Réne Magritte, Poster & Sheet Music Artist

by Stephen J. Gertz

"Ceci n'est pas une pipe." Yes, it's not a pipe, it's a poster. By Réne Magritte (1898-1967), known for his excursions into surrealism and "the treachery of images," his 1929 masterpiece, Ceci n'est pas une pipe, an icon of modernism and one of the most recognizable works of art of all time.

But before his explorations of the landscape of the mind, he worked as a commercial graphic designer, creating, for example, over forty covers for sheet music during the 1920s in the Art Deco manner. And, as above, posters, this one, created later in his career for the Film and Fine Arts World Festival in Brussels 1947, integrating surrealistic mind play into the composition.

Here, a woman is in the foreground to a movie screen, her forehead itself a screen: men project upon a woman a narrative they imagine, which may or may not reflect the reality of the woman's inner life and desires.

Magritte spent a large part of his life working in advertising, both to help sustain himself during lean times, and out of an interest in publicity.

He re-used the above image in 1949 for the second of these film festivals. This is the scarce smaller format.

These examples of Magritte's graphic work were part of Swann Galleries' Modernist Posters sale held this past Monday, May 12th.

Magritte designed the cover of the sheet music to L'Heure du Tango in 1925 for Brussels publisher L'Art Belge. 

The sheet music for Valse d'Amour, with it cover by Magritte, was published in 1926 by L'Art Belge.

Elle A Mis Son Smoking was also published 1926, it, too, issued by L'Art Belge.

Magritte's earliest oil paintings, dating c. 1915, were Impressionistic in style. His oil paintings 1918-1924 were influenced by Futurism and by the offshoot of Cubism practiced by Metzinger.  Female nudes dominate this period in his work.

Magritte worked as a draughtsman in a wallpaper factory 1922-1923, and was a poster and advertisement designer until 1926, when a contract with Galerie la Centaure in Brussels made it possible for him to devote himself to painting full-time.

Magritte produced his first surrealistic painting, Le jockey perdu, in 1926. It, and others by the artist, were exhibited in Brussels in 1927 but met with critical scorn. Depressed by their poor reception, Magritte moved to Paris where he became friends with Andre Breton and became involved in the surrealist group.

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Images courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries, with our thanks.
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Irish Eyes Are Smiling At NYU Library

By Nancy Mattoon

Nothing Says "Ireland,"
Like This 1912 Sheet Music Cover.
(All Images Courtesy of Archives of Irish America.)

For over 400 years, the United States has been a second home for thousands of immigrants from Ireland. As early as the 1600's, nearly 100,000 citizens had left the Emerald Isle for America, and by the early 19th century that number had increased at least tenfold. The Irish, like all immigrants, brought with them the culture of their native land. Irish immigrants had an especially strong influence on American popular music.

Nostalgia Reigns Supreme In This 1912 Tune.

Themes of Irish interest played a major role in the development of the sheet music industry in the United States, with hundreds of tunes aimed at the immigrant market written in New York City's Tin Pan Alley. New York University's Tamiment Library, home to The Archives of Irish America, has recently digitized part of its collection of thirteen hundred pieces of sheet music published between the Civil War and World War I, focusing on songs about Ireland and the Irish.

This Undated "Songster" Was A
Lyric Sheet Published Without Music.

The sheet music is part of the The Mick Moloney Irish-American Music and Popular Culture Collection, which is the largest known and most comprehensive collection of Irish Americana in the world. This immense archive includes forty-three boxes of sheet music, which document the Irish image in American popular culture, including both positive and negative stereotypes. The songs cover a wide range of genres, from the sentimental to the patriotic to the comic.

Shamrocks, Harps, And Miss Mary Donohue,
Could This 1909 Tune Be Irish?

Sheet music was a hugely lucrative industry, particularly from the 1860's to the 1930's, and composers, lyricists, and publishers used every major political, sporting, and cultural event as fodder for new tunes. As a result, song sheet covers, richly illustrated with colorful art to stimulate sales, became a virtual history of the struggles and achievements of the Irish in the New World.

One Of The Emerald Isle's Exquisite
Colleen's Inspired This 1891 Waltz.

