Metalsmith Slips Bindings, Finds Freedom In Jewelry

YOUNG, Edward. The Complaint, or,
Night-Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality.
London: Printed for A. Millar and R. and J. Dodsley, 1756.
Vellum boards with wax resist dyed leather straps,
secured with copper staples. Collection of the artist.
(All Images Courtesy Of Yale Center For British Arts/Photos by David Wood.)

"It's very difficult to work as a bookbinder. The minute I started to make jewelry – everybody wants to buy jewelry. The first show I had, I sold everything, and I had commissions for 18 months."

Those words are like the painful whine of the dentist's drill to lovers of fine bindings and artists' books. And, sadly, they come from one of today's premier practitioners of the art of bookbinding, Romilly Saumarez Smith. A new exhibit at the Yale Center for British Art spotlights the twenty-five year career of Saumarez Smith as a book artist, and her gradual progression away from that art form to her new status as a creator of one-of-a-kind fine jewelry.

The show, Structured Elegance: Bookbindings and Jewelry by Romilly Saumarez Smith is the first to show her distinctive work in both mediums and to explore the relationship between them. It features nearly fifty objects loaned by the artist and by private collectors in the United Kingdom and United States. Collectively, these works of art display a kind of alchemy, a gathering of the finest materials transformed by an artist's talent and passion into something much more than the sum of their parts. Not exactly turning dross into gold, but perhaps turning cool, clear water into vintage champagne.

CAVAFY, Constantine P. A Selection of Poems.
London: The Camberwell Press, 1985.
From an edition of 70 copies with a unique binding
by Romilly Saumarez Smith.
Goatskin with onlays of dyed goatskin and glacé leather.
Collection of Eileen Hogan.

Romilly Saumarez Smith studied binding and paper conservation at Camberwell College of Arts in London and went on to become the first female union member and forwarder at London’s famed Zaehnsdorf Bindery (now a part of Shepards, Sangorsky and Sutcliffe). She was elected a Fellow of Designer Bookbinders in 1984 and taught at the London College of Printing and the Guildford College of Art and Technology. Her public commissions include bindings for the Victoria and Albert Museum and for the annual exhibitions of the Booker Prize winners for contemporary fiction. Saumarez Smith is represented in the collections of the Contemporary Art Society, the Crafts Council, the British Library, the Harry Ransom Center, and the New York Public Library, and she has exhibited in Britain, the United States, France, and Germany.

PERRAULT, Charles. Histoires ou Contes Du Temps Passé.
Paris: Alberto Tallone, 1982.
Leather spine with inlaid false bands,
cloth boards with graphite strip and brass nails,
in box covered in paste paper and cloth.
Collection of Lily Le Brun.

Structured Elegance has been co-curated by Elisabeth Fairman, Senior Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Yale Center for British Art, and by artist and Professor in Research at Wimbledon College of Art, Eileen Hogan. Hogan herself was a practitioner of lettering and book arts, first at the Royal College's Lion and Unicorn Press and then with her own imprint, Burnt Wood Press. In 1984, she founded the Camberwell Press, only the third collegiate press to be established in a British art school. Here, between 1984 and 1996, she published a wide range of new and existing texts, designed and illustrated by herself and many other artists. And here she became enamored with the work of Romilly Saumarez Smith.

SHAKESPEARE, William. Antony & Cleopatra.
Guildford, England: Circle Press, 1979.
From an edition of 300 copies,
bound by Romilly Saumarez Smith.
Calf boards decorated with wax resist technique,
green lizard skin straps with copper fastenings.
Collection of Linda L. Brownrigg.

Smith was uninterested in creating traditional "fine bindings." What she found fascinating was the physical structure of the book--particularly areas often neglected by book artists, such as the connections between the spine and the cover. She also chose to use unconventional materials and techniques. For example, drenching cotton mattress ticking in leather dyes and finishing it with hand-rubbed beeswax to create an intricate chiaroscuro effect. Though her work was bold and innovative, she never lost sight of the fact that the binding must underline and enhance the text of the book. As her craftsmanship evolved, Smith found herself using more and more metal to both reinforce and decorate her bindings--especially large staples, inlaid copper wire, and adornments made from precious alloys. This penchant for metallurgy lead to her initial creation of a piece of jewelry.

Pendant, 2005.
Oxidized silver and eighteen carat gold.
Collection of the artist.

Saumarez Smith likens becoming adept at an artistic discipline to falling in love. But for that passion to flourish, the right ingredients are essential. She found this becoming impossible in the realm of bookbinding. "It became more and more difficult to get good vellum," said Saumarez Smith. "That's what drove me away from bookbinding: I couldn't get decent materials." While comparing the process of leaving bookbinding behind to undergoing "a terrible divorce," she began to concentrate on jewelry design. She says: "With any craft, you need a terribly clear idea what you’re doing and, after all the books, I think I finally have that. When something is right for me, I get a certain rush of excitement. … I think the same thing happens to every creative person and that, when it does, it can be very powerful…. When you realize that, you feel 'I am in a tradition.' To me, that’s a consolation, it’s a tremendous comfort."

