Not translated: Das Feature zu Henry James´ gesammelten Essays zur Illustrationskunst, die 1893 unter dem Titel Picture and Text im Verlag Harper & Brothers in New York erschienen sind, gibt ausschnitthaft und in collagierter Form einige Passagen aus der kommentierten deutschen Erstübersetzung wieder, die jetzt im Piet Meyer Verlag erschienen ist. Das Vorwort stammt von […]

Not translated: Das Feature zu Henry James´ gesammelten Essays zur Illustrationskunst, die 1893 unter dem Titel Picture and Text im Verlag Harper & Brothers in New York erschienen sind, gibt ausschnitthaft und in collagierter Form einige Passagen aus der kommentierten deutschen Erstübersetzung wieder, die jetzt im Piet Meyer Verlag erschienen ist. Das Vorwort stammt von […]

Not translated: Der nachfolgende historische Beitrag von Sylvester Rosa Koehler wurde verfasst für Carl von Lützow´s Monumentalwerk „Der Holzschnitt der Gegenwart in Europa und Nord-Amerika“, Wien 1887. Koehler, geb. 1837 in Leipzig, war lange Zeit Chefkurator für Druckgrafik am Museum of Fine Arts in Boston und einer der wichtigsten amerikanischen Kunstschriftsteller des 19. Jhds. Sein […]

Not translated: Einleitung: Wie kein anderes Kulturlabel hat sich die Marke Andy Warhol als Inbegriff einer produktiven Symbiose von Kunst und Kommerz, von Gebrauchskunst und Kunstkunst durchgesetzt. Er hatte sich in seiner frühen Pittsburgher Studienjahren vor allem an den Arbeiten seines künstlerischen Idols, des amerikanischen Malers und Fotografen Ben Shahn orientiert. Der gemeinsame polnische Migrationshintergrund […]

A picture spread with material from the archive of the Melton Prior Institute, Düsseldorf, in cooperation with the exhibition “Im Zeichen des Protests / Drawing Protest”, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig, 19.10.2013 – 09.01.2014, curated by Olga Vostretsova 01) Barthel Beham, “Der Welt Lauf” (The course of the world), copper engraving, Nuremberg 1525 The artist […]

Summary of an interview with the xylographer Rudolf Rieß who was born in Nuremberg in 1935. The interview was conducted on 01/18 and 01/19/2013 during a xylographic workshop  of the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design in Bodman. Rudolf Rieß is the last practicing xylographer who learnt the craft of xylography as a skilled […]

In the exhibition Porter/Re-porter,  on view from 4 May to 22 September in the frame of “Cube. Sparda Art Award” at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Alexander Roob combines materials from the collection of the Melton Prior Institute with works of his own, including a longer excerpt from the eponymous CS drawing series created in London in […]

Cliché-verre is an ambivalent thing, an inanity, the zero point in the graphic arts of the second half of the 19th century, to cite the opinion of Roland Barthes.(1) The wide variety of terms used to describe this phenomenon in itself speaks volumes: “dessin sur verre pour photographie”, “photogenic drawing”, “dessin héliographique”, “Hyalographie” (glass print), […]

“With the new school nothing is theoretically impossible, and no means are illegitimate.” (Frederick Juengling, 1880) Wood engraving, actually a product of early English Romanticism, experienced its breakthrough with the rise of the illustrated press. Its phenomenal success owed to its hybridity, for it combined the fine mechanical quality of copper engraving with the advantages […]

Lintoniana IX God send the Indian luck! / Success to the buck! / May his scalps be many and quick! / Guard his war, O Lord! through the thick / Of his foes! Give him luck! (W.J. Linton, 1871) In 1866 William James Linton moved to New York because, as he confessed in his autobiography, […]

Lintoniana VIII Infinite Spaces. On William James Linton’s Vignette Art “With the separation of draftsman and engraver began the decline of engraving as an art (…) began a system of special employment; and having to depend on draftsmen, engravers ceased to draw, ceased to rely on themselves. Wanting the wider power, the enevitable course was […]

On the Formations of Political Art and Wood Engraving William James Linton has left behind an immense body of artistic work. He executed thousands of commissioned and autonomously conceived engravings, a number of paintings and watercolours; moreover, he served as editor to several journals, ran his own private presses, contributed hundreds of poems and polemics […]

Lintoniana VI What had laid the foundations for Linton’s reputation as a leading proponent of artistic xylography in the 19th century was the extraordinary intensity of his landscape depictions and the graphic freedom that he allowed himself to this end. The apex of his decade-long landscape work was marked in the mid 1860s by the […]

