By Adrienne Rusinko
April stickers bring birds, flowers, and the 100th anniversary of The Great Gatsby. And also a joker. A limited run of stickers are now available at Special Collections Firestone, Special Collections Mudd, and the Princeton University Library (PUL) Makerspace.
Celestial Eyes, GA 2006.02659, Graphic Arts
The Great Gatsby has one of the most iconic covers in literary history. The artwork for this cover, “Celestial Eyes,” was painted by Francis Cugat in 1924 prior to Fitzgerald finishing the novel. In August of that year, while going back and forth about potential names for the novel, Fitzgerald wrote to his publisher, Max Perkins, and told him, “For Christ[‘]s sake don’t give anyone that jacket you’re saving for me. I’ve written it into the book.”
The work came to the Graphic Arts collection via a private donation from Charles Scribner III, who, per his 1992 Princeton University Library Chronicle article, inherited it from his cousin George Schieffelin, who salvaged it from a trash can of “dead publishing matter.”
Voĭna koroleĭ / I︠U︡lii︠a︡ Obolenskai︠a︡, 93147 NR CyrillicQ, Cotsen Children’s Library
This Punch & Judy joker, known in Russian as Petrushka, comes from the 1918 Soviet children’s book Война королей, or, War of Kings. Published a year after the Russian Revolution, this story is an allegory of the fall of the imperial government and tells the tale of the house of cards, collapsed.
The Great Gatsby / F. Scott Fitzgerald, 3740.8.341.11, Rare Books, Sylvia Beach Collection
This doodle comes from an inscribed copy of The Great Gatsby, gifted by F. Scott Fitzgerald to his friend, Sylvia Beach. Beach was the founder and owner of Shakespeare and Company, a Parisian bookstore most well-known for being the location where James Joyce wrote his most renowned novel, Ulysses.
The inscription itself reads, “For Nancy Cuna[rd?] Sylvia Beach from Harold Bell Wright F. Scott Fitzgerald / Paris, July 21928/ 18 Rue d’Odeon / Festival of St. James.”
Beach identified the above doodle in her memoir, stating that her partner, Adrienne Monnier, “cooked a nice dinner and invited the Joyces, the Fitzgeralds, and André Chamson and his wife Lucie.” From left to right, the figures are Adrienne Monnier, Lucie Chamson, André Chamson, Zelda Fitzgerald, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and Sylvia Beach.
Study of Sparrows, GA 2008.01210, Graphic Arts
This study of sparrows is from our Japanese and Chinese Prints and Drawings donated by Gillett G. Griffin (GC063). The artist of this work is unidentified and the work itself is undated, but it is painted in the Shijō-style, with realistic and naturalistic depictions of its subjects, most prominent in Kyoto during the Edo period between 1603 and 1867.
Primavera / E. A. Séguy, GA 2004-0031E, Graphic Arts
This set of floral spring prints was one of 20 designed by Émile-Allain Séguy for his 1913 Primavera, Dessins & Coloris Nouveaux. Séguy was a decorative painter most well known for his Art Neauvou and Art Deco depictions of insects and flora, which he would publish as large-format Pochoir collections of 20-50 plates.
Pochoir, French for “stencil,” was a response to the innovation of machine printing that resulted in lackluster color printing. While the use of stencils in art dates back to the times of cave paintings, pochoir stencils in the 1920s and 30s were cut typically from sheets of sheets of copper, zinc, or aluminum and layered over each other, similarly to how we screen print designs today. Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, and Henri Matisse also utilized pochoir in some of their published books.
Decalcomania is a limited monthly release of stickers made available at Special Collections Firestone, Special Collections Mudd, and the PUL Makerspace. All images are selected from materials held by Special Collections. Check out the Special Collections website for information about visiting our reading rooms.
Did we run out of your favorite sticker? Do you want to make your own? Head over to the PUL Makerspace! Design your own or reprint a Decalcomania sticker using the cutting machines.
Digital images of some of the materials in Special Collections can be found in the catalog and finding aids. Our blogs and Digital PUL have collection highlights.
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