E-Newsletter
Recent Posts
Latest News
-
Brown University Library Discovers Buried Treasure
|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
March 27, 2012
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] – The Preservation Department of Brown University Library has discovered an exceptionally rare engraved print by Paul Revere.As long as two hundred years ago, Solomon Drowne, Brown University Class of 1773 and a professor in the early Brown University Medical School, tucked a little something into one of his books, The Modern Practice of Physic, by Robert Thomas, published in 1811. The John Hay Library received the book in 1940, with the rest of Drowne’s Library. During a recent inspection of the Drowne books, Marie Malchodi, of the Library’s Preservation Department, discovered this little something: an engraved depiction of Christ and John the Baptist, both of them chest deep in the Jordan River, titled “Buried with Him by Baptism” and signed “P. Revere sculp.”
The print is characterized by Clarence S. Brigham in Paul Revere’s Engravings, the standard reference, as “one of the scarcest of the plates signed by Revere.” The Brown University Library’s copy is the fifth known to exist. Other copies are housed at the American Antiquarian Society, the Worcester Art Museum, and a private museum collection in Massachusetts; another, which Brigham mistakenly thought had been acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), was offered at auction by Sotheby’s in 2007.
As Richard Noble, Rare Materials Cataloger explains “The print is of considerable interest simply because Revere made it, but it is also an intriguing and very serious theopolitical cartoon, depicting the baptism in a manner that was the subject of lively debate in eighteenth-century New England religious circles. Brigham was unable to identify a model for it in any English book or periodical, or connect it with any of the tracts on baptism published on this side of the Atlantic from 1760 to 1780. It appears to be an American original, by an American original, the son of French Huguenot refugees who eventually became, by all accounts, a Unitarian. The print thus marks a stage in the evolution of that aspect of Revere’s life.”
The Brown University Library is home to more than 6.8 million print items, plus a multitude of electronic resources and expanding digital archives serving the teaching, research, and learning needs of Brown students and faculty, as well as scholars from around the country and the world.
Contact: Ann Dodge| Ann_Dodge@Brown.edu | (401) 863-1502
###
-
Chinese Exhibition in the Year of Dragon-extended to April 19th and new books added
|
Culture and Art from the Divine Land: An Exhibition of Chinese Collections in the Year of Dragon来自神州大地的文化艺术–布朗大学龙年中文馆藏特展
John Hay Library, Brown University, Feb. 6 – April 19, 2012Culture and Art from the Divine Land, an exhibit which is part of Brown’s Year of China, has been extended to April 19th. New exhibition items include the BFSU Scholars Selections, received recently from China. Curator Li Wang was honored to attend the ceremony for publishing on the 70th anniversary of Beijing Foreign Studies University in September 2011. The Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, BFSU’s publishing house, donated a set of this valuable Scholars series including works by late Professors Wang Zuoliang, Xu Guozhang, Zhou Jueliang and other distinguished scholars to Brown University Library. The gift books also include a set of bi-lingual renowned scholars’ works in humanities and social sciences.
For more information about the exhibition, see: http://library.brown.edu/exhibits/ChineseCollections.pdf
The exhibit locations include the Gammell Gallery, the North Gallery, Lobby Case and Reading Room Glass Cases in the John Hay Library.
-
Paul DeMarinis “A Noisy Archaeology”
|
"Firebirds" (2004) credit: Roman März PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] – On Tuesday, April 17, 2012, Brown University will host the fifth and final speaker of the Digital Arts & Humanities 2011-2012 Lecture Series, co-sponsored by the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage and the Brown University Library. Paul DeMarinis will give a talk entitled “A Noisy Archaeology” at 5:30pm in the Lownes Room, John Hay Library, followed by a reception in the lobby. This event is free and open to the public.
The Digital Arts and Humanities Lecture Series kicked off on October 3, 2011 with “Remembering Networks: Agrippa, RoSE and Network Archaeology” by renowned digital scholar, Alan Liu. Since October, Brown has hosted Richard White, Jeffrey Schnapp, and Tara McPherson.
As series organizers Steven Lubar and Harriette Hemmasi explained at the outset of the series, they hope “to engage Brown faculty and students in the digital arts and humanities by revealing the power of new digital approaches to transform traditional scholarship.”
Portrait of Paul DeMarinis credit: Rebecca Cummins Paul DeMarinis is a Professor of Studio Art at Stanford University. He specializes in electronic media art production, and is a pioneer in the use computers for performance art. He has performed internationally, at The Kitchen, Festival d’Automne a Paris, Het Apollohuis in Holland and at Ars Electronica in Linz. His interactive audio artworks have been exhibited at the I.C.C. in Tokyo, Bravin Post Lee Gallery in New York, The Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco and the 2006 Shanghai Biennale. He has received major awards and fellowships in both Visual Arts and Music from The National Endowment for the Arts, N.Y.F.A., N.Y.S.C.A., the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and was awarded the Golden Nica for Interactive Art at Ars Electronica in 2006.
The John Nicholas Brown Center helps connect academic communities and the broader public through history, art, and culture. We support people and organizations that explore, preserve, and interpret cultural heritage. Our programs explore the ways in which the humanities enrich everyday life.
The Brown University Library is home to more than 6.8 million print items, plus a multitude of electronic resources and expanding digital archives serving the teaching, research, and learning needs of Brown students and faculty, as well as scholars from around the country and the world.
Contact: Jennifer Braga | 401-863-6913
###