. Ms. Kress, currently an instructor at the University of Houston-Downtown, earned her MFA from the UH School of Art in 2001.
The William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library has recently acquired a number of exceptional works for its Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Room, thanks to the generous support of donors Edward Lukasek and Barry Moore, who donated titles from their personal collections, and the families of Howard Barnstone and Melita Franzheim, as well as Kenneth Franzheim II, all of whom established endowments that allow the library to acquire and maintain superb books on art, architecture and design. The books listed below may viewed by appointment. Contact Catherine Essinger at cwessinger@uh.edu for more information.
| The alphabet of Francesco Torniello da Novara [1517 : Followed by a comparison with the alphabet of Fra Luca Pacioli] |
L’architecture gothique religieuse en Catalogne, Valence et Baléares
L’art chrétien : son développement iconographique des origines à nos jour
Les débuts de la sculpture romane espagnole : Leon, Jaca, Compostelle
Designs for monuments : including grave stones, compartments, wall pieces and tombs on 40 plates
The earliest painted panels of Catalonia
The Four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John / with wood engravings by Hans Alexander Mueller
French cathedrals / by Benjamin Winkles
Mineko Grimmer : Remembering Plato : the Menil Collection
Screen tests : a diary / [by] Gerard Malanga and Andy Warhol
Visionary architects : Boullée, Ledoux, Lequeu
Winkles’s architectural and picturesque illustrations of the cathedral churches of England and Wales
Visitors to the William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library may view fine examples from the Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Room this spring. The library’s exhibit cases are filled with important texts from one of the greatest American architects, as well as a recently acquired performance piece by Salvador Dali.
Nine works on and by Frank Lloyd Wright are on view through May, including a 1938 exhibit catalog produced by the Museum of Modern Art, drawings from his published portfolio, and a very rare paint catalog featuring colors personally selected by Wright. Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959) was one of the most important architects of the 20th century, as well as a respected author and architectural philosopher. He began his career as a residential architect, who introduced to his unique “Prairie Style” idealism to American architecture. His career slowed considerably after scandals involving his marriages and a mass murder that took place in his home. This downturn encouraged him to reinvigorate his career by publishing an autobiography and other works, culminating with Testament, one of the books on display in the Jenkins Library.
Visitors may also view a book, libretto, and audio recording of Salvador Dali’s little-known opera Être Dieu: opéra-poème, audiovisuel et cathare en six parties [Being God: a Cathar Audiovisual Opera-Poem in Six Parts], libretto by Manuel Vazquez Montalban and music by Igor Wakhevitch. Salvador Dali and his collaborators composed this performance art piece in 1974. It is based on mystery plays and inspired by Catharism, a 12th century Gnostic revival movement. Dali plays the role of God in this rare recording. The William R. Jenkins Library recently purchased Être Dieu with funds from the Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Book Endowment.
I’m pleased to announce that Edith Villasenor has joined the William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library staff. Edith earned a BA in in Art History from UH and worked in the Jenkins Library as a student shelver from 2014-2016. While a student she served as Vice President of the Blaffer Student Association and the Treasurer of the Jenkins Library Ambassadors. Edith has worked as a docent at the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft and as a volunteer at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Lawndale Art Center. She interned in the Blaffer Art Museum’s Education Department and as an archival and curatorial assistant at the 1940 Air Terminal Museum. In her new role as library supervisor, Edith will supervise the student shelvers as well as the Jenkins Library Student Ambassador program. She will also be heavily involved in outreach activities and research instruction targeted at visual arts students enrolled in the Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts. Edith may be reached at evillasenor@uh.edu or at 713-743-2340. Please join me in welcoming her back to UH.
The William R. Jenkins Architecture & Art Library presents four untitled paintings by second-year graduate student Angel Castelán. His exhibit, Drawn Superstition draws upon his Mexican ancestry and its animal mythology. “Being of Mexican heritage,” he writes, I grew up listening to all sorts of superstitions, and naturally, the majority of these were about animals. Brujas turn into lechuzas to carry you off at night. Don’t let the cara de niño bite you, or you’ll die. The urutau and black witch moths are harbingers of death; don’t let them get you. Thus, it is no surprise that certain animals are rejected or even feared to the point that they are killed when encountered. However, when these animals, who are either endemic or have ties that date back to the Aztecs, are pushed into being endangered or even extinct in the wild, it becomes a major issue. Through this series of drawings, I aim to capture these animals as they would normally be encountered; without the corruption of superstitious lens.”
On view through December 2017.
This comprehensive five-volume set from Yale University Press is now part of the Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Collection in the William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library. Patrons may contact cwessinger@uh.edu to schedule a time to view this definitive work.
On view in the William R. Jenkins Architecture & Art Library until November 2017. The artist, Isaac Farley, is now in the third year of an MFA program in painting.
My work is a form of storytelling. I want to tell stories of the lives of everyday people, like my family that is made up of people who were and are workers, either on ranches or in factories, and their desires, struggles, their triumphs, and tribulations. Stories are rooted in oral traditions and cave paintings and are the basis of human history. When I try to tell a story without words, I think in images. These images are influenced by movies, photography, and other art, and are most readily translated onto a two dimensional surface.
Often the work deals with America. Not so much what America is or what it was, but the ideal, and myth of America. America, the land of equal opportunity, where the truth is spoken, justice is fair and even, and where people live as they choose instead of what others impose on them.
Duality appears often in my work as innate and inborn opposing or balancing forces. People are simultaneously advanced and primitive, capable of great acts of kindness and cruelty, with the ability to create both great art and terrible destruction.
Vietnam Sinfonie oder Desastres de la Guerra by Wolf Vostell
Materials from the German artist Wolf Vostell’s Vietnam Sinfonie oder Désastres de la Guerra (Vietnam Symphony or Disasters of the War) are on display in the Architecture and Art Library’s upper mezzanine. This piece was performed at the Galerie Van de Loo in Munich in 1972. Vostell is known for his role in the Fluxus art movement in the late 1950s in Europe. He was the founder of the European Happening scene and was one of the first video and installation artists.
Art Revolution: Women Artists from Around the World
On display in the south wing are books dedicated to groundbreaking women artists from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States. These women challenge traditional assumptions and engage us in conversations that were previously unthinkable through their creative work in video art, photography, performance art, paintings, textiles, sculptures, room installations, drawings, etchings, collages and beyond. This exhibit highlights many different art movements including Hannah Höch’s work as a Dada artist in the Weimar period, Carolee Schneemann’s Fluxus’ work, Ana Medieta’s involvement in the Body art movement, Helen Marten’s contemporary art earning her the 2016 Turner Prize, Germaine Arnaktauyok’s work stemming from her Inuk childhood, Lorna Simpson’s Conceptual Photography and avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama’s installations.