Songwriters were especially drawn to a few popular themes, using words and images that were instantly identifiable as Irish. Place names such as Killarney, Tipperary, and Kilkenny already had a musical sound, so they were naturals for conveying a magical land of lush green hills and crystal clear rivers, which of course never actually existed. Many songs contain the Irish words Mavourneen, Macushla, and Machree, meaning "My Dearest", "My Love" and "My Heart." And the beautiful Irish Colleen provided instant inspiration, becoming "Peg O’My Heart," "Pretty Kitty Kelly," and "My Wild Irish Rose."

This 1914 Song Longs For An
Ireland that Never Was.

Appropriately, the donor and namesake of the sheet music collection is a famed musician, as well as a scholar. Mick Moloney is a tenor banjoist and vocalist who holds a Ph.D. in Folklore and Folklife from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Global Distinguished Visiting Professor in NYU's Faculty of Arts & Sciences, teaching in the Department of Music and for the Glucksman Ireland House, whose publications include Far from the Shamrock Shore: The Irish-American Experience in Song (2002). For the past twenty years he has pioneered the collection of Irish-American memorabilia, and in 1999 he was awarded the National Heritage Award from the National Endowment for the Arts.
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First Edition of The Star Spangled Banner Estimated at $200,000-$300,000

by Stephen J. Gertz

One of only eleven extant copies of the first printed edition of the combined lyrics and music of The Star-Spangled Banner, the United States national anthem,  will be auctioned at Christies-New York on December  3, 2010. It is estimated to sell for between $200,000 - $300,000.

This, the original sheet music, is the only copy in private hands. It was found within an album of sheet music bound c. 1820. It was originally sold by Carr's Music Store in Baltimore via catalog.

During the War of 1812, inspired by a shipboard vigil on the night of September 13-14, 1814 when a British naval flotilla bombarded Fort McHenry for hours, prefatory to a planned full-scale assault, Francis Scott Key, a young lawyer and amateur poet, along with a colleague, had gone on board a British ship under a flag of truce to secure the release of an American held as a prisoner, physician  William Beanes.

To ensure that  military intelligence on the impending attack by the British would not be passed to the Americans, Key was also detained. With a sweeping view of the dramatic scene from the ship upon which he was held, Key anxiously watched as the British cannonade, incendiary bomb, and rocket salvos were fired onto the American fort.

During the shelling, the large United States stars and stripes flag waving from Fort McHenry's ramparts was clearly visible but when the bombardment ceased, the flag was obscured. Francis Scott Key's spirits sank;  had the fort surrendered?

Later edition.

At dawn, however, when the smoke from the bombardment had cleared, the flag was again visible; the fort had withstood the assault. Key's patriotism was stirred and his anxiety relieved by the sight of Old Glory.

 He wrote the first draft of the anthem on the back of a letter while still aboard ship. The final version, containing four eight-line stanzas, was completed in the next few days upon Key's return to Baltimore.

The music is not Key's. The melody of The Star-Spangled Banner is that of a popular British drinking tune, The Anacreontic Song, one already known, with varying lyrics, to Americans. And as difficult to sing then as now.

The Star-Spangled Banner was officially adopted for use by the U.S. Navy in 1889. On March 3, 1931 it was proclaimed the national anthem by a resolution of Congress.



On August 17, 1969 Jimi Hendrix performed an electric guitar screaming feedback rendition at Woodstock. Establishment critics went ballistic, their rockets aglare and eyes seeing red.

On July 25, 1990, comedienne Rosanne Barr had the bombs bursting in air with her explosively off-key and out of tune performance at the beginning of a baseball game. Afterward, President George H.W. Bush declared her vinnegar tone-deaf version ending with a crotch-grab flourish, "disgusting." You be the judge. I be stuffing my ears.



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KEY, Francis Scott. The Star Spangled Banner. A Pariotic [sic] Song. Baltimore: Printed and Sold at Carr's Music Store, 36 Baltimore Street, n.d. [Sept. - Nov. 1814]. Quarto (13 x 9 1/2 in; 338 x 245 mm). Two pages printed from engraved plates.

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Image courtesy of Christies.
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