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Our daily lives involve the passing of time, marking regular tasks and occurrences as well as special events. A French Boulle clock opens this section, followed by a rural life scene in the Philippines and an Inuit fish basket, both dealing with sustenance. A pre-Columbian Moche ceramic vessel depicts human sexuality, and this is followed by images of families. Native Americans are included because of their sovereign nation status, and hence, they are regarded as international. The three Akha hats from Burma follow the transition from girlhood to womanhood, and the Hausa writing board from Nigeria opens up learning and education. The life cycle ends with funerary items and a return to the concept of time with an eighteenth-century Swedish clock.
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Wanamaker Collection Joseph Kossuth Dixon was employed by the Wanamaker Store in Philadelphia as an educator, providing the public with information on a variety of subjects. In particular, he received the support of Rodman Wanamaker, who shared many of his interests. Beginning in 1908, his interests increasingly turned toward Native American life. In 1913, he traveled the country with the aim of urging a better relationship between Native groups and the federal government. The photographs from 1913 were not staged, and his subjects wore what they chose for their portraits.4
Caddo Anadarko, Oklahoma Sho-We-Tit, Billy Thomas, bust profile June 23, 1913 Vintage photographic print Joseph K. Dixon, photographer H. 10 in. (25.5 cm) IU Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Wanamaker Collection of American Indian Photographs. Gift of Wanamaker Department Store, 1962–08–3184.
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Navajo Ganado, Navajo Reservation, Arizona Annie Dodge, Navajo Child, full face, July 4, 1913 Joseph K. Dixon, photographer H. 10 in. (25.5 cm) IU Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Wanamaker Collection of American Indian Photographs. Gift of Wanamaker Department Store, 1962–08–3250.
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Blackfoot Browning, Blackfoot Reservation, Montana Judge and Mrs. Wolf Plume and Baby, ‘Little Handsome Woman’ September 13, 1913 Joseph K. Dixon, photographer H. 10 in. (25.5 cm) IU Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Wanamaker Collection of American Indian Photographs. Gift of Wanamaker Department Store, 1962–08–3513. Public domain (copyright Rodman Wanamaker, 1913).
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Adornment brings together an elegant outfit from a French fashion house with an equally elegant dress from Ghana, Hellenistic gold earrings from 300–250 bce, a bird necklace from Suriname in the mid-1900s, and a contemporary Algerian cuff bracelet. While color and form might be expressed differently in the following pieces, there are also universal elements in the overall sense of personal beauty and presentation of self.
Kurdish people Middle East Coat with Yarn Embroidery Early to middle 1900s Cotton, wool H. 51 in. (129.5 cm) IU Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Collected by Dee Birnbaum. Promised gift of Dee Birnbaum, DB-0467. Alex Kumar / Indiana University.
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Delphos Gown Spanish-born fashion and textile designer Mariano Fortuny worked out of a Venetian atelier, creating his pleated silk and printed velvet dresses that continue to be highly collectible today. His simple garments are based on rectangles and take inspiration from ancient Greek dress. This particular style, the Delphos, is constructed of several lengths of pleated and stitched silk that slip over the head. Hidden drawstrings in the neckline and shoulders allow for adjustment, and the waist is girdled with a matching stenciled silk belt or cord (the dresses could also be worn without belts). Small handblown striped Murano glass beads, affixed to the side seams, help the lightweight gowns hang true. Fortuny’s method of achieving the tiny mushroom pleats in silk remain somewhat mysterious. The pleats are maintained by gently twisting and coiling the garments into small rounds. The dresses were sold in little signature boxes, similar to hatboxes. Garment production ceased with Fortuny’s death in 1949, but his historically inspired textiles are still produced today.2
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Mariano Fortuny Venice, Italy Delphos Gown and Belt 1927–1935 Silk and glass Gift of Kathryn Foley, 2006.1056 AB Sage Fashion Collection Alex Kumar / Indiana University.
