Exhibitions (2): Transatlantiques at the Musée de l'mprimerie de Lyon

In April, I was privileged to go to the opening of Transatlantiques: l'épopée graphique des paquebots de légende at the Musée de l'Imprimerie in Lyon. Dr Alan Marshall, director of the museum, has been a staunch advocate of ephemera for many years. His 2001 exhibition, Ephemera: les imprimés de tous les jours 1880-1939 was a trail-blazer and introduced a dazzling display of ephemera to the public mainly through four printers'archives: those of Imprimeries Audin, Gougenheim, Perreyon (all of Lyon), and A. Waton (St. Etienne). The excellent catalogue is still available at the museum.   Alan followed this (in terms of ephemera) with Couleurs, les prouesses de la chromolithographie, an exhibition curated by Prof.. Michael Twyman, world expert in lithography and ephemera.  Furthermore, the permanent displays of the museum include many examples of ephemera. These are, of course, a selection from very rich research collections.

Transatlantiques runs from Wednesday to Sunday until 1 September 2013 and is co-curated by Clémence Ducroix  and Alan Marshall. The exhibits are not from the museum's own collections but from l'Association French Lines, Le Havre, of which Mme Ducroix is the archivist.

Poster by Jan Auvigne. (C) Association French Lines

 An exhibition of ocean liner ephemera in Lyon?  The connection is not the sea, but printing. The stunning display of prints, forms, menus, brochures, leaflets, ships newspapers, posters, tickets, labels, wrappers and all sorts of promotional material shows what printing was necessitated by the running of transatlantic boats, ships and liners.  Through this angle, we begin to comprehend just how much was required to administer and promote these complicated companies.  Much was printed on shore, some on board, and there are large images of both printing operations.

The catalogue is co-authored by the curators and documents the history of the Compagnie Générale  Transatlantique, and the emergence of graphic art.for publicity.

Another exhibition of collections from l'Association French Lines has just opened in Evian. Légendes des mers. L'art de vivre à bord des paquebots runs from15 June to 22 September 2013.

The French Lines archive is currently being catalogued. On the website, there is a list of the main categories and also sample images.

Ephemera at the Huntington Library

The Huntington Library of California has a web page devoted to Historical prints and ephemera which outlines the scope of the collections. Not limited to Southern California, the general collections include American politics, theatre and entertainment ephemera, 20th century American railroads, commerce and advertising. Specialised collections include the L.E. Behymer Archive of early Southern California cultural events, the Jay T. Last Citrus Labels, California Promotional Literature, the Diana Korzenik Collection of Art Education Ephemera, Trade Cards, and Maritime Ephemera and Posters collected by John H. Kemble.

The result set (483 results) for keyword Ephemera in the General Library catalogue includes books on ephemera, but also invaluable detailed collection-level descriptions for collections including ephemera.

(C) Huntington Digital Library

Many of these collections are available through the Huntington Digital Library. The 'Browse all' function allows the user to restrict search results to prints and ephemera and to narrow results by title, artist/author or subject.  Results can then be further sorted by relevance, title, subject, description, creator, date, and date created. Clicking on a thumbnail brings up a full image and extensive metadata.

Also of great interest to ephemerists is the Jay T. Last Collection of Lithographic and Social History.  Selections from this were exhibited in 2010 under the title The color explosion, represented by a webpage with video by curator David Mihaly.  There are many fascinating past exhibitions, including Revisiting the Regency.

Finding aids to the Huntington collections are also available through the Online Archive of California, notably (for ephemera) The American Sheet Music Collection, Jay T. Last collection of Califormia Citrus box labels and the Jay T. Last Collection U.S. Civil War prints, posters and ephemera.

Library Company of Philadelphia

The Library Company of Philadelphia is "an independent research library concentrating on American history and culture from the 17th through the 19th centuries." Founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin, it lists its strengths as : Afro-Americana; American science, technology, economics, architecture, agriculture, natural history, education, philanthropy, and medicine; German-Americana; the history of printing and publishing; American Judaica; the history of women, domestic economy, and family life; printmaking, mapmaking, and photography in Philadelphia; and the libraries of James Logan and Benjamin Franklin.

