caxtonian

]crry D. Mcycr
D
uring his highly productive,
if controversial career, rst
as newspaper reporter and nov-
elist during the Chicago Renais-
sance, and then as playwright,
Iollywood screenwriter, and
provocateur for Jewish home-
land aspirations, Ben Iecht
(is,-i,o) had occasion to
touch the lives of many notable
personalities, including a number
of artists. In an earlier Cox:or:or
article, I explored the impor-
tance of Iechts relationship
with fellow Chicago reporter
Vallace Smith, and Smiths brief
fame as an illustrator of several
books including some by Iecht,
published by Chicago-based
Covici-McGee in the i,aos.
Tis article explores Iechts early
contact with German-born artist
George Grosz (is,,-i,,,) in
Berlin and the mutually advanta-
geous relationship of this friend-
ship on their careers.*
Ben Iecht rst made contact
with Grosz in the very late teens.
Although he did not initially
visit the United States until the
early i,,os, George Grosz was
to have an impact on the lives of
several interesting personalities
in Chicago around i,ao, among
them Romanian-born Ierman
Sachs, founder of a short-lived
industrial arts school in the
Vindy City, and aspiring writer
Ii Simons, whose little-known life will be
introduced below.
Te young artist, nearly the same age as
Iecht, was just beginning to make his repu-
tation as an upstart leftist satirist in the dif-
cult early years of Germanys recovery from
humiliating defeat at the end of the Great
Var. Iecht was among those responsible for
rst introducing Groszs work in America at
this point in the artists career. Contact with
the Berlin Dada group as well as with Grosz
was to be reected in some of Iechts own
writings in the early i,aos after his return to
Chicago from Germany.
V
hile Iecht was born of
Russian-Jewish immigrants
in New York City, his parents
soon moved to Racine, Visconsin
where he was raised. At the tender
age of io he left Racine, skipped
an intended undergraduate degree
in Madison at the University of
Visconsin after only three days on
campus, and, in July i,io, without
contacting his parents, boarded
a train for Chicago to seek his
fortune. Ie wanted to be a writer,
having developed a predilection
for the written word through his
voracious reading.
Te day after his arrival in the
Vindy City, a distant relative
(Uncle Manny Moyses) set Iecht
up with his rst job at the C|:cogo
Do:|y ]ourro| under the supervi-
sion of managing editor Martin
Iutchens. As Iecht recalled, his
earliest newspaper experiences
involved a variety of often sordid
experiences, most particularly
surreptitiously obtaining photo-
graphs of the recently deceased
(usually those who had died
violently). In the next few years,
his edgling career blossomed
into that of a seasoned Chicago
reporter, rst at the Do:|y ]ourro|
and then, by the late teens, at the
C|:cogo Do:|y Ncus. Iis colorful
stories wove anecdotes of urban
characters he encountered as he
haunted police courts, the jails,
the river docks, the slums[and]
listened to the gabble of sailors,
burglars, pimps, whores, hop-
heads, anarchists, lunatics and policemen.
Like Grosz, whose early satirical drawings
exhibited a biting contempt for all aspects of
bourgeois life in Germany, Iecht said of his
Ben Hecht and George Grosz
A Dada Happenstance During the 1920s
See HECHT/GROSZ, page
JOURNAL OF THE CAXTON CLUB VOLUME XX, NO. MARCH
Pig. , Grosz, Cermany, a Vinters 1ale, oi| painting, .,.,-.,., (prcscnt
w|crcaouts unlnown; discusscd on pagc ).
The Caxton Club W. Walton St., Chicago, IL - ph -- caxtonclub@newberry.org www.caxtonclub.org
o
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art, and his art teacher, Albert Iabst, came to his
aid and persuaded his mother that her son should
prepare a portfolio for entrance to the Dresden
Academy of Art.
Under Iabsts tutelage Grosz did so, and in i,o,,
at the age of io, began
a successful, two-year
course of study for his
art diploma. Te instruc-
tion at the Academy was
traditionally academic and
conservative, and Grosz
indicated later that much
of what he learned of per-
sonal interest came from
his companionship with
fellow art students and
from a variety of books
and periodicals. For
instance, he was especially
inuenced by the illus-
trations in the popular
journal S:mp|:z:ss:mus
by artists Bruno Iaul,
Max Klinger, and Emil
Iretorius. Ie was also
introduced to the graphic work of Aubrey Beardsley,
Toulouse-Lautrec, and Daumier.
F
rom these various sources he began to perfect
his own distinctive early style of sharp, brittle,
linear strokes. Ie dreamed of becoming a success-
ful illustrator, and by the age of i;, was published
in the magazine U||, the comic supplement of the
Bcr|:rcr logco|o:: newspaper. Vhile in Dresden,
Grosz became entranced with the paraphernalia of
dandyism (inspired by reading Baudelaire and by his
fascination with American culture) and began sport-
ing striped suits and sometimes a monocle, carrying
a walking stick, and even wearing face paint. Karl
Iubbuch, a fellow student at the Dresden Academy,
recalls Grosz at that time as wearing modern
clothes in the American style padded shoulders,
extremely tapered trousers, gold-rimmed glasses,
and a watch on a leather thong in his outside breast
pocket. Tis exhibitionism, which continued after
he was accepted into the Berlin Academy in i,ii, was
ultimately part of his rebellion against the bourgeois
values of early aoth-century German culture. Tis
role-playing was still evident in the artists sketchy
self-portrait done much later for the cover of the
short-lived Dcr Doo publication in Berlin in i,i,
(Fig. i) during which time Ben Iecht rst made his
acquaintance with Grosz.
Vhile taking classes in Berlin and now an art
student with a stipend, Grosz lived with fellow
art student Ierbert Fiedler in an attic studio
in Sdende, a seedy suburb south of Berlin. As
reportage and novels, published during his nearly
i years in Chicago, my earliest writings were full
of an excited contempt for all moralists. I dedicated
myself to attacking prudes, piety-mongers, and all
apostles of virtue. Ie
eventually found that
he had the ability to
write gaily of that which
was gruesome, macabre
and exotic.
Iechts experiences
with the seamier side of
Chicagos urban life pre-
pared him for his stint
in post-war Germany as
foreign correspondent
for the Do:|y Ncus from
December i,is to early
i,ao. As he later noted,
he saw the surreal
events in Germany, as
various political factions,
left and right, fought
each other for political
control with a youthful
delight for the preposterous. Tis was the same
emotive lens through which George Grosz graphi-
cally interpreted his reaction to life around him in
those years while participating in the short-lived
Dada art movement in Berlin.
E
xcept for two years spent in Berlin (i,oo-i,oa)
after his fathers death when the artist-to-be
was only six, George Grosz spent most of his child-
hood in the small Irussian city of Stolp. By the
time he was a teenager, he was wary of authoritarian
gures at a time when a German authoritarian
and military lifestyle was in vogue. In i,oa, young
Groszs widowed mother took her family back to
Stolp where she had accepted a job managing an
ocers casino. Te family lived on the premises of
the ocers quarters. Grosz early on liked to draw
and was stimulated by the blood curdling plots of
pulp penny-dreadful paperbacks with their exciting
cover illustrations that he acquired from a crotchety
old woman, Klara Menning. She sold school sup-
plies out of her street-level store to the teenagers in
Stolp, sitting in her shop, as Grosz recalled, with
spectacles and cane, reigning like a witch out of
Grimms fairy tales.
Groszs adolescent life took a fateful turn when, at
the age of i,, he was dismissed from high school for
striking one of his disciplinarian teachers. Most pro-
fessional careers for young men required a minimum
of a high school education and Grosz was suddenly
faced with declining possibilities. Vhat was he to
do. Fortunately, Grosz had shown an aptitude for
HECHT / GROSZ, jrom pagc .
Pig. . Dctai|, covcr oj Der Dada, No. :, Dcc. .,., wit|
Grosz sc|j-portrait.
CAXTONIAN, MARCH ,
reected in the subjects he drew and painted
throughout the teens and into the i,aos,
he was especially attracted to the decadent
aspects of life in cosmopolitan Berlin, not
unlike some of the subjects of Iechts early
Chicago reportage. Groszs attitude towards
the urban scene was, as Kay Flavell suggests,
that of a romantic outsider.
Like Iecht in Chicago, Grosz was most
stimulated by those on the margins of urban
existence, where animal instincts frequently
surfaced. Murders, sexual encounters, and
rapes are subjects that populate his drawings,
drawn in a deliberately childlike manner, such
as his Murder, probably executed around i,i,
and reproduced later in Ii Simons Chicago-
based Musterbook publication, Gcorgc Grosz,
in i,ai (Fig. a). Tis was possibly the rst
major visual introduction of Groszs art in the
United States.
Grosz went to Iaris for most of i,i,, expe-
riencing rsthand the artistic revolution
unleashed by the School of Iaris. At the same
time, he rejected, for the most part, the more
extreme aspects of abstraction as well as the
Ar: pour | Ar: aesthetic of French modernism.
As Grosz was to reiterate throughout most
of his career, to be relevant, art must express
the conditions of humanity rather than reach
for some esoteric, transcendental goal. As he
See HECHT/GROSZ, page
noted in i,ai in a published state-
ment reecting his youthful Com-
munist leanings: You [as artist]
cant be indierent about your
position in this activity, about your
attitude towards the problem of the
masses. Are you on the side of
the exploiters or on the side of the
masses..
T
he outbreak of Vorld Var I
in late July i,i abruptly inter-
rupted Groszs blossoming aspira-
tions to be an artist and illustrator.
