Fond Farewell for a Friend

It is with a heavy heart that we must bid a fond farewell to Dr. Richard V. Lee, a friend of many including this Library and its Rare Book Room. Not often (enough) do we encounter a person with such passionate interest in humanity, science, exploration and teaching. Doc Lee was a genuinely good person and will be missed by all who had the good fortune to meet him.

 

 

 

Richard V. LEE M.D.
LEE – Richard V., MD Of Orchard Park, NY, May 7, 2013; beloved husband of Susan (Bradley) Lee; devoted father of Matthew V. and Benjamin B. (Juliette) Lee; grandfather of Aurora V. Guilbert and Lillian E. Lee; brother of Martha Lee Winfield; cousin of Russell V. Lee; also survived by one aunt, two nephews and one niece. No prior visitation. Memorial service to be announced at a future date. Memorials may be made to a charity of your choice . Arrangements by the F.E. BROWN SONS FUNERAL HOME,INC.

Please see an example of Doc Lee’s generosity at blog entry http://grorarebookroom.wordpress.com/tag/arabian-nights/.

New Exhibit on First Day of Spring!

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There is art to be found in science books and science to be found in artist’s books.

Although current society has come to think of science and math exclusively as “left-brained” functions while art and creativity are considered “right-brained” activity, some book artists are bridging this hemispheric divide with artist’s books and book arts inspired by science texts. These artist’s books reflect upon or interpret significant works and concepts of astronomy, medicine, geology, physics and more. Today’s mutually exclusive idea of “left-brained” and “right-brained” activity discounts longer understood ideas that science is a creative pursuit—that there really is art to be found in science—and that creative artworks often have some scientific basis and/or inspiration.

Bruce Shanks Cartoons

A recent gift of 7 original prints of cartoons by Bruce Shanks from 1959 to 1963 has been added to the Rare Book Room collections. Shanks, born in Buffalo in 1908 and educated locally at School 38 and Lafayette High School, won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in 1958 for his cartoon, “The Thinker,” about unions and racketeering. He began his newspaper career as a copy boy in 1927 for the Buffalo Express, drawing cartoons in his free time. He later worked for the Buffalo Times as a cartoonist and in 1933 joined the Buffalo News, where he became the editorial cartoonist in 1951, receiving numerous awards until his retirement in 1974. Shanks died in 1980.

Lankes Letters added to RBR

J. B. Lankes (1915-2010), the son of local woodcut artist J. J. Lankes (1884-1960) and Edee Bartlett (1885-1958) has bequeathed to the Rare Book Room of the B&ECPL over 1,000 letters that he had inherited from his famous father. Containing both personal and business-related correspondence, the collection is currently being processed by staff and will greatly enhance our Lankes Collection of block prints, etchings, tools and other miscellanea. Recipients and senders include local artists and friends William j. Schwanekamp and Arthur Kowalski, and internationally renowned artists Charles Burchfield and Dard Hunter, the American authority on printing and papermaking.

Lankes and Kowalski often corresponded using blank papers they collected with business letterheads, a necessary economy at the time. They lightheartedly discuss daily events, other artists and the business of the Saturday Sketch Club, which Lankes formed in 1910. Shown here are illustrated envelopes from letters between Lankes and Kowalski, as well as a three-page letter from Schwanekamp (or Schwane as he was known to his friends) on three different letterheads.

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The collection is a wonderful new addition to the treasures in the Rare Book Room.

Imago Mortis on Dia de los Muertos

There may not be a better image to share on Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead than “Imago Mortis,” a woodcut found in this Library’s 1493 copy of Liber Chronicarum, a.k.a.the Nuremberg Chronicle. This woodcut, and many others in this amazing book, is credited to Michael Wolgemut and can be found in the “Seventh Age” on the recto side of leaf CCLXIIII. Although one cannot call it a true danse macabre (as there would living along with the dead), the dead figures do appear to be dancing to music and having a jolly good time too!

When Buffalo Burned…..

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Please check out our latest exhibit: When Buffalo Burned: The War of 1812 on the Niagara Frontier

The Burning of Buffalo on December 30, 1813 during the War of 1812 was an early setback for the flourishing frontier village that remains an integral part of its legacy.  As devastating as such an event was to the expanding settlement, the resilient pioneers of Buffalo and the Niagara region would soon rebuild, becoming the western terminus of the all-important Erie Canal and growing continuously until becoming host to the Pan-American Exposition in 1901.

Along with items of local and regional interest, on display are a series of letters from the war, maps from the time period, popular literature and broadsides, and documents of cultural and national relevance, including the declaration of war and early printings of the Star-Spangled Banner.

Exhibit dates: June 28, 2012 through  January 20, 2013

Cotton Plantation Record and Account Book

The cotton plantation record and account book, no. 1. Suitable for a force of 40 hands, or under by Thomas Affleck, 5th ed.1854

The Cotton plantation record and account book is a blank ledger presenting accounts of W.F. Stansbury for the year 1857.  This one-of-a-kind book contains handwritten records that include inventories of stock and implements, daily records of events and of cotton picked, expenses, physician’s visits, births and deaths of slaves. It also names the overseer as an A. A. Porter and may be from a plantation in Mississippi, though more research needs to be conducted on the owner and location.

 The creator of the book, Thomas Affleck (1812-1868), was born in Scotland and studied agriculture at the University of Edinburgh before coming to the United States in 1832.  He established one of the earliest nurseries in the South and became a well-known agricultural reformer whose widely-circulated Southern Rural Almanac and Plantation and Garden Calendar was published from 1845 until his death in 1868.

More importantly, for historical and genealogical purposes the names of slaves are preserved, with records of daily happenings that may shed more light on the lives of forgotten people during one of the most dishonorable periods in American history.