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Selections from the Birnbaum Collection Quilt Resist-Dyed Coat, Fire-Gilded Silver Pendant, Coat with Yarn Embroidery, Enamel Cuff Bracelet Since the 1970s, Dr. Dee Birnbaum has been studying and collecting examples of clothing and adornment from the Middle East. Over time, her interest expanded to include cultures living as far west as Morocco and as far east as India, with major collections from North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia. She wanted to preserve these items, many of which had uncertain futures due to disruptions in cultural continuity. Since 2013, the Mathers Museum has received over twenty-two hundred pieces from her. The items shown here are a small sample of the Birnbaum Collection but serve to show the geographic range, makers’ skills, aesthetic power, and cultural importance of the materials.3
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Uzbek people Bukhara, Uzbekistan Quilted Resist-Dyed Coat Early 1900s, Silk, cotton cloth H. 50 in. (127 cm) IU Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Collected by Dee Birnbaum. Promised gift of Dee Birnbaum, DB-0077. Alex Kumar / Indiana University.
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Chanel Cocktail Dress In the October 1, 1926, issue, Vogue magazine dubbed a simple black knee-length crepe de chine dress by Chanel a “Ford—the frock that all the world will wear.” The little black dress, wearable and versatile, became a wardrobe staple for all women. This supercharged 1992 version, designed by Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel, appears austere from the front, the impeccable custom fit characteristic of haute couture hugging the wearer’s curves and producing the illusion of a corseted torso. Wide black satin ribbons at the shoulders, neckline, and hips provide textural contrast to the plain black of the dress fabric. In back, three simple flat satin bows adorn the hip. Few legendary fashion houses have had longterm success with new designers. Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel is one of those few. Although he did design under his own name as well as for Chloe and Fendi, he achieved his greatest success as creative director of Chanel. Almost instantly upon his appointment in 1993, he became known for his reimagining and reinventing of iconic Chanel hallmarks like the camellia flower, layers of costume jewelry, a black-andwhite palette, quilting, and tweed fabrics.4
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Chanel Paris, France Dress 1992 Spring/Summer Silk, rayon Sage Fashion Collection. Gift of Anne H. Bass, 1995.111. Alex Kumar / Indiana University.
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Madame Grès Paris, France Evening Dress, 1965 Metallic thread and silk Sage Fashion Collection. Gift of the estate of Chessy Rayner, 2003.899. Alex Kumar / Indiana University.
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Evening Dress / Caftan Jewel-toned patchwork brocades from notable textile firm Bianchini hang freely from the shoulders and end in a pointed handkerchief hem in this unusual dress from Paris-based designer Madame Grès. Celebrated as a sculptor in cloth, Madame Grès (also known professionally as Mademoiselle Alix and Alix Barton) is best known for her gathered white silk jersey goddess dresses, beginning in 1934, that celebrated the female figure as well as her billowing taffeta forms. Later in her career, she took inspiration from locales such as India and Japan for her geometric garments, like this one. After an extraordinarily long career, her design house closed in 1988. Fashion icon Chessy Rayner served as an editor at Vogue magazine from 1956 to 1964, but it was as a partner in the interior design firm MAC II (Mica and Chessy) that her creative instincts flourished. She and her partner, Mica Ertegun, designed interiors noted for their luxurious simplicity for clients such as fashion designers Bill Blass and Arnold Scaasi, architect Stanford White, and television producer Douglas Cramer.9 The estate of Chessy Rayner gifted several of her pieces to the Sage Collection in 2003.
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A painting of dromedaries in Tunisia, maps of adventure and exploration, a codex depicting the Sino Spanish world, a camel saddle, a classic photograph of a man on a personal journey in front of a railway station in Paris, and classic automobiles—all images from different times and places related to exploring the new and unknown.
Abraham Ortelius Theatrum orbis terrarum. Antwerp 1570 Lilly Library, G1006 .T37 1570 Alex Kumar / Indiana University.
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Theatrum Orbis Terrarum The Theatrum Orbus Terrarum (“Theatre of the Orb of the World”) is considered to be the first true modern atlas. Written by Abraham Ortelius and published in Antwerp in May 1570, the atlas is often considered as the official beginning of the golden age of Netherlandish cartography (1570s–1670s). Prior to the publication dates, groupings of disparate maps were only released as custom individual orders. The Ortelious atlas was the first time that the entirety of Western European knowledge of the world was brought together in one book. It also represents the first time that maps were all produced in the same style and of the same size, printed from copper plates, and arranged
by continent, region, and state. Ortelius also included descriptive comments and referrals on the back of each map. The moneyed middle class was the primary market for the first edition of the atlas, which was written in Latin. After 1572, subsequent editions were also printed in Dutch, German, and French. By Ortelius’s death in 1598, twenty-five editions of the atlas had been produced in seven different languages, and the atlas contained seventy maps.3 The copy of the atlas housed in the Lilly Library is a mixed variant of the Latin first edition.