As he wrote much later of the
period just before this horric con-
agration, Now I know that I have
lived through the end of the world,
and that the last years of that lost
world were the least conscious and
thus happiest years of my life. Ie
enlisted in the infantry in Novem-
ber of i,i, but a sinus condition
and his precarious mental state led
to his release
on medical
grounds in
May of the
next year. Ie
returned to Berlin and
continued his artistic
activities, only to be
called up again in
January of i,i;. Vithin
a hours he was admit-
ted to the inrmary
and then to a mental
hospital until, partially
through the eorts of a
powerful political friend,
art collector and admirer,
Count Iarry Kessler,
he was permanently
released. As Grosz
noted, my fate had
made an artist of me,
not a soldier. Te eect
the war had on me was
totally negative.
During his initial
release from the military,
Grosz, back in Berlin,
continued to draw. Ie
had begun to make a
name for himself with
his artwork and with
poetry he published in
Franz Ifemferts leftist
journal, D:c A|::or. But
it was due to an enthusiastic critical essay
on Grosz and his work by Teodor Dubler
(is;o-i,,) appearing in the international
journal D:c Vc:sscr B|o::cr in late i,io that
the artists drawings, in particular, received
wide attention:
Iis drawings are full, but he does not ll
them, he spaces them with lines, with wires.
Iis view of the city is apocalyptic: houses
appear (the houses are geometric) naked as
after the bombardment. Men are the expres-
sions of their lust: bewildered. At the caf, one
of them will end a suicide. George Grosz is
at the moment the Futurist temperament of
Berlin.
Dublers reference to the word Futur-
ist in the quote alludes to the inuence of
Italian Futurism on Grosz [via the work of
Carlo Carra (issi-i,oo)] with its sequential
overlapping of linear shapes suggesting move-
ment and energy. Grosz, in drawings such as
Old Jimmy, (Fig. ,) reproduced in the July
Pig. : Grosz, Murdcr, p|atc , jrom Hi Simons ool on
Grosz, .,:. (co||cction oj t|c aut|or).
Pig. , Grosz, O|d ]immy, jrom Die Neue Jugend, ]u|y .,.u.
CAXTONIAN, MARCH
HECHT / GROSZ, jrom pagc ,
i,io issue of D:c Ncuc ]ugcr, indicates the
evolution of the artists style towards a more
compact series of energetic, diagonal lines,
focused on the vibrancy of urban life but often
populated with sordid-looking characters. In
this case, the drawings title and details, such
as the pistol, also reect the artists continued
obsession with Americana. In an issue of Ncuc
]ugcr the next year, Grosz published a poem
entitled Te Song of the Golddiggers which
included the lines (translated here):
Express trains cross the country
faster!
From San Francisco to New York
Everything!!
As a further indication of the artists infatu-
ation at this time with things American, by
the September i,io issue of D:c Ncuc ]ugcr,
Grosz had anglicized the spelling of his name
in print from Georg Gro to George Grosz.
Vhen Vorld Var I ended November ii,
i,is, Germany was cast into political disarray
with the Communist-oriented Spartacus Iarty,
led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht,
fomenting workers revolutions in various
parts of the country, including Berlin, against
the Social Democratic Iarty. Iecht arrived
in Berlin in late December of i,is as a foreign
correspondent for the Do:|y Ncus and regis-
tered at the Adlon Iotel, a center for Vestern
reporters. For the next year, he was witness
to the chaos of Germanys political unrest,
including the occupation of the Kaisers empty
Ialace (the Kaiser had already ed) by Sparta-
cus sympathizers, the assassinations of both
Luxemburg and Liebknecht by members of
the Free Corps, and the horric circumstances
of the Vhite Terror with mass execution of
hundreds of Spartacus captives in Berlins
Alexanderplatz by government troops.
Among the famous and not so famous
personalities and politicians that Iecht met
while in Berlin was George Grosz. Grosz and
Iecht, both in their mid-aos at the time and
full of spunk, cynicism and energy, were to
establish a life-long friendship beginning in
early i,i,. Tis included, eventually, Grosz
emigrating from Nazi Germany in the early
i,,os and settling in the United States where
Iecht assisted in helping Grosz continue his
career as an artist and teacher.
But importantly at this crucial time for both
the young men, Grosz introduced Iecht to
his friends (many avowed Communist sym-
pathizers) and members of the Berlin Dada
movement. A photograph, taken by Iechts
wife, Marie Armstrong, and now in the
humor was at the core of anti-establish-
ment Berlin Dada.
T
he Dada Movement was a nihilistic
literary and artistic reaction to
the events of Vorld Var I, ocially
inaugurated in the Cabaret Voltaire in
neutral 7rich, Switzerland, in i,io, by
several disaected personalities. Tese
included exiled German actor Iugo
Ball, Romanian-born writer/poet
Tristan Tzara, and German writer-
in-exile Richard Ilsenbeck, among
others. Tey organized a number of
activities including exhibitions and
nonsense dramatic events and poetry
readings. Te name they chose for their
movement, Doo, seemed, in its varied
meanings (baby talk, hobbyhorse,
yes, yes, or no, no depending on the
language) to perfectly represent their
contemptuous outlook on a bourgeois
Vestern culture that was in the process
of self-destruction. Te best-known
Dada participant to Americans was the
French artist Marcel Duchamp. Ie
spent the war years in exile in New
York City, charming the literati and mystifying
the masses with his ready-made oojc:s or:,
such as urinals and bicycle wheels attached to
kitchen stools.
At the end of the war, Dada organizations
briey appeared in European centers, includ-
ing Berlin, where several individuals, including
Ilsenbeck (now back in Germany), Grosz,
Vieland Ierzfelde and his brother and artist
John Iearteld, and Franz Jung, formed Club
Dada. Ierzfeldes Malik publishing rm,
established in early i,i;, printed several Dada-
related materials including the manifesto
Newberry Librarys extensive Iecht archive,
shows Iecht with a Dr. Karl Dohmann
and Grosz in a Berlin restaurant, perhaps in
the Adlon Iotel, in i,i, (Fig. ). Tey may
have been celebrating the publication of the
Dada-related journal, D:c ||c::c, since a copy
of the journal is being held by Grosz. D:c
||c::c was actually conceived in Groszs studio,
and he provided artwork for the various
issues, including the cover of the January
i,ao number (Fig. ,). Te covers inscription
reads: A capitalist and a military gure wish
themselves a blessed New Year. Te cynical
Pig. P|otograp| oj Hcc|t, Dr. Kar| Do|mann, and Grosz (|o|ding a copy oj t|c DADA
pu|ication Die Pleite) in a Bcr|in rcstaurant, c. .,:c (Bcn Hcc|t arc|ivcs, Ncwcrry Lirary).
Pig. Grosz, covcr oj Die Pleite, No. u, ]anuary .,:c.
CAXTONIAN, MARCH ,
honor. In one of his columns written for
the Do:|y Ncus not long after his return to
Chicago, Iecht recalled his impressions of
the young artist: Ierr Grosz is a Fastidious
maniac I grew to admire in Berlin. Ie is an
artist with a soul as nave as the inside of the
moon and a talent as profound as the anatomy
of a scarab.
Te Club Dada p:cc c rcs:s:orcc was the
staging of the First International DADA-
Fair (Lrs:c Ir:crro::oro|c DADA-Mcssc) at
Dr. Otto Burchards Art Dealership in Berlin
from June ,o to August a,, i,ao. Tis was also
the or|y so-called International Dada Fair. It
was an event Iecht would have relished had
he not already returned to Chicago. For the
occasion Grosz was designated Iropaganda
Marshall.
Te general theme was provocatively anti-
military, anti-capitalist, anti-bourgeoisie and
anti-authoritarian. Te multi-room exposition
included over i,o pictures, objects, posters,
collages, dolls, photographs, magazines and
montages by such artists as Grosz, John
Iearteld, Raoul Iausmann, Iannah Ich,
Otto Dix, and Max Ernst, among others.
Grosz himself contributed a; works, including
several major political paintings and a large-
format, photographic self-portrait in militant
prole, with the inscription DADA is the
deliberate corruption of the bourgeois vocabu-
lary of concepts and DADA stands on the
side of the revolutionary proletariats. Also
on exhibition was Groszs recently published
satirical portfolio of nine photo-lithographed
drawings, Go:: m:: Urs (God is on our Side),
published by Malik Verlag in i,ao.
O
n the ceiling of the Fairs entrance room,
visible in a documentary photograph
of the organizers at the expositions opening
(Fig. o), hung a oating Irussian Archangel
in an ocers uniform with a paper-mch
pigs head. A banner around the gures waist
carried the words, From heaven on high I
descend (Vom H:mmc| |oc|, o |omm :c| |cr).
Also hung prominently in this room was one
of Groszs most important political paintings
of this period, Dcu:sc||or, c:r V:r:crmorc|cr
(Gcrmory, o V:r:cr Io:ry lo|c), begun by
the artist as Vorld Var I was drawing to its
somber conclusion (Fig. ;; see page i). In the
documentary photograph of the Fairs opening,
Grosz, standing in the center background
wearing a hat, is looking at the painting. Below
the painting is the sign Dada is political.
Like much of Groszs work around this time,
the painting was intended as an indictment
of bourgeois German cultural and political
bulwarks Army, Church, and School that
the artist blamed for the just concluded and
(particularly for Germans) disastrous war. In
many respects, the picture, a main attraction at
the Fair, set the tone for the whole exposition.
Grosz borrowed the paintings title from the
Shakespearean title of a satirical poem written
by German lyricist/writer Ieinrich Ieine
(i;,;is,o), originally published in is as
part of Ncuc Gc:c|:c (New Ioems). Te
freshly completed painting had also been
seen and admired earlier when Count Iarry
Kessler visited Grosz in his Vilmersdorf
studio in January of i,i,. Kessler remarked in
his diary: [Grosz] showed me a huge political
painting, Gcrmory, A V:r:crs lo|c, in which
he derides the former ruling classes as the
pillars of the gormandizing, slothful middle
class.