Collections can be searched through WolfPAC and the LCP is building up its digital surrogates and online exhibitions, available through ImPAC.

I was delighted to find under Medicine an informative and illustrated description of the William H. Helfand collection of proprietary medicine pamphlets which includes many advertisements and other ephemera. On the site too is an online version of the exhibition held in 1998 by the LCP: Every man his own doctor.

(C) Library Company of Philadelphia

Other ephemeral treasures of the Library Company of Philadelphia include 5,462 ballads in the American Song Sheets, Slip Ballads and Poetical Broadsides Collection, 1850-1870, all catalogued online, with images available through clicking on subjects from a list below the introductory text.

There is also the Rose and Leon Doret Collection of Business Ephemera. The section of the collection digitised on ImPAC consists of advertisements and publicity material sent to the Philadelphia firm John C. Clark from 1866-1868 -  a fascinating snapshot.


Many more ephemera are contained in Philadelphia on Stone, a collection of lithographically printed material which is accompanied by a webpage, online exhibition, digital catalogue (with 8 collaborating institutions), a biographical dictionary of lithographers, and a link to a demonstration of lithography on You Tube by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

What brought me to the site originally was the  John A. McAllister Civil War Collection, which can be browsed on ImPAC together with a recent online exhibition. Mr McAllister's collection on ImPAC includes Comic Valentines, digitised and catalogued, which anticipates my blog for Valentine's Day on The John Johnson Collection: Now and Then (WordPress).

There is much to explore at the Library Company of Philadelphia. And I have not even touched on the prints and photographs!

Music covers in the Spellman Collection (Reading University Library)

One of the many ephemera collections in Reading University Library is the Spellman Collection of Victorian Music Covers. Some 800 of these are available online through VADS (Visual Arts Data Services), where they can be searched by title, composer, artist, publisher, date, printing process, and theme (here Transportation).

(C) Reading University Library and VADS

Tinsel prints in the Museum of London

The Museum of London has just put its tinsel prints online, in time for Christmas. As well as some 250 prints (not all digitised), there are printing plates, stock sheets and dies (used for stamping the metal pieces). A blog post shows examples of the prints, and explains the process of creating tinsel prints.
The prints themselves often show actors in specific roles, so are important sources for theatrical history. The metallic foil was often used for characters in combat (shields, swords, helmets, etc).

Copyright © The working life of Museum of London

Winterthur ephemera collections

The Winterthur Museum holds several important collections of ephemera, including the recently acquired John and Carolyn Grossman Collection, which has 250,000 items documenting lithography and chromolithography and the Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera, a guide to which can be downloaded. The Winterthur Digitised Collections page contains selections of images and introductions to the collections. Apart from the Grossman Collection, notable for ephemerists are:  cigar labels, bookplates, Shaker postcards (and photographs), the Charles Magnus Collection (lithographer), mathematical playing cards (Thomas Tuttell Collection), French candy wrappers, lantern slides, indentures, and the Maxine Waldron Collection of Children's Books and Paper Toys. You can search and browse the library digital collections (including advanced searching) and the undigitised collections, through the library catalogue. You can also subscribe to RSS feeds for updates on each collection and follow Winterthur on Facebook.

© 2009 Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library

There is much to explore, including attractive research guides, a downloadable guide, and online exhibitions.

© 2009 Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library

Louis Prang at the New York Public Library

Among the collections represented in the New York Public Library's Digital Gallery are Publishers' Proofs and Related Work from L. Prang & Company.  23 albums are digitised (17 of chromolithographs of publishers' proofs and 6 of advertising cards of Prang and other companies). Not only is this a wonderful resource of material relating to Louis Prang, one of the most celebrated American chromolithographers, but these are also fascinating examples of stock books and include annotations and progressives, such as Prang's prize babies (screen shot). A treasure-trove for social and printing historians.

(C) New York Public Library