In addition to a number of studies on the flora of the Lakes, two sketchbooks of Linton with landscape views have come down to us. One is in the collection of Yale University, another in the Linton-Archive of the Melton Prior Institute. The latter contains watercolours and drawings made during hikes in the North East […]

Lintoniana V “Never did corpse of hero on the battle-field, (…) exite such emotions as the stern simplicity of that hour, in which the principle of utility triumphed over the imagination and the heart.“ (The Monthly Repository, 1832) What did Linton actually mean when, at the end of his conversation piece Cetewayo and Dean Stanley, […]

Lintoniana IV “History will speak of me.” – On Linton’s colonial-critical dialogue William James Linton grasped himself foremost as a political artist. In the biographical appendix of the compilation of lyrics, English Verse. Lyrics of the 19th Century, which he edited in 1883 together with the renowned literary critic Richard Henry Stoddard, he left no […]

Lintoniana III “Men like no prosy tales: we’ll try How doggrel rhyme fits history.” The MePri-Collection holds four different copies of Linton’s groundbreaking social poem in which he accuses the afflictions caused by the inhuman legislation for the poor. “This poem established Linton as a peoples poet and became part of the repertoire of radical […]

The MePri Collection holds a wondrous scrapbook on wood engraving, affectionately  combined and carefully lettered. The object was offered by a seller of autographs and announced as follows: “An autographed letter by William James Linton signed, to William Abercrombie, discussing his books, saying there is no large paper copy of the Hints. [on Wood-Engraving]. Tipped […]

Lintoniana I “We are Utopians, theorists, dreamers, enthusiasts, fanatics, madmen, in a word, we are republicans.”   W.J. Linton, 1850 In December 1850, almost two years after the revolutionary hopes of a democratic change had been buried Europe-wide under a mantle of resignation and depression, radical artisan William James Linton began to proclaim his forceful vision […]

2. Schildermalerei Der hervorragendste Interpret dieser demokratischen Emblematik war der Herausgeber von Ainsworths Jack Sheppard–Roman, der ausgebildete Parlamentsstenograph und Gerichtsreporter Charles Dickens.[29] Dickens hatte eine ähnliche Sozialisation wie Hogarth erfahren, mit einem Vater, der als Schuldner inhaftiert war, dem entsprechenden sozialen Abstieg und der Notwendigkeit, früh zum Unterhalt der Familie beizutragen. Die große Schnittmenge zwischen […]

Not translated: I. Das Porträt Fünfundsiebzig Jahre nach seinem Tod tauchte William Hogarth als Akteur in dem Dokumentarroman Jack Sheppard von William Harrison Ainsworth auf, der ab Januar 1839 als Fortsetzungsgeschichte in dem vom jungen Charles Dickens herausgegebenen Literaturmagazin Bentley´s Miscellany abgedruckt wurde. Auch in The Portrait , einer der Illustrationen des Romans, die von […]

Not translated: 5) Die dritten Männer In Dorés Illustrationswerk wurde die gnostische Befindlichkeit der Entfremdung und Dislokalität erstmals als eine grundlegende Erfahrung des urbanen Lebens ins Bild gesetzt. Und die grafischen Mittel, die er dabei zum Einsatz brachte, waren ungleich komplexer und subtiler als die der Künstler des Expressionismus und Futurismus, die ihm in dieser […]

Not translated: 3)  Die Scheußlichkeiten von Paris 4)  Praetorium   3) Die Scheußlichkeiten von Paris Die Idee, Dantes Pilgerfahrt auf zeitgenössische urbane Verhältnisse umzumünzen, war allerdings so neu nicht. Dorés Londoner Inferno hatte seine Entsprechung in Honoré de Balzacs literarischem Monumentalopus La Comédie humaine, das die Hölle Dantes in Paris lokalisierte. Der französische Dichter stellte […]

Not translated: 1)  Einleitung 2) Die Hölle London 1) Einleitung An dem Porträt der britischen Metropole London. A Pilgrimage hat Gustav Doré auf Einladung seines Freundes, des englischen Publizisten Blanchard Jerrold, insgesamt fünf Jahre lang gearbeitet von der ersten Projektierung 1867 bis zur Drucklegung, die erst Ende 1872 abgeschlossen war.(1) Auch im angelsächsischen Sprachbereich stand […]

Abriged version. For footnotes please see the more detailed German version. 6) Inner Africa For Smith, the street cries pictures had a decisive advantage in comparison to the costume book. It was a speaking medium associated with the acoustic notion of original sound meant to suggest directness and authenticity. Every vendor was attributed a unique […]