Groszs stern, silhouetted head is visible
in the compositions lower right corner. Ie
angrily directs the viewers attention to a
trinity of principal male gures at the base of
the painting who, standing like gods, symbol-
ize the pillars of conservative German culture
and politics: a priest representing the Church,
a military ocer wearing the German Cross,
and an academic representing German educa-
tion. Above, in the center of the composition,
sits a well-fed bourgeois Nationalist eating his
dog bone (faithful like a dog) with his beer
and nationalist newspapers comfortably at
Doo A|moroc|, the chapbook-like magazine
D:c ||c::c, and a political journal with the
Dadaist title, ]ccrmorr sc:r c:grcr Iussoo||
(Lvcryorc |:s our Ioo:oo||).
All of these publications were short-lived
but indicative of the chaos of German cultural
life at the time. Tese were also some of the
more provocative publications Iecht saw
and admired. Grosz illustrated and wrote for
the issues of these publications. Te rst and
only number of ]ccrmorr was published in
some ;ooo copies on February ,, i,i,, before
authorities banned its further appearance.
Vith the horric experiences of war still
haunting him, Grosz became immersed in the
politics of post-war Germany. Tese were
wild years, Grosz recalled. I threw myself
madly into life, and teamed up with people
who were searching for a way out from this
absolute nothingness.
Ben Iecht was undoubtedly amused to be
Groszs guest at several Club Dada events
where audiences were insulted and pistols
discharged. At one such performance, Grosz
staged a race between a woman operating a
sewing machine and another at a typewriter.
Te race was preceded by a poetry contest in
which the audience (who had each paid ao
gold marks for the privilege) listened to ia
compositions shouted out in unison. Iecht
was made an honorary member of Club Dada
and presented with a beer mug painted black
and half-lled with sand as a symbol of that
Pig. u Documcntary P|otograp| oj t|c Opcning oj t|c Pirst Intcrnationa| Dada Pair, Bcr|in, .,:c,
jcaturing t|c artists.
See HECHT/GROSZ, page
o CAXTONIAN, MARCH
his side. A city, seemingly, in chaos, circulates
around this primal gure like a kaleidoscope.
Grosz sees these four human paradigms,
repeated throughout his art of the late teens
and twenties, as complicit in the destruction
suered by the German people as a result of
the war. Ians Iess noted that the inclusion
of the artist himself, in a position normally
reserved for the patron of a medieval or
renaissance religious painting, suggests that
Grosz consciously referenced the format of an
altarpiece. And indeed, he had. Grosz was
among a group of German contemporaries,
including Max Beckmann and Otto Dix, who,
in response to the horrors etched on their
psyches by the Great Var, created paintings
that utilized various religious formats to
emphasize the seriousness of their secular and
spiritual messages in the late teens, the i,aos,
and the early thirties.
As a further marker of the apocalyptic polit-
ical statement Grosz intended, he included,
in the upper left and right edges of his
composition, a moon sliver and a red-orange
sun, devices borrowed from earlier German
art. Incorporating both a sun and a moon in
pictures associated with Christs crucixion
or other apocalyptic subjects is often found
in northern European religious art, as can
be seen in Albrecht Drers late i,th century
woodcut of the Cruc:x:or from the suite
of prints known as lc Grco: |oss:or (Fig.
s). Together, the two astral bodies become
symbols for the historic passage of time, or the
timeless signicance of the historic event.
N
ot surprisingly, the authorities were not
amused by the manner in which the
government, especially the military, had been
lampooned in the Dada exposition. Grosz,
Ierzfelde (Groszs publisher), and Rudolf
Schlichter (designer of the oating gure)
were all charged with defaming the German
army. At trial in April i,ai, Grosz and Ierz-
felde were found guilty and ned, based on
the defamatory nature of the Go:: m:: Urs
images. Te plates for the portfolio were con-
scated and destroyed and further distribu-
tion prohibited.
Tis was Groszs rst major run-in with
authorities based on objections to his art, but
it was not to be the last. Ie would be charged
twice more prior to his departure for the
United States in the early thirties. During
the Tird Reich, hundreds of his paintings
and drawings were conscated and many
destroyed. Ierhaps the most familiar plate
from the controversial Go:: m:: Urs portfolio,
often reproduced, is number ,, D:c Gcsur-
oc:cr (Te Faith Iealers, originally drawn in
i,io-i;), in which an examining doctor pro-
claims an emaciated skeletal gure acceptable
for military duty (Fig. ,).
In early i,ao, Iecht returned to Chicago a
more seasoned reporter enhanced with inter-
national experience. Iis most famous newspa-
per column, Around the Town: A Tousand
and One Afternoons in Chicago, was inaugu-
rated in June i,ai for the Do:|y Ncus. It con-
cluded a little over a year later in October i,aa
when his position with the Do:|y Ncus ended
during the controversy prompted by Iechts
publication of his erotic novel Ior:oz:us
Mo||orc. During the early twenties, however,
Iecht did what he could to introduce the
work of George Grosz to his Midwestern
audience, and he was indirectly responsible for
encouraging the publication of the rst mono-
graph on Groszs work in the United States, by
Ii Simons in i,ai (discussed below).
Te lingering eects of Iechts contacts
with Grosz and the Dada Movement in
Germany were several following his return
to the United States. Vhile Iechts predi-
lection for biting satire was present in his
writing prior to his overseas trip in i,is, it was
undoubtedly augmented by his German expe-
rience. As Doug Fetherling suggested, Iecht
brought back to Chicago some of the artistic
Pig. 8 A|rcc|t Drcr, Cruciion, woodcut jrom t|c Grco:
|oss:or scrics, .,8.
Pig. , Grosz, Tc Pait| Hca|crs, .,.u-.,, p|atc in Cott Mit Uns portjo|io, .,:c.
HECHT / GROSZ, jrom pagc
CAXTONIAN, MARCH ;
attitudes that had shaped Dada in Germany,
where it manifested itself in a sort of
raunchy impertinence in the face of total,
irreversible disaster It presupposed that the
world was an urban one close to collapse.
A kind of Dada-like attitude is embedded
in some of Iechts columns written in the
twenties for the Do:|y Ncus series, A Tou-
sand and One Afternoons. One column of
particularly Dadaist avor, appropriately
titled Da Da, concerned one Irofessor
Dodo von Baader, high Inca of the Imperial
Inner Gnomes, division N. ;a of the Order
of Da Da, who visits America from Berlin
in search of followers. Te column, written
tongue-in-cheek and imitating the absurdity
Iecht saw in Berlin Dadaist performances,
was ultimately intended, as the columns last
paragraph nally reveals, to be a critical poke
at the Ku Klux Klan: If [Irofessor Dodo]
goes awaythe best I shall be able to oer
as a substitute [in this newspaper] will be an
interview with the Iigh Imperial Vizard of
the Ku-Klux Klan.
Iecht displayed reproductions of Groszs
drawings in the window of the Covici-McGee
Bookstore in Chicago after his return from
Berlin in i,ao, and it is probably not coinci-
dental that Ii Simons published his small
Chicago-based Musterbook volume of ia
Grosz drawings in i,ai (Fig. io). Tere
was an important conuence of personalities
in the early i,aos with ties to Iecht and/or
Grosz in Chicago who, early on, were respon-
sible for bringing the German artist to the
attention of the American public: Iecht, Ii
Simons, and Ierman Sachs. In a letter to
Iecht from Grosz, cited in one of Iechts A
Tousand and One Afternoons in Chicago
columns, entitled Enchanted Exiles, the artist
fantasized visiting Iecht in the Vindy City:
I can hardly wait to come to Chicago. But I
suppose I am already too late. Modernism
seems to have advanced in America beyond us
here in Germany. I feel like I was clinging to
a backwater. Today I received a shipment of
postal cards of Chicago. Tere was one of the
Vrigley Building lighted up at night. Colossal:
Such beauty, such joy of line: It seems to me
if I could stand under such a building I would
be happy the rest of my life. My heart is eaten
with envy of Ierr Sachs
Groszs reference to Romanian-born
Ierman Sachs (iss,-i,o) identies a mutual
friend of both Iecht and Grosz. And Sachs
was also a
signicant
link between
Grosz and
Simons Musterbook publication of Groszs
drawings, since Sachs is named in the book as
Groszs personal representative in America.
Sachs had arrived in Iechts Chicago news-
paper oce sometime around i,ao with a
letter of introduction from Grosz, and this is
referred to by Iecht in his Enchanted Exiles
column noted above in which both Sachs and
Grosz are featured.
B
y the early twenties Sachs had become a
known, however briey, artistic personal-
ity in Chicagos cultural circles. Ie had arrived
in the United States from his native Romania
around age i; (either in i,oo or i,oa) and
become a naturalized citizen of Chicago in
i,o,. From i,i, to i,is, however, Sachs was
in Germany studying art, and it was evidently
during this time that he became friends with
George Grosz.
Back in Chicago, probably no later than
i,i,, Sachs founded the short-lived Chicago
Industrial Art School (c. i,ao). Around this
time, his artwork was shown at the Art Insti-
tute. Iis intention, as Iecht relates in his
column, was to raise one million dollars
and start modernistic
art schools all over
the country. Vhat
America needs, said
Ierr Sachs, is some-
body like myself.
Unfortunately, Sachs
aspirations exceeded
his self-esteem and
resources, and his
plan was short-lived.
Ie would contribute
signicantly to art and
arts administration in
Ohio and California in
the following years.
Even less informa-
tion on Ii Simons is
available. Although I
assume he had contact
with Iecht while the
two were in Chicago,
specic information is
lacking. Surely Simons
interest in and contact
with both Sachs and
Grosz would have
necessitated some
communication
between Simons and
Iecht around i,ao
Pig. .c Covcr oj Hi Simons ool on Grosz, .,:. (co||cction
oj t|c aut|or).
Pig. .. Grosz, Main Strcct, p|atc 8 jrom Hi Simons
.,:. ool.
