ArchivesSpace at the University of Iowa

Scope and Contents Over six hundred years ago the Akan started to make brass weights for weighing gold dust, the currency of their region of Ghana and the Ivory Coast. Eventually they produced the most complete three dimentional inventory of any culture in hisitory. Virtually every animal, bird, fish, or object known to them became the subject of a miniture sculpture. Human figures are represented in the activities of everyday life and sacred or courtly rituals, together with pioneer casts from nature and a wealth of abstract and ornamental designs. The artist Tom Phillips has, in the last thirty years, built up the world's most comprehensive collection of these lively and imaginative artefacts and here presents a selection of more than five hundred chosen for their artistry and interest, accompanied by a full descriptive text about their history, styles, and mode of manufacture. The facsimile edition, in an edition of 300, from Phillips' original note book from the 1970's of his pen and ink drawings...

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The cover illustration is from The Divine Comedy, a verse translation by Phillips published by Thames & Hudson in 1983. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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The binding and typing of this first volume of the final typescript translation (with handwritten ink corrections by Phillips) was done by Pella Erskine-Tulloch although her usual gold stamped name is missing from the inside back cover. The Roman numerals from I to XXXIII are stamped on each of the three volumes within a hexagon, pointing downward with the initials TP stamped at the bottom. The numbers from I to X are in gold leaf signifying the contents of the volume. The hexagon outline is stamped Dante Inferno repetitively in very small type. The spine of each volume contains the title Inferno in black stencilled letters over which Dante Inferno is repetitively stamped in gold. The top edges of the three volumes are gilded and stamped with multiple fleurs-de-lis. The endpapers are printed with "Una Selva" stencilled text. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

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This second translation contains many handwritten corrections by Phillips. The white binding by Pella Erskine-Tulloch repeats the theme of volume 1 and 2 with fleurs-dei-lys and an uncolored portrait of Dante in his study. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents This volume of typed translations has more alterations and additions than the first typescript of cantos. On ten pages, Phillips has written "retype" in a decorative script and included a small ink cartoon-like drawing of a human or angel at a typewriter. The human image is a caricature of Pella Erskine-Tulloch. One cartoon bubble with this caricature reads, "Say Mr Dante I think your comedy is simply divine!" Another states, "A canto a day wipes the blues away." This Phillipsian humor referring to a great, poetic work of translation, can be found not only in the Inferno, but in many of his visual and literary works including his book dedicated to Rushdie, "Merely Connect," and in several pages of "A Humument," and in his introduction to "The Portrait Works" from the National Portrait Gallery.The binding by Pella Erskine-Tulloch repeats the theme of volume I with fleurs-di-lis and a portrait of Dante in his study, with the latter now presented in a coral color on both covers. --...

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The exhibition consisted of books, manuscripts and works on paper from the collection of Grolier Club members. "The Heart of A Humument" from the Sackner Archive was exhibited and illustrated in the catalogue. George Koppelman exhibited Charles Bukowski's "The Genius of the Crowd," Cleveland:7 Flowers Press, 1966 (hand printed and illustrated by da levy). He purchased it for less than $1.00 from Jim Lowell, Asphodel Book Shop at the time of publication. The colophon called for 103 copies but about 40 copies survived since the rest were destroyed by the Cleveland police. Current price (2007) on the internet from Virtuous Books is $14,500. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.

Scope and Contents This beautifully produced catalogue was published for the exhibition in the Olin Library at Washington University by the curator, scholar and Head of Special Collections, Kevin Ray. It coincided with the exhibition and symposium "The Dual Muse: The Artist as Writer and the Writer as Artist" organized by the Gallery of Art and the International Writers Center. The Sackner Archive lent nine handwritten and typed bound volumes of Phillips' Dante manuscripts, two silkscreen prints, eleven collages from the "Dante Diary," and a typewriter work on backing paper incorporating all the words of Phillips' first translation of the Inferno. Kevin Ray contributed an illuminating essay tracing the history of translations and illustrations of Dante, including the works of Botticelli, Gustave Dore, Blake and Rauschenberg. Ray writes that in the Tom Phillips' Inferno, the artist, incorporates "much of the method he developed in creating A Humument, 'treating' an existing text and making of it...

Scope and Contents This beautifully produced catalogue was published for the exhibition in the Olin Library at Washington University by the curator, scholar and Head of Special Collections, Kevin Ray. It coincided with the exhibition and symposium "The Dual Muse: The Artist as Writer and the Writer as Artist" organized by the Gallery of Art and the International Writers Center. The Sackner Archive lent nine handwritten and typed bound volumes of Phillips' Dante manuscripts, two silkscreen prints, eleven collages from the "Dante Diary," and a typewriter work on backing paper incorporating all the words of Phillips' first translation of the Inferno. Kevin Ray contributed an illuminating essay tracing the history of translations and illustrations of Dante, including the works of Botticelli, Gustave Dore, Blake and Rauschenberg. Ray writes that in the Tom Phillips' Inferno, the artist, incorporates "much of the method he developed in creating A Humument, 'treating' an existing text and making of it...