Abriged version. For footnotes please see the more detailed German version. 5) The Cries of London In Great Britain, the years after Waterloo were characterised by a deep economic depression. Big cities were flooded by jobless persons, war invalids and discharged soldiers. While visiting London in 1820, Théodore Gericault captured the descending social misery in […]

Abriged version. For footnotes please see the more detailed German version. -3)  Republican Palaces -4)  Digression I: Blake’s Cottage   3) Republican Palaces Remarks on Rural Scenery is Smith’s shortest publication. It consists of a sequence of twenty etchings that were all made “after nature” and depict the most various kinds of rural housings for […]

Abriged version. For footnotes please see the more detailed German version. – 1) Introduction – 2) Real views 1) Introduction The beginnings of investigative social reportage are usually sought in the Victorian age, in the 1840s, the founding period of illustrated magazines dedicated to daily politics. But graphic social journalism had already been formulated decades […]

Not translated: Fünfundsiebzig Jahre nach seinem Tod tauchte William Hogarth als Akteur in dem Dokumentarroman Jack Sheppard von William Harrison Ainsworth auf, der ab Januar 1839 als Fortsetzungsgeschichte in dem vom jungen Charles Dickens herausgegebenen Literaturmagazin Bentley´s Miscellany abgedruckt wurde. Auch in The Portrait , einer der Illustrationen des Romans, die von George Cruikshank besorgt […]

“Illustration is an essential to great painting. Abstractness cannot be equated with it; it is merely the grammar.(..) Many illustrators of today are too little concerned with the actualities of their time. Too often they merely aid and abet the pre-sold illusion of the age.” (R. Weaver, 1959)”The state of the art of illustration might […]

Exhibition Film. Click on the image to play. . Fletcher DuBois performs the “Vogelmen Diaries” at the opening. Main Hall, Southern Wall: Thomas Nast, “Our System of Feathering Nests ..” Main Hall, Northern Wall: Thomas Nast, “Let Us Prey!” > Faits Divers – Illustrations: Crashes and Collapses > Thomas Nast: “Dead Men´s Clothes Soon Wear […]

Mit „Vogelmen Diaries” wird erstmalig die breite Forschungsarbeit des Melton Prior Instituts auf dem Gebiet der Reportagezeichnung im Rahmen einer Ausstellung vorgestellt. Zentrales Thema ist das zukunftsweisende künstlerische Selbstverständnis vieler früher Pressegrafiker. Die multiplen Rollen, die sie einnahmen, changierten zwischen nüchterner grafischer Berichterstattung, karikaturesker Polemik und fiktionaler Illustrationskunst. Viele waren auch, wie z.b. der einflussreiche […]

Daniel Zalkus, a renowned illustrator, who himself works as an artist-reporter from time to time, has put together an excellent commented series of historical drawings on-the–spot, representing a golden era of graphic reportage in the American magazines from the 1950’s and 60’s. Zalkus´ series Visual Journalism. The Artist as Reporter was publised recently in five […]

„We shared a lot of ideas and we liked a lot of the same things. (…) We had quite a bit in common beside from the fact that we were friends.“ (Saul Leiter) I: Street Scenes in Slumberland. II: On Robert Weaver. Alexander Roob in conversation with Saul Leiter. III: Robert Weaver: The Vogelman Diary […]

What´s Come Over Old Woolworth? (Fortune, January 1969) “There are assignments for `Fortune´, where I am realistically and symbolically going up the corporate ladder at Woolworth´s. It starts with the stockboy, and I use chairs as a metaphor for power. The chairs become more and more elaborate as we go to top. The drawings where […]

“Weaver established the idea of the draughtsman being an equal to the writer of the text. He should have had a great influence on the world of text and image publishing, but for the most part, art directors and editors did not demand the kind of picture-writing that Weaver had in mind. In fact, few […]

The image of “Fortune” was deeply connected with a specific artistic American tradition of Social Realism. The Magazine was founded in 1939, in the era of the Great Depression and an art director like Leo Lionni, who was resonsible for the appearence of the magazine from 1940 on,updated this specific ethos by engaging illustrators like […]

From the mid-fifties on, Robert Weaver made constant contributions to the famous business magazine “Fortune”. “Fortune” kept a long tradition of brillant visual documentaries of industrial themes provided by artists like Walker Evans, Philip Guston, Robert Matta, Ben Shahn or Diego Rivera.