See HECHT/
GROSZ, page
s CAXTONIAN, MARCH
to i,ai at the time that Simons book on the
German artist was in preparation. Most bib-
liographic records do not record Simons birth
and death years. But according to the April ,,
i,, issue of the C|:cogo Do:|y lr:ourc (p. io),
I. A. (Ii) Simons (,ao North Lake Shore
Drive, Chicago) died April , i,,, at age ,o.
If so, Simons would have been born in is,,.
By his mid-twenties, Simons, living in
Chicago, was an aspiring intellectual inter-
ested in poetry, criticism and publication. Te
small i,ai Musterbook volume on Grosz
(printed by Chicago Iinrichsen Irint Shop)
was Simons rst signicant published eort
at criticism. Vhile I have been unsuccessful
in locating additional volumes in the Muster-
book series, the advertising gloss printed on
the end cover of the Grosz book, embodied
Simons expectations. Ie wrote that this
Musterbook I will be followed by others,
from time to time, on fresh and signicant
work of contemporary artists.
In his ve-page introduction to Groszs
drawings, Simons mentions a number of
important hallmarks in the artists life, includ-
ing several of the Dada periodicals featuring
his satirical drawings; the importance of
Groszs painting Dcu:sc||or,
c:r V:r:crmorc|cr; and
political problems arising
from Go:: M:: Urs. Simons
probably had help in putting
his information together,
including translations of
material already published
on Grosz in Germany as
well as the artists own writ-
ings. Iowever, his essay is
awed by faulty chronology,
where dates given for publi-
cations related to the artist
are sometimes o by two or
three years.
As Simons notes, the
drawings he chose for the
Musterbook publication
were selected from two of
Groszs portfolios published
in Berlin: Lrs:c Gcorgc Grosz
Moppc and K|c:rc Grosz
Moppc. And, in often orid
language, Simons captures
the satirical essence of the
artists work, applicable, as
we might concur, to such
compositions as plate s of
Simons book, which carries
the innocuous title Main
Street (Fig. ii):
Te compelling emotion [of Groszs work]
is hatred of the ugliness of contemporary
metropolitan-industrial existence as it bore
upon the artists consciousness. Out of the
demoniacal character of this hate rises the
terrible vision, scintillant [s:c] with colors of
putrefaction, of the decomposition of human-
ity, of which that ugliness is at once a cause
and manifestation. Te vision embraces every-
thing loathsome, depraved, lewd, enormous,
godless, unnatural, that in the bowels of the
great city gives rise to the processes of corrup-
tion. Ie is a cynic, un-laughing, malevolent,
merciless, diabolical, rather than a temperately
reprimanding satirist such as Daumier.
Vithin two years of his small tome on
Grosz, Ii Simons published two volumes of
his own poetry in Chicago: a limited edition
book entitled Or:o|cs G B|oc|o:rs, designed
and printed by Chicagoan Vill Ransom in
i,aa (Fig. ia), and a volume entitled lc
B|oc| Ur:jorm published by the Iyman-
McGee Company in i,a,. Iyman-McGee
was successor to the Chicago-based Covici-
McGee Company and Bookstore that had
been so important for Iecht and his work
two years earlier. As a press release in the
August a, i,a Ncu Yor| l:mcs Books and
Authors column states (p. BRi;), Simons
B|oc| Ur:jorm series of poems was intended
to be a human document portraying prison
life in the Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leav-
enworth, Kansas. Vhile Simons remained
in Chicago for the rest of his life, pursued
some research, and became distinguished
in the local business world, he published no
additional commentary on Grosz or books of
criticism or poetry.
Aside from occasionally mentioning George
Grosz in his columns for the Do:|y Ncus,
including Enchanted Exiles, Iecht wrote
an article on the German artist for the short-
lived M:|uou|cc Ar:s Mor:||y in late i,aa.
Tis occurred within a short time of Iechts
departure from the C|:cogo Do:|y Ncus, when
he was wrestling with the U.S. Iostal Service
over charges of circulating obscene matter
in regard to his recently published novel
Ior:oz:us Mo||orc. Iecht had traveled to
Milwaukee for several purposes, one of which
was involvement in an east-side Milwaukee art
gallery and the inauguration of the M:|uou|cc
Ar:s Mor:||y. For the periodical, Iecht con-
tributed a Dadaist article entitled Ioch das
Dadaismus, essentially a tribute to George
Grosz.
In the article, in language emulating the
German Dadaists, Iecht declares:
Ierr Grosz is essentially the interpreter of
interpretations. Ie is the Grand Cardinal of
Pig. .: Covcr oj Hi Simons, Orieoles and Blackbirds, C|icago,
.,:: (Spccia| Co||cctions, Nort|crn I||inois Univcrsity Lirarics).
Pig. ., Chicago Literary 1imes, jront pagc,
Marc| .u, .,: (Spccia| Co||cctions, Nort|crn
I||inois Univcrsity Lirarics).
HECHT / GROSZ, jrom pagc ,
CAXTONIAN, MARCH ,
Caricature. Ie was elected Grand Cardinal
of Caricature by the Dresdener branch of the
Irussian Dadaisten on August i,, i,i,, at ,
oclock in the front of the Gambrinus Vein
Stube. Ierr Grosz is the Master of Linear
Invective. Ie is also the embittered monoma-
nia of Iremature Intelligence. Iis drawings
are inspired by the conviction that the human
Race is a failure. In this I agree with him. In
a, years of gregarious living, I have met only
eight intelligent people. One of them is Grosz.
[Ierr Groszs drawings] are delightful
paragraphs in which pride, love, ambition,
charity, patriotism, Christianity and beauty
are impaled upon nightmarish epigram. Ierr
Grosz is the rst major symptom of the disin-
tegration of the human race.
Iechts experiences with Grosz-related
publications while in Berlin also inuenced
some of his most satirical writing in Chicago.
Of all Iechts contributions to Chicago
newspaper reportage, a Dadaist irony is
most apparent in the o-the-wall format
and writing style found in his semi-monthly
periodical, C|:cogo L::crory l:mcs (subtitled
Mocrr Soror:c ]ourro|). It was published
from March i, i,a, to June i, i,a, following
his departure from the Do:|y Ncus.
Tis early and important example of an
underground newspaper, nancially under-
written by the Covici-McGee Bookstore and
publishing concern, operated on the Dada
strategy of attacking all aspects of what was
considered civilized society. Iechts circle of
literary friends and artists, including George
Grosz, contributed to the publication, provid-
ing drawings and often outrageously humor-
ous stories. Such can be seen, for instance, in
the front pages of the papers March io and
April i, i,a issues (Figs. i,-i). Te layout
and absurd headlines of Iechts revolutionary
journal, seen in these two examples, emulate
aspects of the Dada publications Iecht saw in
Berlin (for example, Fig. i).
Among specic contributions Grosz pro-
vided for Iechts C|:cogo L::crory l:mcs was
a gruesome drawing titled Never Trump
Your Iartners Ace (Fig. i,). It appeared at the
bottom of the front page of the newspapers
April i,, i,a, issue. Grosz used the same
image for his portfolio of s images collec-
tively entitled Lccc Homo (Bc|o| :|c Mor).
Te portfolio (referencing a phrase laden
with religious tradition) was published in
Germany in late i,aa, to great acclaim and
controversy. Te drawing was titled Apoc|cr-
A|s o||cs voroc: uor, sp:c|:cr s:c Kor:cr (Apache,
Vhen Everything was Over, Tey Ilayed
Cards). Te composition, originally executed
in i,i;, shows three men drinking and playing
cards in a rustic, blood-splattered room, a
hatchet visible on the oor, with one of the
men sitting on a box containing parts of the
body of a murdered and mutilated woman.
By the spring of i,a, with judgment ren-
dered against him for Ior:oz:us Mo||orc and
with the need for substantial cash, Iecht left
Chicago for the East Coast. Ie and Charles
MacArthur set up homes near each other
during the summer of i,a, and with MacAr-
thurs frequent collaboration, Iecht soon
made a name for himself, as well as multiple
fortunes, producing screenplays for theater
and Iollywood movies. Iis fame and fortune
were to make him a powerful name in Ameri-
can literature and popular culture during the
late twenties and thirties, if somewhat less so
in the forties and fties.
Grosz continued to produce a variety of art
in Germany during the twenties but made
his greatest impact with his politically scath-
ing drawings. Ie artwork was in constant
demand, and he was continuously engaged in
designing and illustrating books and contrib-
uting artwork to various journals. Te satirical
nature of his work, which continued to be
leftist in orientation, made him widely known
in his homeland, both admired and hated
depending upon ones political proclivity.
I
n traditional overviews of the Dada Move-
ment, its impact in the United States is
usually limited to the contributions of Marcel
Duchamp while the French-born artist lived
in exile in New York City during the years
of Vorld Var I. In contrast, the impact of
Dada-related activities on the cultural scene
in Chicago in the early i,aos has been largely
Pig. . Chicago Literary 1imes, jront pagc,
Apri| ., .,: (Spccia| Co||cctions, Nort|crn
I||inois Univcrsity Lirarics).
Pig. . Grosz, Apac|c, p|atc 8, Ecce Iomo portjo|io, a|so uscd in t|c Apri| ., .,:, issuc
oj t|c Chicago Literary 1imes.
See HECHT/GROSZ, page
io CAXTONIAN, MARCH
ignored. As we have seen, Ben Iechts career
as a writer was enriched by his Berlin experi-
ence and friendship with George Grosz. Addi-
tionally, the contact with Ben Iecht in Berlin
in the late teens was to be crucial for Groszs
initial exposure as an artist in America, most
specically in Chicago with the publication
of Ii Simons little book. And lest we forget,
it was in great part due to his continuing
friendship with the inuential Iecht that
Grosz avoided a potentially fatal contact with
encroaching Nazism in Germany when he
made the decision to permanently immigrate
to the United States in early i,,,.