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Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, Place de l’Europe, Paris Henri Cartier-Bresson was considered a master of candid photography and was an early user of 35mm film. He viewed photography as capturing a decisive moment, a split second that reveals the larger truth of a situation. Place de l’Europe, Paris is one of his most successful images. The shot captures a man hopping over a flooded area behind a Paris train station the moment before his heel hits the water. The man’s movement mimics the image of a dancer on a poster in the background.5
Henri Cartier-Bresson French, 1908–2004 Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, Place de l’Europe, Paris, 1932 Gelatin silver print Image: 14 × 91/2 in. (35.6 × 24.1 cm) Sheet: 155/8 × 1113/16 in. (39.7 × 30 cm) Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University 75.63.14 Kevin Montague / Indiana University.
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Luxury Car Literature Thomas T. Solley (1924–2006) received his BA in architecture from Yale University and pursued graduate studies there before becoming an architectural project engineer at Eli Lilly & Co. in Indianapolis from 1951 to 1961. A grandnephew of Josiah K. Lilly, Solley left private practice as an architect to pursue a graduate degree in art history at Indiana University, earning an MA in 1966. In 1968, he was appointed assistant director of the Indiana University Art Museum in Bloomington and became its director in 1971. As a youth, Solley became interested in automobile and coachbuilder catalogs and spent more than sixty years systematically amassing a collection of them, focused on the “automobile as art.” The catalogs served as the basis for his 2008 monograph Prestige, Status, and Works of Art: Selling the Luxury Car 1888–1942, in which many of them are described in full detail. He did not limit his catalog collecting solely to Great Britain; the collection is also particularly strong in automobile and coachbuilder catalogs from France (Bugatti, Delage, Hispano-Suiza); Germany (Mercedes-Benz); Italy (Alfa Romeo, Lancia); and the United States (Cadillac, Chrysler, Lincoln, Packard). Solley was also a discriminating collector of luxury automobiles, most notably Rolls-Royce and Bentley.6
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Bentley, “Bentley the Eight Litre” No. 35 1931 (Feb.) (SE: 16/890) (Box 6) Lilly Library, Tom Solley MSS. Chris Myer / Indiana University.
Rolls–Royce of America, Inc., “Advanced Sketches of New Coachwork” c. 1925 (Box 16). Lilly Library, Tom Solley MSS. Chris Myer / Indiana University.
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Featured here are artists from different parts of the world who created oil paintings, sculptures, lithographs, prints, woodblocks, and photographs using different techniques and styles but all demonstrating the brilliance of the creative experience.
Liu Shaohui, Chinese, b. 1940 Girl and the Sea Mixed media Framed: 261/4 Ă— 265/8 Ă— 1 in. Gift of the Waldman Art Fund. Indiana University, Campus Art Collection, CA1000.196.2 Chris Myer / Indiana University.
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Chagall Plate In 1948, Marc Chagall was asked to produce a set of lithographs for Pantheon Books’ publication of Four Tales from the Arabian Nights. The project was his first use of lithography and is considered the finest example of the medium printed in the United States before 1950. It received the graphic prize in the 1948 Venice Biennale. The portfolio was released in a regular edition run of ninety lithographs, or copies, containing twelve images, and a deluxe edition run of eleven copies, which included one additional image.
Marc Chagall Russia/France, 1887–1985 Disrobing Her with His Own Hand. . ., from Four Tales from the Arabian Nights, 1948 Lithograph Dimensions: 10.875 × 14.375 Kinsey Institute, VAC1641–27932. facing
Marc Chagall Russia/France, 1887–1985 Then He Spent the Night with Her, from Four Tales from the Arabian Nights, 1948 Lithograph Dimensions: 10.875 × 14.375 Kinsey Institute, VAC1641–28075.
