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Will you be in Northamp- ton between March 29 and April 1? Would you like to learn more about how to protect, preserve, handle and store your books, photographs or family papers? During Preservation Awareness Week the Smith College Libraries are sponsoring a free, four-day program, open to the public, featuring a series of workshops, films, panel discussions, demonstrations and exhibits on the care and handling of personal and library collections. All events will take place in Neilson Library. On the program's first day, Monday March 29, the public is invited to bring books, photographs and family papers for free advice from special collections archive specialists on the care and storage of these items. Professional bookbinders also will be on hand for individual consultations. Guest speakers include Jane Hedberg '69, Wellesley College's preservation librarian; Gregor Trinkaus-Randall of the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners; and members of Smith's own Mortimer Rare Book Room and Neilson Library staff.
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Bequest Bolsters Bloomsbury Collection at Smith Thanks to a recent bequest from book editor and Bloomsbury scholar Elizabeth Power Richardson '43, the Mortimer Rare Book Room at Smith College is now a primary research site for the study of Virginia Woolf and other members of the literary circle known as the Bloomsbury Group. Richardson, who died last summer, left her entire Bloomsbury collection to Smith. It includes nearly 2,000 volumes and manuscripts, correspondence, photographs, artwork and other materials. According to Karen Kukil, Mortimer Rare Book Room assistant curator, Richardson's work as a bibliophile and a meticulous researcher resulted in what "has been recognized by scholars around the world as an extraordinary Woolf reference source." Living overseas, isolated and desperate to remain intellectually active, Richardson originally sought out Woolf's work to read. During her travels Richardson discovered that Woolf's foreign editions--and subsequent editions of the same works--often had very different dust jackets, typography and illustrations from the originals. Despite the differences, Richardson began recognizing reoccurring themes, symbols and faces in the artwork. These images became as indelible in Richardson's mind as the texts. After some research she discovered these images were not simply commercial art commissioned by Woolf; the illustrations originated from artists associated with the Bloomsbury Group and often related to Bloomsbury members, Woolf among them.
Looking over a scrapbook of photographs from Elizabeth
Richardson's Bloomsbury Group collection are Martin Antonetti, Smith's curator
of rare books, left, and Karen Kukil, assistant curator. Woolf in fact acted as matriarch of the Bloomsbury Group, an intimate society of English philosophers, writers and artists that included Woolf's sister, Vanessa Bell. The Bloomsbury writers and philosophers were sometimes published by Woolf's own Hogarth Press, while artists including Bell and her companion, Duncan Grant, contributed images and designs. Woolf's book Kew Gardens exemplifies the sisterly collaboration: Vanessa Bell provided the artwork for the cover as well as illustrations and designs for every page. Because of Richardson's generosity, visitors may view a copy of the original 1927 limited edition of Kew Gardens in the Mortimer Rare Book Room. Intrigued especially by the photographs in her collection, Richardson began her initial research in 1960 for an annotated catalogue of these images. At the time Woolf remained relatively unknown to the public. Her personal letters, diaries, and biographies were unpublished. In an audio recording made in 1997, Richardson described how part of her motivation for meticulously compiling her 1989 Bloomsbury Iconography involved discovering the elusive Woolf and her connection to the array of images. As a result Richardson's Bloomsbury biographies and photographs account for the majority of her collection and bibliography entries. Richardson modestly distinguished hers as a "working collection." She explained that when living abroad she had little money and could not afford the more expensive first editions, original manuscripts and other rarities which typically constitute a rare book collection. Richardson often quoted Roger Fry, a Bloomsbury Group member, to reaffirm her collection's value: "The really useful collector, what one may call the creative collector, is one who by merely bringing objects together, classifying them, interpreting their relationships creates, new values altogether." Before Richardson's death this past July she had already made numerous contributions to the Mortimer Rare Book Room. One of Richardson's prized gifts to Smith is the 1943 Vanessa Bell oil painting Onions. Richardson had recently purchased the painting with the intention of eventually donating it to Smith's Museum of Art. The still life is a simple representation of a string of onions hung against a lush dark space. With its strong organic and vegetational images, it recalls much of Bell's illustration work. The still life has become the second Bell painting the museum owns. Altogether, Richardson's gifts introduce a new and more accurate perception of an extraordinary group of prolific writers and artists whose interests balanced equally between images and language. |
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