,,
||o:ogrop|s oy :|c ou:|or.
NOTES
*I am indebted to the stas of both the Special Col-
lections of Northern Illinois University Libraries
and the Newberry Library for their assistance with
a variety of materials, as well as to the exceptional
International Dada Archive of the University of Iowa
Libraries, much of it available online.
Jerry D. Meyer, Ben Iecht, Vallace Smith, and Ior-
:oz:us Mo||orc: A Crisis of Censorship at the Crest of
the Chicago Renaissance, Cox:or:or, Vol. XVII, No.
(April aoio) pp. i-,.
Ben Iecht, A C|:| oj :|c Ccr:ury, New York: Simon
and Schuster, i,,, p. i,,.
Ben Iecht, A C|:| oj :|c Ccr:ury, p. ao.
Doug Fetherling, lc I:vc L:vcs oj Bcr Hcc|:, Toronto:
Lester & Orpen, Ltd., i,;;, p. i,.
Ben Iecht, A C|:| oj :|c Ccr:ury, p. ao,.
Gcorgc Grosz: or Au:oo:ogrop|y (||c:rcs ]o ur c:r
grosscs Nc:r), translated by Nora Iodges, New York:
Imago Design Co., Macmillan Iublishing Co., (i,o)
i,s,, p. io.
Gcorgc Grosz: or Au:oo:ogrop|y, p. so.
Gcorgc Grosz: or Au:oo:ogrop|y, p. sa.
M. Kay Flavell, Gcorgc Grosz, o B:ogrop|y, New Iaven:
Yale University Iress, i,ss, p. ai.
Iubbuch letter, i, February i,i;, quoted in Matthias
Eberle, Vor| Vor I or :|c Vc:mor Ar::s:s: D:x,
Grosz, Bcc|morr, Sc||cmmcr, New Iaven: Yale Uni-
versity Iress, i,s,, p. ,o.
Flavell, Gcorgc Grosz, pp. aa-a,.
Iortion of a statement from George Grosz, My New
Iictures [7u meinen neuen Bildern], Dos Kurs:o|o::
,, no. i (i,ai), quoted in Gcrmor Lxprcss:or:sm: Docu-
mcr:s jrom :|c Lr oj :|c V:||c|m:rc Lmp:rc :o :|c
R:sc oj No::oro| Soc:o|:sm, edited and annotated by
Rose-Carol Vashton Long, New York: G. K. Iall &
Co., i,,,, p. a;,.
Gcorgc Grosz: or Au:oo:ogrop|y, p. s.
Gcorgc Grosz: or Au:oo:ogrop|y, p. ,;.
D:c Vc:sscr B|o::cr, Vol. IV, No. ii (Oct.-Dec. i,io) p.
io;, quoted in Ians Iess, Gcorgc Grosz, New Iaven:
Yale University Iress, i,s,, Studio Vista edition, i,;,
pp. o-o,.
quoted in Ians Iess, Gcorgc Grosz, p. oa.
Ians Iess, Gcorgc Grosz, p. o. Vieland Ierzfelde,
a poet and writer who befriended Grosz in i,i,,
acquired the rights to the dormant D:c Ncuc ]ugcr,
which in its earlier existence was a schoolboys maga-
zine, and revitalized it in i,io as a literary journal,
serving largely leftist and anti-war aims. Ierzfelde
also established the Malik Verlag (Malik Iublishers)
in early i,i;, which in addition to printing D:c Ncuc
]ugcr, was also to publish various of Groszs portfo-
lios of satirical drawings over the next several years.
Flavell, Gcorgc Grosz, p. ,s. Te publication included
some satirical work by Grosz.
Gcorgc Grosz: or Au:oo:ogrop|y, p. ii,.
Gcorgc Grosz: or Au:oo:ogrop|y, p. io.
Te column entitled Enchanted Exiles, from one of
his iooi Afternoons in Chicago, is quoted in Florice
Vhyte Kovan, Ar: G Arc|::cc:urc or soos Aj:crroors
:r C|:cogo: Lssoys or :o|| :o|cs oj or::s:s or :|c
c::yscopc oj :|c s,zos oy Bcr Hcc|:, Vashington, D. C.,
aooa, p. ,;.
Ralph Jentsch, Gcorgc Grosz Bcr|:r-Ncu Yor|, Milan:
Skira, aoos, p. ioi.
Ieines poem was based on a journey he took in
Germany in late is, and, like Groszs painting, was
intended as a satirical attack on the political situ-
ation in the country. Te present whereabouts of
Groszs painting, if not destroyed during the Tird
Reich along with hundreds of his other artworks in
public and private collections, is unknown. It was
last recorded in the hands of Vieland Ierzfelde in
Berlin in the i,,os.
Ir :|c lucr::cs: lc D:ory oj Horry Kcss|cr (originally
published in Germany under the title Horry Groj
Kcss|cr, logcouc|cr s,s:-s,,,), with an introduction
by Otto Friedrich, translated by Charles Kessler,
New York: Iolt, Rinehart and Vinston, i,;i, p. o.
Ians Iess, Gcorgc Grosz, pp. ;a-;,.
Te letters K.V. coming out of the examining doctors
mouth are short for the lengthy German phrase
Kr:cgsvcrucrurgsjo|:g (t for active service). Grosz
frequently recycled his drawings and published
them in multiple portfolios, sometimes with the
titles changed. Tis drawing, for instances, was used
again in the controversial i,,o portfolio entitled lc
Mor|c Mcr, where it carried the same title used in
Go:: m:: Urs.
See my Cox:or:or article, Ben Iecht, Vallace Smith,
and Ior:oz:us Mo||orc: A Crisis of Censorship at the
Crest of the Chicago Renaissance.
Fetherling, lc I:vc L:vcs oj Bcr Hcc|:, p. as. Fether-
ling suggests that the zany scripts Iecht wrote for
the Marx Brothers reected back to his experience
with Dada performances in Berlin.
Te column is reprinted in Kovan, Ar: G Arc|::cc:urc
or soos Aj:crroors :r C|:cogo, pp. ;,-;;. Irofessor
Dodo von Baader is Iechts playful invention based
on a real Berlin Dadaist, friend and cohort of George
Grosz, Johannes von Baader (is;,-i,,,).
Kovan notes that Iecht organized campaigns and
written copy against the Klan in the i,aos and
was on the board of the National Unity League in
Chicago along with Jane Addams. In late October
i,aa, Iecht was involved in setting up League oces
in Milwaukee. See Kovan, Ar: G Arc|::cc:urc or soos
Aj:crroors :r C|:cogo, p. io,.
Florice Vhyte Kovan, Ar: G Arc|::cc:urc or soos
Aj:crroors :r C|:cogo, p. ioi.
Quoted in Kovan, Ar: G Arc|::cc:urc or soos Aj:cr-
roors :r C|:cogo, p. o. Te Vrigley building, com-
pleted in i,ai and gloriously illuminated at night,
was Chicagos newest major contribution to modern
architecture and received worldwide attention.
A statement on page , of Simons book, across
from the title page, declares: Te lithographs here
reproduced are published with the permission of
Mr. Ierman Sachs, director of the Dayton Museum
of Te Arts, personal representative in America of
Mr. Grosz.
Te most accurate and readily available information
on Ierman Sachs in English can be found on the
Iacic Coast Architecture Database (ICAD), avail-
able online at: //digital.lib.washington.edu/archi-
tect/architects/;o,. Te number ;o, in the database
is Sachs identication code. Irecise information on
Sachs travels from i,i, to the conclusion of Vorld
Var I is unclear. Although his intention was to
return to the States following two years of art study,
surviving passport information indicates that, except
for a couple of weeks in Romania, Sachs remained in
Germany during the war and returned to Chicago at
its conclusion.
Quoted in Kovan, Ar: G Arc|::cc:urc or soos Aj:cr-
roors :r C|:cogo, pp. ,s-,,.
Sachs served as Director of the Dayton Art Museum
in Ohio from i,ai-i,a,. Ie was Director of the
Creative Art Students League in Los Angeles begin-
ning in i,a, for a number of years, during which
time he also worked as an artist and color consultant,
assisting in the design of some of the citys important
landmarks. Ie remained in Los Angeles until his
death in i,o.
Te publishers statement suggests several topics that
might follow within the next few months, includ-
ing Italian poetry, Ialle Lune woodcuts, Emanuel
Carnevali poems and prose, Dada poetry, and the art
of Ierman Sachs. No Musterbook imprint of these
topics seems to exist, and I assume that the Muster-
book publication venture must have been stillborn
following the Grosz book.
Ii Simons, Gcorg Grosz, Chicago: Musterbookhouse,
i,ai, p. o. Simons mistakenly gives i,ao as the date
of the two Grosz-Moppcr publications, but they were
both printed in i,i;.
Simons, Gcorg Grosz, pp. o-;.
Or:o|cs G B|oc|o:rs was issued in aso copies, printed
on Kelmscott hand-made paper.
Simons became president of Chicago-based Yearbook
Iublishers, Inc. (medical books) in i,,o on the
death of C. J. Iead, his father-in-law. Simons was
also a member of the Foreign Trade Committee
of the Book Iublishers Association in the i,os;
president of the Chicago Art Institutes Society for
Contemporary American Art in the early i,os; and,
beginning around i,o, began research on what was
to have been a complete bibliography of the work of
American poet Vallace Stevens. Simons published
two articles on Stevens poetry, one in the December
i, i,o special issue of the Horvor Avoco:c, and
another journal article published posthumously. Iis
larger project was cut short by his untimely death
in i,,; see lc Ncu Yor| l:mcs (August a, i,a;
October i,, i,,o; August i, i,o; and October ao,
i,o) as well as articles in the C|:cogo Do:|y lr:ourc
( January i,, i,i; March ia, i,,; and April ,, i,,).
