HOLLIS ClassicFrom the Collections of Harvard College Library, Events and Exhibitions 2009-2010
![Deutche Bundespost. Olympic Telephone Directory, 1972. Essen: Industriedruck AG Essen, 1972. [In German, French and English].](/images/exhibitions/photos/summer_2013/hofer_prize.jpg)
Deutche Bundespost. Olympic Telephone Directory, 1972. Essen: Industriedruck AG Essen, 1972. [In German, French and English].
May 28, 2013 – May 14, 2014
2013 Philip Hofer Prize for Collecting Books or Art
The Philip Hofer prize is awarded each year to a student at Harvard whose collection of books or works of art best exemplifies the traditions of breadth, coherence, and imagination represented by Philip Hofer, A.B. '21, L.H.D. '67, founder and first Curator of the Department of Printing and Graphic Arts in the Houghton Library and Secretary of the Fogg Art Museum. The prize, which is to encourage student interest in collecting, was established in 1987 by Melvin R. Seiden, A.B. '52, L.L.B. '55. Students competing for the prize submit an annotated list or bibliography and an essay describing the scope, contents, and goal of the collection. On exhibition are samples of this year’s first prize winning collection, Between West Germany and the World: Design at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
Third floor display cases, Lamont Library
Hours
For details, contact Lynn Sayers at 617-495-2455
Keene, Carolyn. The Secret of the Old Clock.
New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1930. Frontispiece.
– Gift of Charles Sumner, 1860.
May 28, 2013 – May 14, 2014
2013 Undergraduate Book Collecting Prize
Established in 1977, the Visiting Committee Prize for Undergraduate Book Collecting recognizes and encourages book collecting by undergraduates at Harvard. Students competing for the annual prize submit an annotated bibliography and an essay on their collecting efforts, the influence of mentors, the experience of searching for, organizing and caring for items, and the future direction of the collection. On display are samplings of the collections of this year’s prize-winning entries, along with personal commentary.
Second and third floor display cases, Lamont Library
Hours
For details, contact Lynn Sayers at 617-495-2455
John Speed, The kingdome of China. London, 1626.
May 23 – September 30, 2013
Mapping Imperial China: A Cultural Exchange
Conventional narratives of East-West interaction in the cartographic sphere tend to portray the cultural exchange as a lopsided, tutelary relationship in which the more “primitive” society inevitably pays fealty to more scientifically sophisticated and objective standards of mapmaking. The simplistic assumptions embedded in this model often misrepresent the dynamic negotiation that occurs in the definition of geographical space. This exhibit examines the complex web of influences and cross-influences that resulted in the frequent metamorphoses of “China” over the centuries. With a focus on the last two dynastic periods—the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1912)—the maps displayed here will illustrate the genealogical associations of concepts, images, and stories that have shaped our views of one another.
An opening reception for the exhibition sponsored by the Boston Map Society will be held on Wednesday, June 12, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. in Pusey Library. The event is open to the public. Please RSVP by e-mailing Joseph Garver, or calling (617) 495-2417.
Map Gallery Hall, Pusey Library
Hours
For further information, contact Joseph Garver at 617-496-3670
A Crusade Against Slavery and Counterfeit
Christianity (Boston, n.d.): broadside. pf US 102.8*
– Gift of Charles Sumner, 1860.
May 1 – August 23, 2013
Boston’s Crusade Against Slavery
During the Civil War era Boston led the national crusade against slavery and the struggle over emancipation and citizenship. Owing largely to activists in Boston, Massachusetts became one of the first states to end slavery. It soon granted black men full suffrage, ended the ban on interracial marriage, and in 1855 became the first state legally to desegregate public schools. During the Civil War, Bostonians were instrumental in convincing the Lincoln administration to turn a conflict fought chiefly to preserve the Union into a war for emancipation and black citizenship.
Boston’s Crusade Against Slavery features objects from the extraordinary collection at Houghton Library to highlight the city’s role in the international fight for freedom. Each case focuses on a theme connecting Boston to the larger crusade against slavery: Haiti and Toussaint Louverture; An Age of Compromise and Crisis; Militant Abolitionists in Boston; Music as Memory; Female Emancipators; Emerson’s Response to Abolition and John Brown; the Saturday Club; and an introductory case spotlights Boston’s abolitionist leaders. Each object constitutes an important marker in the crusade. Many are on display for the first time, and have rarely, if ever, been analyzed by scholars.