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Islands Portrait Carl-Henning Pedersen and his wife, Else Alfelt, were part of CoBrA, an expressionist-oriented group of artists from Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam. Pedersen was born in Copenhagen in 1913 and first exhibited at the Artists’ Autumn Exhibition in Copenhagen in 1936. Pedersen traveled on foot to Paris in 1939 to see works by Picasso and Matisse. On his way home, he stopped in Frankfurt to visit another exhibition and was particularly inspired by the works of Chagall, who remained a strong influence on his art.
Carl-Henning Pedersen Danish, 1913‒1993 Islandsk Portrait 1950 Oil on canvas 453/4 × 391/8 in. (116.2 × 99.4 cm) Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. G. David Thompson, 62.142. Kevin Montague / Indiana University.
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The Tale of Genji (Genji Monogatori) The Tale of Genji was written over a thousand years ago by Lady Murosaki Shikibu, who was born around 978 CE. The novel concerns the amorous life and affairs of Prince Genji during the Heian period in Japan (794–1185 CE). The home of the emperor was then located in what is now known as Kyoto. Aristocrats such as Prince Genji had lives of leisure in which rank,
breeding, appearance, and dress were of the utmost importance, as well as skill in poetry, music, and calligraphy. Although women lived sequestered lives, the political connections they made through their marriages were very important. The Tale of Genji was often the subject of Japanese woodblock prints by major artists during the Edo period (1614–1868).4
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Liu Shaohui, Chinese, b. 1940 Girl and the Sea Mixed media Framed: 261/4 × 265/8 × 1 in. Gift of the Waldman Art Fund. Indiana University, Campus Art Collection, CA1000.196.2 Chris Myer / Indiana University.
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Utagawa Kunisato, Japanese, d. 1858 Woman Brushing Silkworm Larvae Print on paper Framed: 213/4 × 165/8 × 3/4 in. Gift of Carolyn and Joe Waldman. Indiana University, Campus Art Collection, CA1000.44 Chris Myer / Indiana University.
Girl and the Sea Liu Shaohui was born in 1940 in Hunan Province. He studied at the Central Fine Arts Academy. Later, in Kunming, he started the Yunnan School of Painting, also known as the “Heavy Color” School of Painting. Examples of Liu’s work are in China’s National Fine Arts Museum
in Beijing, and his paintings are in collections throughout the world. He believes that contemporary Chinese artists need to immerse themselves in the country’s rich artistic traditions but also in Western modern and postmodern artistic innovations.6
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Two Sisters Two Sisters was a gift from IU professor Mendel Sherman and his wife, Martha Sherman. In a letter to President Michael McRobbie, they explained how they had acquired the piece. The couple spent two years in Thailand working on an education project. While there, on a visit to
the Bangkok Art Museum, Martha Sherman was drawn to this piece crafted by one of the country’s leading sculptors, Timsiri. She offered to buy it but was told it was not for sale. A Thai colleague whose daughter was engaged to Timsiri persuaded the artist to sell it to her.
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Kien Yimseri Thai Sisters, ca. 1960 Bronze 28 Ă— 8 Ă— 5 in. A gift from the Dr. and Mrs. Mendel Sherman Collection. Indiana University, Campus Art Collection, CA2007.3.78 Chris Myer / Indiana University.
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Selections from the Wanamaker Collection Joseph Kossuth Dixon was employed by the Wanamaker Store in Philadelphia as an educator, providing the public with information on a variety of subjects. In particular, he received the support of Rodman Wanamaker, who shared many of his interests.
Beginning in 1908, his interests increasingly turned toward Native American life. In that year and in 1909, he traveled west, centering his work at Crow Agency, Montana. He staged and produced many images that projected nostalgic ideas about Native Americans, such as Song of the Arrows and On the Skyline.7
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Crow Crow Reservation, Montana Song of the Arrows Vintage photographic print 1909 Joseph K. Dixon, photographer H. 10 in. (25.5 cm) IU Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Wanamaker Collection of American Indian Photographs. Gift of Wanamaker Department Store, 1962–08–2006. Public domain (copyright Rodman Wanamaker, 1913).
Crow Agency, Crow Reservation, Montana On the Skyline September 1909 Eastman Kodak vintage photographic print Joseph K. Dixon, photographer H. 10 in. (25.5 cm) IU Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Wanamaker Collection of American Indian Photographs. Gift of Wanamaker Department Store, 1962–08–2667. Public domain (copyright Rodman Wanamaker, 1912).
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