See Kovan, Ar: G Arc|::cc:urc or soos Aj:crroors :r
C|:cogo, pp. ioi & io,. Te rst issue of the M:|uou-
|cc Ar:s Mor:||y, Volume i, appeared in September
i,aa, and there is no evidence that the publication
lasted beyond the March/April (Vol. i, No. ,) issue
of i,a, (evidently some issues were bi-monthly).
Te entire article (probably from September i,aa, rst
number) is reprinted in Kovan, Ar: G Arc|::cc:urc
or soos Aj:crroors :r C|:cogo, pp. ,-. A caution-
ary note: Iechts article is a bit awed by erroneous
information, including the statement that Grosz was
born in San Francisco and taken to Germany at the
age of two.
Fetherling, lc I:vc L:vcs oj Bcr Hcc|:, p. oo.
HECHT / GROSZ, jrom pagc ,
CAXTONIAN, MARCH ii
L Quo::roc||:
T
he Block Museum on the campus of
Northwestern University has mounted a
rich display of prints, books, maps, and scien-
tic instruments exploring the role of artists in
the scientic inquiries of the ioth century. Te
exhibition started at Iarvard Art Museums/
Arthur M. Sackler Museum this past fall; it
will be on display at the Block Museum until
April s.
Since I live near the museum in Evanston
and have contributed occasional essays about
book-related subjects in the Renaissance to
the Caxtonian, I was asked to preview the
exhibit. I agreed with some misgivings about
my competence to interpret mainly visual
prints and artifacts because my familiarity
with the culture of the sixteenth century has
derived mainly from literature, primarily in
English. In the end, I was over-
whelmed but enjoyed myself
immensely.
Te items on display are
described in a richly illustrated
catalogue, comprising a folio-
size pages, on sale in the book-
store for soo. Associated with
the exhibit are regularly sched-
uled programs, tours, and lec-
tures focusing on various aspects
of the collections. Te entries
in the catalogue are coordinated
and edited with an introduc-
tion by Susan Dackerman, the
Curator of Irints of Iarvard Art Museums.
She explains how artists, natural historians,
cosmographers, medical practitioners, and
instrument makers who gathered and inter-
preted knowledge of the natural world used
printed images and instruments to describe
and understand that world. Tis empiri-
cal approach to acquiring knowledge was in
marked contrast to the method that preceded
the Renaissance of the ioth century, which was
based primarily on the authority of ancient
philosophers such as Aristotle.
Essays by knowledgeable scholars orient
the viewer to the signicance of each of the
divisions in the exhibit. For example, Lorraine
Daston, Visiting Irofessor of Social Tought
and Iistory at the University of Chicago,
explains how by the mid-sixteenth century
observation had supplanted received classical
authority as the primary source of knowledge
and truth; naturalists stopped looking at
books and started looking at nature. One of
several examples of this shift in perspective
in the exhibit is a wood cut of a drawing by
Iendrick Goltizius of a beached whale . Te
engraving provides a record of contemporary
curiosity toward stranded whales, as people
Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge
A blockbuster show lls the Block Gallery at Northwestern with works from early modern Europe
Unlnown artist, ajtcr Hcndricl Go|tzius, Pi|ot V|a|c Bcac|cd at Zandvoort, .,,
ctc|ing and cngraving. Harvard Art Muscums)Pogg Muscum, Lig|t-Outcrridgc
Co||cction, Ric|ard Norton Mcmoria| Pund, M::. P|oto: Dcpartmcnt oj Digita|
Imaging and Visua| Rcsourccs, Harvard Art Muscums, :c.. Prcsidcnt and Pc||ows
oj Harvard Co||cgc.
Hcinric| Vogt|crr t|c c|dcr,
Anatomy, or, a Pait|ju|
Rcproduction oj t|c Body oj
a Pcma|c, Strasourg: ]aco
Pr||ic|, ., woodcuts wit|
|and-co|oring and |cttcrprcss.
Boston Mcdica| Lirary in t|c
Prancis A. Countway Lirary oj
Mcdicinc, QM,,.A.u. P|oto:
Boston Mcdica| Lirary in t|c
Prancis A. Countway Lirary oj
Mcdicinc.
See PRINTS AND SCIENCE, page
ia CAXTONIAN, MARCH
Vyr|cr Dc Vorc
V
here one or more Caxtonians gather
in the name of books, sooner or later
the question is posed, paraphrased, Vhither
Bookstores. Te answer, my friends, was
answered years ago by the bard, Bob Dylan.
It is blowin in the wind. If anybody knows
the full answer to that question, it is God
Almighty, or Je Bezos, founder and CEO
of Amazon.com, a veritable prophet himself,
although some people think he is a god, too.
Like empty husks the hulks of abandoned
Borders Bookstores dot the cities and towns
of America. Tey are a victim of brick-and-
mortar costs, internet ordering, and the digital
restorm which Bezos did not invent, but
which his Kindle has amed into a prairie
re. Barnes & Noble, the nemesis of Borders
Books, is hollowing out its book display
spaces in its reportedly ;,o remaining stores,
to expand the show space for its NOOK e-
reader, with which it intends to out-innovate
Amazon and its Kindle, and thus scrap for
survival in a digital world.
But will Barnes & Noble survive. Suddenly
real publishers are very concerned that it will.
Vithout those hundreds of stores, how will
their real books be sold. Iow will the back
stock of older titles, which has traditionally
supported prots for publishers and subsi-
dized new authors, nd buyers. Vhat can
publishers do to support brick-and-mortar
stores.
It seems that there are more questions than
there are new titles in paper.
In the face of these current events and
current battles, actions are being taken by
persons who have been or are Caxtonians.
One of these is Sandra Hindman (,i), who
is not currently a Caxtonian, but has oper-
ated a high-powered business in medieval,
Renaissance, and illuminated manuscripts.
Sandra was an art professor at Northwestern
University, who spent half the year in Europe
dealing with manuscript treasures. Ier busi-
ness, Les Enluminures, has had a Chicago
oce, and a Iaris gallery, for years. Now, it has
been announced, Sandra will expand to New
York City in May. Te opening show at Les
Enluminures new gallery in New York will be
titled ia Books of Iours for aoia and will
feature important Books of Iours from the
thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Tese
will appeal to very few of the Occupy Vall
CAXTONI AN FOOTNOTES
Street crowd, but may appeal strongly to the
i, or even one-tenth of one percent.
Ve shall watch her progress with interest.
For a couple of years, Sandra Iindman
and her erstwhile sister, Leslie Iindman,
operated an antique show at Navy Iier, at the
same time as Art Chicago. Te ladies went
their separate ways when that event failed in
the face of economic realities, but that sure
has not slowed down the juggernaut that
is Leslie Hindman (s). Te revival of
Leslie Iindman Auctioneers was propelled
forward after Leslie nally created a separate
books & manuscripts department. Leslie
rapidly outgrew her quarters on Aberdeen
Street, across from Iarpo Studios, and is
now located in specially remodeled space on
Vest Lake Street. Leslie has since announced
or opened branch oces or auction rooms
in Naples, Florida; Milwaukee, Viscon-
sin; Denver, Ialm Beach, and soon in New
Orleans. Okay, yes, the jewelry and ne arts
departments probably fueled the expansion
more than the book department, but the
expansion has required Mary Williams (o,),
the head of the book department, to spend a
lot more time on the road, and at airports.
T
he failure of Borders Bookstores may
or may not result in a boost to smaller
chains or independent new bookstores.
Iow much it has helped or hurt Chicagos
own surviving chain of new books, Barbaras
Bookstore, remains to be seen. Barbaras still
boasts seven locations, six in Chicagoland and
one in Boston. But they vacated their store in
University Village on South Ialsted Street
after a number of pioneering years next to the
burgeoning powerhouse that is the University
of Illinois at Chicago and its urban renewal
neighborhood in the shadow of Iull Iouse.
But one persons poison is another mans
meat. Stepping into the void and the empty
storefront is our own entrepreneur, Bradley
Jonas (s,), the enterprising, overworked
Iresident of Iowells Books of Chicago.
Jonas is opening Iowells third storefront in
Chicago this month at iais S. Ialsted St, with
plans to expose the U of I resident and com-
muter students, and faculty, and neighbors
to more books than they can see outside of
their Richard J. Daley Library and its exten-
sions. Te powers that be at the university are
anxious to have Iowells as the new anchor
store for the many upscale businesses that
have clustered around the former site of the
Maxwell Street Market. Brads plan is, Ve
hope to have a pretty sizable inventory there
itll be pretty strong.
Brad also hopes to appeal to the clientele
who patronized his long-time location at sas
S. Vabash as his Loop or mid-city branch.
Tat store closed in the recent past, in part,
due to endless construction complications in
that rapidly changing neighborhood around
Columbia College.
Meanwhile, Brads other enterprise, Te
Chicago International Remainder & Over-
stock Book Exposition, aka CIROBE, is
scheduled to return to Chicagos Iilton Iotel
in October again this year. Brad pioneered this
trade show over twenty years ago. It attracts
thousands of booksellers from around the
globe for a weekend of shopping the clearance
sales by publishers of books, audio, and soft-
ware. Tey also patronize the local restaurants
and watering holes, and, occasionally, some of
the other used but not so rare booksellers in
Chicago. Former Caxtonian Ed Ripp, who
relocated his book business to Albuquerque
several years ago, has returned to exhibit his
wares at CIROBE, but swears that even the
mild winter weather of aoii-ia will not inu-
ence him to move back to the shores of Lake
Michigan. But he is willing to return for a
weekend in October.
Another change in a South Loop bookstore
involves Irinters Row Fine Books, which is
operated by John LaPine (o,). Te business
was purchased late last year by Col. James
Iritzker. Col. Iritzker is a very, very busy man.
