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Bookplate Index by Library or Collector |
John and Ethel Van Derlip, Minneapolis Institute of Arts Library In 1899 Ethel and John Van Derlip had their bookplate designed by Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966). The Van Derlips were an extraordinary couple who left an indelible mark on the cultural life of Minneapolis, Minnesota. John Russell Van Derlip (1860-1935), had come to Minneapolis in 1881 to practice law. This young Easterner (his father's family had come to New York from Holland in the early colonial days; his mother's family had been among the earliest colonists of Massachusetts) married Ethel Morrison (1876-1921) in 1898. Ethel was the daughter of Clinton Morrison, one of Minnesota's outstanding pioneer citizens. The Van Derlips were both supporters of the arts. John Van Derlip was one of the founders of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, a trustee and its president from 1928 to 1935. In 1913 the Minneapolis Journal reported that he was in New York inspecting the Metropolitan Museum of Art for ideas for everything from methods of picture hanging, ventilation, and heating, to proper floor materials. No detail was too small for his consideration, and his goal was to make Minneapolis the art capital of the Northwest. During that 1913 trip, Van Derlip reminded the New Yorkers that there was life west of Buffalo and there existed a very "cultured class of people in the West. Many of them, you know, have moved from the East" (Minneapolis Journal, 2 May 1913). Van Derlip's efforts came to fruition in January 1915 when the Minneapolis Institute of Arts was opened. Ethel Van Derlip devoted her life to the art institute, believing that it should be an influence in the lives of the community and the state, and on her death she left an endowment supporting it. John Van Derlip left his collection of 229 objects and 1,112 books to the Institute, as well as a handsome endowment to the purchase of art and books. Throughout its history the Institute's library has benefited from such gifts. In its earliest days it received gifts from such illustrious collectors as J. P. Morgan and Bernard Berenson, as well as the local trustees. The largest bequests came in the 70s, including the Dwight and Helen Minnich collection of botanical and fashion books and the Mr. and Mrs. Frank Leslie bequest of books on the history of printing. Besides those collections, the library has illuminated manuscripts, facsimiles of famous manuscripts, examples of fine printing, particularly the books of William Morris's Kelmscott Press and other English and American presses. The jewels of the collection are eighty artists' books collected by Bruce B. Dayton, department store scion. The Dayton collection includes Picasso's Le Celestina and Chef-d'Oeuvre Inconnu; Maillol's Les Georgiques; Miro's A Toute Epreuve; Matisse's Jazz, Pasiphae, and Visages; Toulouse-Lautrec's Histoires Naturelles; Villon's Les Bucoliques de Virgile; Jim Dine's The Temple of Flora; and Robert Mapplethorpe's A Season in Hell. The main library has 50,000 volumes, and on-site branches include a photography library, a prints and drawing library, a slide library, and the Institute's archives. The library is non-circulating, with closed stacks; it collects pamphlets, art reference books, monographs, periodicals, exhibit catalogs, and auction catalogs. The library is open to the public twenty-eight hours a week, serving college and university students, collectors, and dealers, as well as the museum staff and visitors. About 10,000 people use the library each year and many more have viewed the fifty exhibitions organized by the library since 1974. The exhibitions have covered everything from Aubrey Beardsley to Spanish artists in print to sporting books. Among the volumes in the library are those bearing the Van Derlip bookplate, which is typical Maxfield Parrish. Four and 3/4 inches tall by 3 inches wide, it shows a man and a woman and a black cat sitting in front of a fireplace reading. The mantel of the fireplace is covered with books. The bookplate is a version of an 1887 Harper's Weekly cover, which shows an almost identical man and woman in the same frame, not reading this time, but enjoying their Christmas dinner. Instead of book on the mantel, there are pewter pots and plates. There is the same black cat, in a slightly different position. The cat, incidentally, appear also in an 1897 advertisement for The Adlake Camera. Ludwig Coy identifies other bookplates, Parrish was a recognized painter, particularly for his painting The Sandman; he had been elected to The Society of American Artists, and he had received an honorable mention at the Paris Exposition of 1900. However, he earner his living in more commercial art ventures, many for The Curtis Publishing Company. He was quite well known and did book illustrations, posters, advertisements, magazine illustrations and covers, playbills, program covers, calendars, greeting cards, menus, labels, theatrical scenery, and bookplates. Parrish's commercial style was distinctive; he frequently used gothic elements, usually a framed picture showing one central character or two balanced figures. The mood of his work was fun, optimistic, make-believe, and very American.
There are many tantalizing and unanswered questions regarding the
Van Derlip bookplate. Had the Van Derlips seen the Harper's Weekly cover?
Did the Van Derlips know Parrish? Parrish seemed to know everyone: Woodrow
Wilson, Winston Churchill (the American), Learned Hand, Maxwell Perkins,
and Paul Manship. Although surrounded by books, the book business, and
booklovers, Parrish said he preferred music. "Were I rich," he wrote
George Eustman, "I would found no libraries at all. I would endow music,
good music, and lots of music." (Maxfield Parrish, Coy Ludwig,
New York: Watson-Gupthil Publications, 1973. P. 21). Luckily, the
philanthropic Van Derlips did not agree with him. Their fanciful
bookplate, many years after their having endowed the library of the
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, is still used in its many library
publications. Harold Peterson, Librarian Minneapolis Institute of Arts Library [Originally published in Libraries & Culture, vol. 29, no. 2 (Spring 1994): 220-222.] |
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