In the end of 1958 famous graphic artist Robert Weaver was commissioned by the “Esquire Magazine” to accompany the Senate re-election campaign of John F. Kennedy with his sketch-pad and his pencil. As usual Weaver reworked his hasty, but very decided sketches later in his studio. The striking drawing, showing J.F.K. from behind in his […]

Exhibition Catalogue TAUCHFAHRTEN (DIVING TRIPS) Drawing as Reportage Edited by Stephan Berg, Kunstverein Hannover; Ulrike Groos, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. With texts by Michael Glasmeier, Karin Gludovatz, Clemens Krümmel, Joachim Rees, Alexander Roob (ger./engl.). Softcover, 232 p., with 420 mostly colored illustrations. Richter Verlag, ISBN 3-937572-15-5 Bookstore, ISBN 3-937572-17-1 THE CATALOGUE IS NO LONGER AVAILABLE BUT CAN […]

“Bernard Buffet, 34, painter of the “misérables”, owner of a Rolls-Royce, whose figures with their elongated proportions are no longer being rewarded by French art dealers in line with the bestseller lists, has painted a 20 sq. m. cinema poster for the ballad of the wide boys, “Terrain Vague”, by that old master among directors, […]

In the 1980s, frustrated by the increasing restrictions in the field of magazine design, Weaver shifted the focus of his activities more and more to teaching at the New York Visual School of Arts and expanded a loose sequence of diary-like motif books he began with in the 1970s to form an independent complex of […]

In his “Songs for Drella”, Lou Reed claimed that no Michelangelo could ever come from the hicktown of Pittsburgh. But this does not stand up to close examination. Robert Weaver is from Pittsburgh and in 1949, the same year the other Pittsburgher Andy Warhol, the subject of Reed’s cycle of songs, moved to the metropolis […]

The exhibition on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Hubert Herkomer, which runs at present in the City Museum Landsberg in Germany and which subsequently will be at display in Bushey near London, should actually be shown at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, at the Pinakothek in Munich and at the Tate Britain. […]

“There is life in every little pencil stroke.” Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh Nuenen, 4 or 5 May 1885 “When I think how he rose to such a height by working from the very beginning from nature, without imitating others, and how he is none the less in harmony with the […]

«Until now I never knew Boyd H[oughton] was so interesting (…) Very strange. (…) After you have seen my Boyd Houghtons from the first year of the Graphics you will understand more clearly what I wrote about the importance of this master’s work.» Vincent van Gogh to Anton van Rappard, February and April 1883 (Letters […]

“There is something virile in it – something rugged – which attracts me strongly (…) In all these fellows I see an energy, a determination and a free, healthy, cheerful spirit that animate me. And in their work there is something lofty and dignified – even when they draw a dunghill.” Vincent van Gogh, October […]

Only in recent years has one gained the insight that Vincent van Gogh was not only a collector of Japanese graphic prints, like many of his artist colleagues, but was also imbued by a passion for the pictorial art of illustrated journals of his times. This was mainly thanks to two exhibitions: One, in spring […]

An exhibition of the Art Collections of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in co-operation with the Exhibit Gallery, curated by Alexander Roob 7.3.–25.5.2025 Paintings Gallery of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Schillerplatz 3, 1st floor, 1010 Vienna Opening: 6.3.2025, 19–22 h Opening hours Daily except Monday: 10–18 h Song recital with lesson: Atelierhaus, […]

Primal Catholicism / Marian Magic / Evadah / A throw of the dice Primal Catholicism As a graphic practitioner, Richard was a farmer and gardener through and through, one who furrowed lines with sigil-magical ploughs into which he spread evocative seeds, only to have them emerge in the end into a colourful talismanic sea of […]

Heavenly Zo / INRI becomes ISO / Swabian and Lorraine Somnambulism Heavenly Zo Richard’s emblematic sexual symbolism originated in the theurgic Neoplatonic geometry of Alexandrian late antiquity and had found its way from there into Jewish mysticism and Hermeticism. The most famous example was the Seal of Solomon, the hexagram, which consisted in the interpenetration […]

The Ichts / The Sator Arepo mechanism / Two Evas The Ichts When looking through these magic books, one is quickly confronted with the question of whether there was a system here that was comprehensible and decipherable, at least in parts, or whether it was an entirely idiosyncratic construct, a blooming nonsense, a crazy simulation […]

From Alsace to Lorraine / The research / The book In 2010, three graphic grimoires from rural Lorraine popped up at a Strasbourg bookseller’s, whose peculiarity and intensity were astounding. A Richard from Kédange, today Kédange-sur-Canner, a town not far from the border with Saarland and about 30 km north of the capital of Lorraine, […]