The turn of the twentieth century was a period of innovation, when advances in printing and color lithography coincided with a new golden age in the performance of magic and illusion. This convergence resulted in the most stunning, color-saturated advertisements in the history of magic. [Read more…] about The Golden Age of Magic Posters
Stories to Tell
Powerful currents: John Wilson’s Down by the Riverside prints
The dark male figure, head bent to the driving rain indicated by the dense lines that cover the page, lifts a slight woman into a simple rowboat. The boat’s bow is pointed through the floodwaters toward higher ground, its port side steadied by a second stooped male. [Read more…] about Powerful currents: John Wilson’s Down by the Riverside prints
A conversation on “Dying Well in Early Modern England” with curator Aaron Pratt
A current Stories to Tell display embraces the Halloween spirit with a collection of early printed books from throughout the Ransom Center’s collections that take on the topic of death. [Read more…] about A conversation on “Dying Well in Early Modern England” with curator Aaron Pratt
Meticulous free verse: Mallarmé’s Un Coup de Dés and Ellsworth Kelly
“The literary value, if I may say it, of this span of empty space on the page, which mentally separates groups of words or words themselves, is to periodically accelerate or slow the movement, the scansion, the sequence even, given one’s simultaneous view of the entirety of the page…” (Stéphane Mallarmé, “Observation Relative au Poème Un Coup de Dés jamais n’abolira le Hasard,” Cosmopolis, May 1897, p. 412 [trans.]) [Read more…] about Meticulous free verse: Mallarmé’s Un Coup de Dés and Ellsworth Kelly
In the galleries: Dressing for success in Mad Men’s Season 6
The Ransom Center’s Stories to Tell exhibition features a rotating selection from the Ransom Center’s holdings.
[Read more…] about In the galleries: Dressing for success in Mad Men’s Season 6
In the Galleries: Interactive design in early printed books
In early July 2017, a little over a month after I started as the new early books and manuscripts curator at the Ransom Center, a colleague informed me that [Read more…] about In the Galleries: Interactive design in early printed books