For collectors and admirers of fine bindings this change in medium from books to jewelry is distressing rather than comforting. Though Romilly Saumarez Smith's nests of twisted wires enhanced by exquisite precious gems are undeniably beautiful, book lovers can only hope she once again hears the music of Calliope, the muse of poetry, or gets a message from St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of writers, and returns to creating masterpieces of book art. Structured Elegance will continue at the Yale Center for British Arts through September 19, 2010.
__________

Previously On Booktryst:
Family Feuds, Curses, and Treasures.
2009 Designer Bookbinders Competition Winner Announced.

Yale Exhibit Romances The Last Of The Gentleman Scholars

Pierre-Joseph Redoute, Plum Branches Intertwined, 1802-04, watercolor on vellum.

(Images Courtesy Of Yale Center For British Arts.)

When Charles Ryskamp was interviewed in 2004, he found the reporter's questions about his background so tedious he snapped: "I don't want this to be an obituary." Ryskamp needn't have worried. The one-time director of both the Morgan Library and Museum and the Frick Collection died on March 26, 2010, with the best possible remembrance of his life and career on display at the Yale Center For British Art. Varieties of Romantic Experience: Drawings from the Collection of Charles Ryskamp, an exhibit of 200 works from his private collection, opened six weeks before his death at age 81, and will run through April 25, 2010.

George Stubbs, A Sleeping Cheetah ("A Tyger"), 1788, mezzotint on wove paper.

Charles Ryskamp might well be the last of a dying breed: the gentleman scholar. At age 7, he began to organize, catalog, and label the books in his home library. By age 13 he was buying original art, and galleries and auction houses put him on their mailing lists. Collecting art was a lifelong passion, one he ceaselessly pursued for nearly 70 years. He obtained a first-rate education in English literature, earning a bachelor's degree from Calvin College, a master's degree and doctorate from Yale, and later, adding post-graduate work at Cambridge. (He became a full professor of English at Princeton in 1969, specializing in the work of English poet William Cowper.) But in art history he was entirely self-taught. With a good eye, a sharp mind, and a devoted heart, he created one of the finest privately held collections of drawings in the world.

Josephus Augustus Knip, River Landscape With Distant Cliffs, 1809, water color over graphite on wove paper with double framing lines in gray ink.

In the art world, Ryskamp's area of collecting was primarily English and European prints and drawings of the Romantic Era, or roughly 1789 to 1850. He gravitated towards well-established artists, such as Goya, Turner, Blake, and Durer, saying: ''If you look at the greatest masters, I think you just have a sense of quality, that's hard to analyze.'' His collecting was also governed by pragmatism. He concentrated on prints until the late 1950's, but when they became unaffordable, he moved on to lower-priced drawings. Later, as director of the Morgan and the Frick, he shifted his sights to acquisitions that would not compete with the works of either museum.

William John Thomas Collins, Cypresses At The Villa d'Este, Tivoli, 1838, pen and ink and watercolor over graphite on wove paper.

These limits placed on the collection were, ironically, what made it so important. His commitment to search out works not typically found in museums led Ryskamp to assemble over time one of the world's best collections of drawings from the Danish Golden Age. Rather than focusing on more expensive paintings, his emphasis on drawings allowed him to purchase works that were often overlooked by wealthier collectors and institutions. Ryskamp summed up his prized artworks this way: ''As I looked at what I had accumulated, these hundreds and hundreds of drawings, I realized that I had equally good collections for France, Germany, Holland, Denmark. And that was almost unheard of. I can't think of any museum which would have all well represented.''

Adolph Menzel, Carl Johan Arnold, ca.1848, graphite on wove paper.

Ryskamp hand-picked the 200 drawings in the Yale show, along with co-curator Matthew Hargraves. They represent about one-third of his total collection of works on paper. The show was the realization of a cherished dream: "I have never before known an exhibition to show Romantic drawings of all of these countries together. I have long hoped for such an exhibition, and it is a rare privilege to have this wish fulfilled." The breadth of subject matter on display is as amazing as the array of artists. The works are grouped by content, with sections covering land and sea, the natural world, religion, the human figure, and the imagination. Within each area are drawings by such heavy-hitters as Conelius Varley, Henry Fuseli, Caspar David Friedrich, Camille Corot, Eugene Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Johan Thomas Lundbye, and C.W. Eckersberg.

J.M.W. Turner, Shields Lighthouse, 1820-1830, (trial proof A), mezzotint on laid paper.

In an essay accompanying the show, Ryskamp emphasized his enduring dedication to the arts: "As much as possible I have devoted my life to the appreciation, study and teaching of art and literature." When asked for advice by a beginning art collector he said: ''I think you should go and look. And don't have a goal in mind.'' A life spent seeking out great art wherever he could find it enabled Charles Ryskamp to assemble a group of artworks that will inspire collectors for generations to come. And he added one last brush stroke without which the portrait of an art collector is incomplete: "I collect in order to give to others. I plan to share what I have collected as long as I live and, if possible, bequeath what is left of my collections to public institutions." The greater part of Charles Ryskamp's art collection has been donated to the Morgan Library.

