Description

66. Hunt, David C. “Karl Bodmer and the American Frontier.” Vol. 10, no. 1 (Spring 1985), 11-19.

The Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, has among its collections the four hundred watercolors and sketches of Karl Bodmer that document the scientific expedition of Prince Maximilian of Wied from 1832 to 1834. Hunt clarifies some of the misconceptions about Bodmer and writes about the journey and the circumstances surrounding the publication of the narrative and its accompanying atlas volume with its eighty plates. Hunt also discusses various states of the prints and modern restrikes from the plates, together with comments about the coloring of the prints. A full description of the Bodmer collection is contained in Karl Bodmer’s America published by the University of Nebraska Press in 1984.

67. O’Gorman, James F. “War, Slavery, and Intemperance in the Book Illustrations of Hammatt Billings.” Vol. 10, no. 1 (Spring 1985), 2-11.

O’Gorman provides biographical information about Billings, the architect-illustrator (1818-1874), and then focuses on the themes of the Mexican War, slavery, and intemperance which dominated Billings’ oeuvre. Among the books illustrated by Billings was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin of 1852. O’Gorman closes his essay by summarizing the other genres which Billings illustrated.

68. Shadwell, Wendy. “The Statue of Liberty: A Century in the Graphic Arts.” Vol. 10, no. 1 (Spring 1985), 20-27.

After presenting a brief history of the Statue of Liberty, finally erected in New York Harbor in 1886, Shadwell surveys depictions of it from 1883 through 1941.