No sooner had he moved Teresa Embry
(,,), librarian, and his eponymous military
library to Monroe and Michigan, than he
has engaged to restore the Emil Bach house
designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (i,o,) on
Sheridan Road in Rogers Iark.
North of Rogers Iark, there are other
changes that have occurred or are in process.
Florence Shay (s,), occasional yenta and
doyenne of Titles, Inc., is back in charge
of her Iighland Iark bookshop after her
prolonged illness. Tis is a great relief to her
many friends and customers, as well as Ann
Kiel (oo), who works in the store part-time.
After months of treatment, Florence is much
happier to be back in her beloved bookshop.
Two years ago, south of Iighland Iark, in
Vinnetka, the partners at Chicago Rare Book
Center experimented with an expansion to a
CAXTONIAN, MARCH i,
from all classes came out to see the animal
while its esh was examined and its parts
measured.
In another essay, Illustrated Natural
Iistory, Claudia Swan, Associate Irofessor of
Art Iistory at Northwestern, describes with
illustrations how sixteenth- and seventeenth-
century botanical images, anatomical treatises
and maps demonstrate the centrality of visual
information in the pursuit of knowledge about
the natural world. A central gure in this
period was the great artist Albrecht Drer.
Ie published two treatises Instruction on
Measurement and Four Books on Iuman
Iroportion as textbooks for artists and
other practitioners who lacked adequate train-
ing in geometry and technical skills.
S
uzanne Karr Schmidt, Te Curatorial
Fellow in Irints and Drawings at the Art
Institute of Chicago, gave a presentation at the
Caxton Club dinner on February i, in which
she discussed new research possibilities in
interactive printed matter, books and beyond.
She worked extensively on the Iarvard and
Block Museum of Art exhibitions. She is
also the author of Altered and Adorned:
Using Renaissance Irints in Daily Life, an
exhibit presented at the Art Institute last
year. Ier contribution to the Block Museum
catalogue is an essay on George Iartmann
and the Development of Irinted Instru-
ments in Nuremberg. Scientic instruments
such as sundials, globes, and astrolabes are
commonly known in examples made of such
durable materials as wood, brass and ivory.
In the fteenth and early sixteenth centuries
the city of Nuremberg was the center of the
European trade in both printed images and
in navigational and horary instruments such
as astrolabes, quadrants, and sundials. In the
sixteenth century they were also manufactured
from printed paper. George Iartmann, the
mathematician and vicar of the Church of St.
Sebald in Germany, innovatively merged these
genres, producing hundred of brass and ivory
instruments as well as individual instrument
components printed on paper.
Te nal section of the Block Museum
catalogue, Allegories of Knowledge, written
by Katharine Iark, Irofessor of the Iistory
of Science at Iarvard University, is rich with
beautiful examples of the pervasive use of
art to teach moral and practical knowledge
through allegory, the depiction of abstract
second North Shore storefront, on Green Bay
Road. Te experiment was designed to last for
four months (from October to January), with
an option to renew. Te shop was a chic trans-
formation of a long, narrow space which had
just been vacated by Rain Dog Fine Books.
Former Caxtonian and childrens books spe-
cialist Ann Dumler (,,), presided over the
remodeling and subsequent operation of the
and Chicago Rare. Two of the highlights of
its short tenure there were its Grand Opening
Iarty, and a hugely successful appraisal day
both with standing room only.
As recently as last Fall, a third bookshop,
Round Table Books, opened in Vinnetka.
Tat one specialty is Arthurian literature must
be a reection of its owner, Arthur Frank. Ie
is also fond of the works of Omar Khayyam.
Te mantle of Dean of Evanston rare book
dealers fell to the shoulders of Roger Carlson
after the death of legendary Richard Barnes
(o,), who is survived by his wife, Patricia
(;;). Roger is the avuncular founder of
the celebrated bookshop Bookmans Alley.
Trough the past four decades, Roger has
garnered more publicity than any other Chi-
cagoland rare bookseller. Ie also appeared
as a character in the now-classic best-selling
novel, lc l:mc lrovc|crs V:jc, by Audrey
Nienegger (ii). Like his long-time col-
league in books, Joe Girardi (si) who
recently lost his wife, Betty Lou Roger has
been suering from various ailments. Te
Carlson family has persuaded Roger that he
needs to shut down Bookmans Alley, and to
retire before those jelly candies he keeps in
glass dishes around the shop do him in. Te
closing markdown should continue until the
expected closing of the shop at the end of
March. Te possibility of an outsider taking
over the shop did not materialize (after all,
there are only so many Iritzkers).
Te demise of Bookmans Alley is sure to
increase the pressures on the four partners
of the Chicago Rare Book Center, relative
newcomers to Evanston, who moved their
business there about seven years ago (although
partner Iatricia Martinak operated her Alka-
hest Bookshop on Central Street for many
years until about the year aooo). Tom Joyce
(sa), another Chicago Rare partner, thought
he had scored a coup on Roger Carlson. A
Iioneer Iress reporter did a full-page story in
the December aa issue of the Lvors:or Rcv:cu,
with a photograph, to tell about the very rare
is,, broadside of Clement Moores Te Night
Before Christmas which Tom had recently
obtained from Oklahoma. Te Chicago
Sur-l:mcs published a smaller version of the
photograph, with a few paragraphs of text on
December isth; but it turned out that Roger
Carlson got news coverage in the lr:ourc that
day about his store closing.
Te Chicago Rare Book Center has recently
acquired for sale such special rarities as the
rst edition in English of Isaac Newtons |r:r-
c:p:o Mo:|cmo::co, a Kelmscott Iress book,
and a special copy of the i,,, edition of Iak-
luyts |r:rc:po| Nov:go::ors, but they doubt
that they will be able to score any special
newspaper or internet coverage for them after
the Clement Moore report. Te partners of
Chicago Rare are all senior citizens, with
combined bookselling experience of more than
ia, years, but none of them looks forward to
trying to deal with the additional requests to
buy books from people who will no longer be
oering their books to Bookmans Alley rst.
to be continued
,,
concepts through physical embodiments. Te
common assumption about learning was that
the seven liberal arts were the foundation of
medieval and Renaissance education. Tey
were divided into the trivium (grammar,
logic or dialectic, and rhetoric), which convey
knowledge through language, and the qua-
drivium (arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, and
music), which oered mathematical means of
representing knowledge. Te liberal arts were
often personied allegorically as seven winged
women, shown in prole wearing laurel
wreaths and antique draperies.
My sketchy description of the variegated
aspects of the stunning kaleidoscope on
display at the Block Museum cannot begin
to give you an appreciation of Irints and
the Iursuit of Knowledge in Early Modern
Europe. If this brief summary whets your
appetite for a more recondite perusal of the
wondrous pictorial history of Early Modern
Europe, I recommend that you be prepared
to make more than one visit to the Block
Museum and that you purchase a catalogue
before trying to digest the descriptions of the
prints and artifacts posted on the wall next to
each item.
,,
PRINTS AND SCIENCE, jrom pagc ..
i CAXTONIAN, MARCH
Book and manuscript-related
exhibitions: a selective list
Compiled by Robert McCamant
(Note: on occasion an exhibit may be delayed or
extended; it is always wise to call in advance of a visit.)
Art Institute of Chicago, iii S. Michigan Avenue,
Chicago, ,ia-,- ,ooo: Beauty and the Book:
i,th- and Early aoth-Century Folios on the Decora-
tive Arts (books in a range of cultural and historical
styles of ornamentation and design, lavishly illus-
trated), Ryerson and Burnham Libraries, weekdays
only, through May ;. Light Years: Conceptual Art
and the Ihotograph, i,oi,;; (the Conceptual
Art movement brought
photography into the
mainstream of contem-
porary art), Regenstein
Iall, through March
ii. Schi Fellow-
ship for Architecture:
Selections, i,s,aoii
(exceptional projects
by young architects
selected annually),
Gallery a through
May ao.
Chicago Botanic Garden,
Lenhardt Library,
iooo Lake Cook Road,
Glencoe, s;-s,,-saoa:
Renaissance Artists:
Illustrations of Science
and Art (examines the artists
and publishers of featured
rare volumes), through May
i,.
Chicago Iistory Museum, iooi N. Clark Street, Chicago, ,ia-
aoo-ao;;: Charles James: Genius Deconstructed (preserv-
ing the legacy of this Chicago fashion designer), through
April i,.
Columbia College Center for the Book and Iaper Arts, Ioems
and Iictures: A Renaissance in the Art of the Book (travel-
ing exhibit from Center for Book Arts, NYC, covers book art from
i,o to i,si), through April ;.
Iarold Vashington Library Center, oo S. State Street, Chicago,
,ia-;;-,oo: One Book, Many Interpretations: Second Edition
(commemorates the programs io-year anniversary with a juried
exhibition by bookbinders and book artists interpreting the io
most recent selections; judges were Caxtonians Iaul Gehl, Audrey
Nienegger, and Norma Rubovitz), Special Collections Exhibit
Iall, Ninth Floor, through April i,. Actors, Ilays & Stages: Early
Teater in Chicago (memorabilia of the early performances and
theaters), Chicago Gallery, Tird Floor, through May i,.
DuSable Museum of African American Iistory, ;o East ,oth Ilace,
Chicago, ;;,-,;-oooo: Spread the Vord: Te Evolution of Gospel
(great Gospel singers including Mahalia Jackson and Albertina
Valker), through May ao.
Museum of Contemporary Art, aao East Chicago Avenue, Chicago, ,ia-
aso-aooo: Laura Letinsky: Ill Form and Void Full (book and other
art from the museums collection), through April i;.
Newberry Library, oo V. Valton Street, Chicago, ,ia-,,-,o,o: Border
Troubles in the Var of
isia (the conict in the
area then known as the
Vest: rsthand accounts
of warfare; territorial
struggles between Indian
nations and the United
States; an East Coast print
culture that romanticized
wartime life in the Great
Lakes region; and repre-
sentations of the war in
textbooks and other histo-
ries of the United States),
through March a;.