Posted by Nancy Mattoon

Strawberry Hill Forever

Horace Walpole's Castle, Strawberry Hill.

When you think of haunted houses, tortured heroes, mysterious femmes fatales, ghosts, werewolves, vampires, and dark and stormy nights, what author comes to mind? Perhaps Stephen King, Stephenie Meyer, or Anne Rice? Probably not Horace Walpole. But fans of The Shining, Twilight, and Interview With The Vampire might not be enjoying their favorite scary stories if not for the inventor of the Gothic novel, Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford. Yale's Center For British Art and Lewis Walpole Library have collaborated with The Victoria and Albert Museum to create an exquisite exhibit celebrating the birthplace of the eighteenth-century Gothic revival, Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill. The exhibit is on view at the Yale University campus in New Haven until January 3, 2010.

Horace Walpole by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Horace Walpole was born in 1717, to a family of great wealth and distinction, his father was the first Prime Minister of Great Britain, Robert Walpole, and his cousin was "The Hero of Trafalgar," Lord Nelson. Walpole himself was a Member of Parliament, but remained mostly uninterested in politics or the military, instead gravitating towards the worlds of art, literature, and design. He was what we now call a "taste maker" or "trendsetter," an eighteenth-century version of Oscar Wilde or Andy Warhol.

Johann Heinrich Müntz, Strawberry Hill, c. 1755-79.
(Image Courtesy of Lewis Walpole Library.)

The trend which Walpole set in motion was the renewed appreciation for medieval architecture, the age of chivalry, Arthurian legends, romanticism, and all things dark and dangerous: the Gothic. In literature, Walpole was responsible for the first English-language Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto. In architecture, he created from the ground up his own "little Gothic castle," Strawberry Hill.

Armour of King Francis I, One of Walpole's Prized Possessions.
(Image Courtesy of Lewis Walpole Library.)

Strawberry Hill was Walpole's home, but it was much more than that. Like William Randolph Hearst's San Simeon or Charles Foster Kane's Xanadu, it was a museum, a showplace, an architectural marvel, and even a tourist attraction. Strawberry Hill began as a cottage on 5 acres of land in 1748, and ended as a castle, modeled after Westminster Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral, on 46 acres in 1781. The building's contents were as remarkable as its architecture: Walpole was an avid collector of prints, paintings, drawings, enamels, miniatures, furniture, glassware, coins, clocks, silver, armor, antiquities, manuscripts, and books. His collection of art objects numbered as many as 4,ooo, and all were displayed in themed rooms created to enhance their magnificence.

One of Walpole's Most Unusual Collectibles: Hair of Mary Tudor, Queen of France,
Clipped From Her Head Upon The Opening Of Her Tomb In 1784, And Encased In A Locket.
(Image Courtesy of Lewis Walpole Library.)

Horace Walpole died without heirs (many historians have speculated he was gay.) in 1797. He left Strawberry Hill to the daughter of a favorite cousin. The exorbitant cost of keeping up such a grand home caused the Gothic castle to change hands often over the years. Finally, in 1842 the house became the property of the 7th Earl of Orford, a handsome, wild spendthrift with a taste for drink, who married his brother's widow, and was briefly imprisoned for assaulting a police officer. In other words, an anti-hero straight out of a Gothic novel. Desperate for cash, he resorted to selling Strawberry Hill's glorious treasures. The massive estate sale lasted 32 days, and scattered Walpole's priceless collection to the four winds.

Percival Merritt, An Account of the descriptive catalogues of Strawberry Hill and of Strawberry Hill sale catalogues, together with a bibliography.
(Boston: Privately printed by B. Rogers, 1915)
(Image Courtesy of Lewis Walpole Library.)

Strawberry Hill began to deteriorate in 1883, and the trend continued until it was placed on the World Monuments Fund list of 100 most endangered sites in 2004. A massive restoration effort, funded in part by Britain's Heritage Lottery Fund and by The Strawberry Hill Trust, is now underway. The Yale exhibit was organized to highlight this effort, and to attempt to temporarily reassemble at least a small portion of Walpole's treasures sold off over 150 years ago. Co-curator of the exhibit, Michael Snodin, has edited a catalog for the exhibit, which is available as a hardcover book. Phillipa Stockley of The Daily Telegraph named the Yale University Press publication one of the season's best Christmas gift books.

Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill, edited by Michael Snodin,
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009.

The restorers of Strawberry Hill hope to re-open the estate for public tours in 2010. However it will be shown without the thousands of objects Horace Walpole collected to complete his Gothic revival monument, which are now in private hands. The magnificence that was Strawberry Hill in all of its glory is now as imaginary as Daphne du Maurier's Manderley or Jane Austen's Pemberley. But lovers of the fantastic realm of supernatural creatures, haunted houses, magical potions, and things that go bump in the night know that Thoreau was right, and "the world is but a canvas to the imagination."

Posted by Nancy Mattoon