The exhibition has been mounted in conjunction with the public symposium, Freedom Rising, a three-day event commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation and African American military service.
Edison and Newman Room, Houghton Library
Hours
For details contact Peter X. Accardo at accardo@fas.harvard.edu.
Marcel Proust. "Esther pour Reynaldo Hahn". Drawing; ink on paper, undated. 94M-48 (90) Gift, Mrs. Bradley Martin, 1994.
February 4 - June 1, 2013
Private Proust:
Letters and Drawings to Reynaldo Hahn
Marcel Proust's letters to the composer Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947) are unlike any others in the writer's vast correspondence. Often accompanied by witty, irreverent drawings that Proust produced for no one else, the letters combine text and image in illuminating their close relationship. Proust also confided to Hahn his ambitions and difficulties in writing the novel that would become In Search of Lost Time.
This exhibition, curated by François Proulx, Lecturer on Comparative Literature at Harvard University, includes a generous selection of these illustrated letters, along with first editions and corrected proofs. It is held in conjunction with "Proust and the Arts," an interdisciplinary conference to mark the centenary of Swann's Way, to be held at Harvard University, April 19 - 20, 2013. For more information about the conference, see Proust and the Arts.
Amy Lowell Room, Lamont Library
Hours
For details contact Heather Cole at 617-495-2449
TRC-PH-1, Gift of the Roosevelt Memorial Association,
1943. Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Houghton
Library, Harvard University.
February 1, 2013 - January 2014
Charting the River of Doubt:
The Roosevelt-Rondon South American Expedition, 1913-1914
In the winter of 1913-1914, following a lecture tour through South America, former president Theodore Roosevelt and a group of American and Brazilian naturalists, explorers, and hardy rivermen, set off into the jungle to survey the River of Doubt, a tributary of the Amazon discovered only a few years earlier. Fraught with danger, from malaria-carrying mosquitos to carnivorous piranhas to raging rapids to dysentery and starvation, the expedition nearly cost Roosevelt his life. This exhibition features photographs taken by members of the expedition, recorded for Roosevelt’s countrymen for whom the Amazon was still uncharted and unknown.
Theodore Roosevelt Gallery, Pusey Library
Hours
For details contact Heather Cole at 617-495-2449
Lesley Mitchell's completed book.
January 28, - May 18, 2013
Secondary Colors:
A Collaborative Book
Twenty-one members of the Delaware Valley Chapter of the Guild of Book Workers participated in this collaborative book project. Each member contributed an edition of sections, exchanged them with other members, and then collated them so that the resulting contents of all the books are the same. The members bound their books individually, producing twenty-one unique bindings. The theme was "secondary colors" and participants were encouraged to interpret that in any way they liked, both in their editions and in the binding.
Founded in 1906, the Guild of Book Workers is the only national organization for all of the arts of the book, including bookbinding, conservation, printing, papermaking, calligraphy, marbling and artist's books. The Guild currently has 850 members, both professional and amateur, from all over the country. The ten regional chapters organize lectures, workshops and exhibitions for our members - this exhibit was organized by the Delaware Valley Chapter but also includes members of the New England Chapter. See the Secondary Colors website for details and images.
Cabot Exhibition Case, Cabot Science Library
Hours
For details contact Todd Pattison at 617-495-3494
Simplicity of Love, by Kim Adela. South Asia Initiative Special Prize for the best photo taken in South Asia.
December 19, 2012 - December 13, 2013
Harvard College
Annual International Photo Contest
Photos taken by Harvard students who have studied, worked, interned, or done research abroad during the past year are on exhibit. For more information on the contest, see the contest and exhibition page.
Level B, first and third floor display cases,
Lamont Library
(Hours)
For details contact Lynn Sayers at 617-495-2455
Permanent exhibition
Mercator Globes
Exhibition includes Gerard Mercator's terrestrial (1541) and celestial (1551) globes that reflect new discoveries in world geography and cosmography as well as new techniques in charting, printing, and globe making. Only 22 matched pairs survive, Harvard's being the only matched pair in America.
Mercator Case, Map Gallery Hall
Hours
For details call the Map Collection at 617-495-2417