Northwestern University,
Block Museum of Art, o Arts Circle
Drive, Evanston, s;-,i-ooo:
Irints and the Iursuit of Knowl-
edge in Early Modern Europe
(how celebrated Northern Renais-
sance artists contributed to scien-
tic inquiries of the ioth century),
through April s.
Northwestern University, Charles
Deering Library, i,;o Campus
Drive, Evanston, s;- ,i-;o,s:
Iapering Over Tough Times: Soviet
Iropaganda Iosters of the i,,os,
Special Collections, through June i,.
Oriental Institute, ii,, East ,sth
Street, Chicago, ;;,-;oa-,,i:
Iicturing the Iast: Imaging and
Imagining the Ancient Middle East
(paintings, facsimiles, casts, models,
photographs, and computer-aided recon-
structions show how the ancient Middle East has been docu-
mented), through September a.
Smart Museum of Art, ,,,o S. Greenwood Avenue, Chicago, ;;,-;oa-
oaoo: Feast: Radical Iospitality in Contemporary Art (artist-orches-
trated meals that oer a radical form of hospitality), through June io.
University of Chicago, Joseph Regenstein Library, iioo East ,;th Street,
Chicago, ;;,-;oa-s;o,: Ve Are Chicago: Student Life in the Collec-
tions (highlights student experiences over a span of iao years; drawn
from the University Archives), Special Collections Research Center
Exhibition Gallery, through March a,.
Until a replacement exhibit editor is found, please send your listings to
bmccamantquarterfold.com, or call ,ia-,a,-ii x ii.
Haro|d Vas|ington Lirary:
Onc Bool, Many Intcrprctations
v:xo:xcs vx (:ov :o vo::om) Lvsz Dovo,
Sco:: Kv::zv, B::: Dvvxov::
Northwestern University, Charles
Oriental Institute, ii,, East ,sth
Northwestern University, Block
Museum of Art, o Arts Circle
Ir:crv:cuc oy Roocr: McComor:
E
velyn Lampe puts it simply. I like to read,
she says.
Ve talked mostly in the party room on the
top oor of her apartment building, with a
view stretching north along the lake. It was a
slightly foggy day, so we couldnt see up to the
North Shore, where she spent her childhood
in the town of 7ion.
I grew up alone, she confesses.
Books kept me company. Ier
father had died two months before
she was born, so Evelyn and her
mother moved in with her grand-
parents. Everyone in the household
worked, so Evelyn stayed during
the day with her mothers sister.
Vhen she was older, she was home
alone with her dog and her books.
A dominant factor in 7ion
during her childhood was the
Christian Catholic Apostolic
Church (now known as the Christ
Community Church), an evangeli-
cal sect. John Alexander Dowie
had founded both the town and
the church in is,o. Ve didnt
belong to it, Lampe explains. But
in those days it dened the town.
Nowadays you hear Spanish on
the streets (just about everybody
lives there), but when I was a child
it was a pretty isolated place if you werent
Christian Catholic Apostolic.
She escaped to the University of Dubuque
for college. She majored in chemistry and
met her future husband in a chemistry class.
Ie was the lab assistant for the class, and
he would pester the girls by standing behind
them and blowing on their hair. Vhen he did
it to me, I jammed him with my elbow. Ie
remembered me.
By-then-husband Ken got a job at Montana
State, so Lampe nished her undergraduate
degree there, specializing in bacteriology. Te
following years were peripatetic, with stops at
Yale, University of Iowa, and Montana State a
second time. Ken would teach chemistry, and
Evelyn would get a job in the lab of a local
hospital or other medical facility. By Montana
State the second time, a daughter had come
along, so Evelyn decided to quit working in
laboratories and study something new.
She chose history and got her masters
degree there. Ier thesis was on the Christian
Catholic Apostolic Church:
A long stretch in Miami followed the peri-
patetic years. One of the notable events there
was that Lampe found a part-time job with
a used-book dealer. Te part I enjoyed most
was going with her to look at peoples libraries
to decide if they were worth buying for stock,
she explains. I enjoyed trying to gure out if
she was going to make an oer, and guess what
it would be.
Kens nal job was in Chicago, working
for the American Medical Association. As a
result, Lampe has been in Chicago for more
than ,o years. Most of her present library
was assembled here, including sections on
history, cooking, art, and even a bit of bibli-
ography. Its more books than I need, she
says, looking around at her many bookshelves.
Te problem is deciding what to keep, she
concludes. Its a sentiment many of us would
assent to.
Ier collection of modern illustrated books
may stem from a required art apprecia-
tion class as an undergraduate. She and her
husband worked together to amass the collec-
tion of books illustrated by German Expres-
sionists, particularly George Grosz. Ier
Maurice Sendak collection began with nding
a brand new book called A Ho|c :s lo D:g, and
seeing a spirit and power in the young mans
work. Similarly, seeing underground publica-
tions on campus in Miami, she was attracted

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t
by the individual vision and technique of R.
Crumb. Edward Gorey was a later discovery.
Lampe joined the Club in i,,a, nominated
by Karen Skubish and seconded by Mary Ann
McFarlane. She is also related to the Clubs
oce manager, Dan Crawford, who is her
nephew by marriage. In the days when we
rst lived in Chicago, my mother lived with us.
It was a good arrangement having him in town,
so that when Ken and I would travel, Dan
could stay in our apartment and look after her.
In late i,s, answering an ad in a neighbor-
hood newspaper, she volunteered to assist
at the Newberry Library, which was holding
its rst ever Book Fair. Evelyn had run the
book section of the Fairchild Garden Valk
in Miami, and, applying the lessons she had
learned there and in the used-book trade, she
found herself in charge of the event, eventually
being given the half-humorous title Book Fair
Curator. She guided the Book Fair through an
ever-increasing number of volunteers, books,
and customers until i,,,, when she swapped
jobs with the Assistant Curator (Dan Craw-
ford), becoming Curator Emerita.
From the days of beef bacon in 7ion, Illi-
nois to Union League Club buet luncheons
with the Caxton Club, books have been a con-
stant theme in her adventures.
,,
CAXTONIAN, MARCH i,
Caxtonians Collect: Evelyn Lampe
io CAXTONIAN, MARCH
CAXTONIAN
Caxton Club
60 Vest Valton Street
Chicago, IL 60610
USA
Address Correction Requested
NON IROFIT ORG
US IOSTAGE
IAID
IERMIT 1096
CAROL STREAM, IL
Bookmarks...
APRIL LUNCHEON
On April i,, we will meet at the
Union League Club. Caxtonian
Tony Batko will continue his
narrative about Bergen Evans, his
Northwestern years and beyond,
i,,a-i,;s.
APRIL DINNER
Ve will meet Vednesday, April
is at the Union League Club.
Nina Baym, emerita, University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,
will speak on women writers in the
i,th-century American west.
MAY LUNCHEON
On May sth at the Union League
Club, Caxtonian Iaul Ruxin will
talk about Te Club, founded
in i;o in London by Sir Joshua
Reynolds for the sole purpose of
conversation with Samuel Johnson.
It still exists today, as years later:
MAY DINNER
Michael Vinship of the University
of Texas at Austin will speak
on i,th-century American
bookstores. Date and location to
be determined, due to conict with
Gs summit events.
Beyond March...
Luncheon: Friday, March 9, 2012, Union League Club
Tony Batko
Bergen Evans: Part I, The Formative Years, 1903-1932
B
ergen Evans, author, scholar, wit, TV personality, and legendary
Irofessor of English at Northwestern, is one of the few relevant and
utterly fascinating aoth century personages without a biography, yet.
A bit of a paradox: Bergen, a Iarvard graduate and Rhodes Scholar,
wrote lc D:c::orory oj Cor:cmporory Amcr:cor Usogc (i,,;) and lc
|syc|:o:ry oj R:c|or Bur:or (i,), a ioth century writer and favorite
of Samuel Johnson. Ie also authored lc No:uro| H:s:ory oj Norscrsc
(i,o) and was host for TV shows including lc Los: Vor and Dour
You Go. Ie was raised in a large (, children), lively, permissive and
somewhat impoverished family until, when Bergen was ii, his indomi-
table great-aunt Cornelia took over. A remarkable story. Tony Batko is a
Northwestern graduate and a Chicago businessman (semi-retired), and
was the co-chair of the Chicago Iublic Library Group which stopped
the City from putting the central library in an abandoned department
store and greatly inuenced the building of its new facility.
Dinner: Wednesday March 21, Cli Dwellers
Isaac Gewirtz
Reading the Literary Archive: A Tale of Scholarship and Taste
D
r. Isaac Gewirtz will present an illustrated lecture on the liter-
ary archive as embodying the most recent stage in the evolution
of the study of English and American Literature. Ie will show how
reading the archive oers a new way for a writers papers to be studied
and enjoyed; that is, as the authors meta-work, which bears and trans-
mits intentions distinct from, if dependent on, the authors oeuvre.
Gewirtz has served as Curator of the New York Iublic Librarys
Ienry V. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Lit-
erature since September aooo. Te talk will include a brief history of
the Berg Collection. Te author of I om V::| You: Vo|: V|::mors
Lcovcs oj Gross, s:,,-zoo,, he curated the NYIL exhibition of the same
title, as well as the exhibitions V:c:or:ors, Mocrrs, or Bco:s, Ncu :r
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Roo, s,,,-zoo,; as well as Kcrouoc A: Bo:: Ior:osy Spor:s or :|c K:rg
oj :|c Bco:s. Most recently, he co-curated the exhibition Mor| luo:r: A
S|cp::cs |rogrcss at the Morgan Library.
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.cx:o.|oo@.o.y.og reservations are needed by noon
Friday for the Wednesday dinner.