December 2019 Archives

December 9, 2019

Treasures from the Yale Film Archive invites you to join us for the Orson Welles masterpiece Citizen Kane, as well as several films by women directors presented in conjunction with 50WomenAtYale150 as part of a year-long celebration of women filmmakers.

Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
7 p.m. Tuesday, January 14

In the Realms of the Unreal (Jessica Yu, 2004)
with Meshes of the Afternoon (Maya Deren & Alexander Hammid, 1943)
2 p.m. Sunday, January 19

We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, 2011)
2 p.m. Sunday, February 16

Experiments in French Silent Cinema (selected shorts)
with musical accompaniment by Donald Sosin
7 p.m. Monday, February 17

The Beginnings of Bebop (Willie Ruff, 1981)
Preservation premiere followed by a discussion with the filmmaker
7 p.m. Wednesday, March 4

A Tribute to Barbara Hammer (selected shorts)
with special guest Ron Gregg
7 p.m. Thursday, March 26

Location:
Whitney Humanities Center Auditorium
53 Wall Street
New Haven, CT

What is Treasures from the Yale Film Archive?
Treasures from the Yale Film Archive is an ongoing series of classic and contemporary films in 35mm curated by the Yale Film Study Center and screened at the Whitney Humanities Center.

Treasures screenings are always free and open to the public.

Presented by the Yale Film Study Center and Films at the Whitney with support from Paul L. Joskow '70 M.Phil., '72 Ph.D.

Post on December 9, 2019 - 10:19am |

December 8, 2019

illuminated page from 16th century Italian Law book

The catalog for a Yale law library exhibition on representations of authority in early modern Venice has received a 2019 publication award from the American Association of Law Libraries for “a significant contribution to scholarly legal literature”.

The exhibition, Representing the Law in the Most Serene Republic: Images of Authority from Renaissance Venice, was curated by Mike Widener, rare book librarian at the Lillian Goldman Law Library and Christopher Platts (PhD, History of Art, 2018). The exhibition was displayed at the law library in 2016-17.

The publication presents 25 objects from the the law library’s rare book collection, the Yale University Art Gallery, and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Selected for their visual splendor and historical significance, featured objects include illuminated manuscripts, illustrated books, prints, drawings, coins, and medals.

The catalogue, also viewable in digital form, introduces significant offices and symbols of the Venetian state, and explains how laws were crafted, debated, publicized, and—often—flouted. Images can be seen of the doge (duke) and highest magistrates of Venice, the governors appointed to rule the Republic’s far-flung territories, the lawmakers in the Senate, and the lawbreakers consigned to prison or to serve as oarsmen on the galleys that fueled Venetian power and prosperity.

Image: Institutio in potestatem civitatis Bergomi data Laurentii Venerio ab Andrea Griti duce Venetiarum. 1524. Tempera, gold, and ink on parchment. Rare Book Collection, Yale Law Library. MssJ V53 no.1 v.4 (Rare26 11-0287 v.4).

 

Post on December 8, 2019 - 3:46pm |

December 5, 2019

A new exhibition at Sterling Library, “From East to West: The History of the Chinese Collection at Yale 1849-2019,” illuminates the 170-year history of a collection that is intertwined with the growth of Yale Library and even influenced the architectural decoration of Sterling Memorial Library.

Read full story here: https://news.yale.edu/2019/11/01/east-west-traces-170-year-history-yales-chinese-collection

Post on December 5, 2019 - 10:30am |

December 5, 2019

Dr. Luce A. Klein at a gallery opening for a Philippe Halsman exhibit, circa 1975. Photographer unknown.

Luce A. Klein, co-founder of Spoken Arts, Inc., passed away on 11 January, 2019.  Along with her family, we mourn the loss of one who, with her husband, Arthur, established in 1956 the recording company that pioneered the recording of literary works, paving the way for audiobooks industry we know today. 

Luce Klein was born Luce Francine Berthe Weill in Elbeuf, France on 7 April, 1922.  Her family had left Alsace in 1870 and came to Elbeuf, helping to establish the textile industry there.  One of her grandfathers was a founder of Elbeuf’s synagogue and her father Marcel Weill was a recipient of the Legion of Honor for extraordinary bravery at the Battle of Verdun in World War II.  Her childhood home later became a center for orphaned and at-risk children and still thrives today as the Foyer d’Accueil de l’Enfance d’Elbeuf.

Luce and Arthur met in a Jeep at the end of the second World War in the south of France.  At the time, Luce was working for the French Resistance, securing homes for Jewish children.  Arthur was an intelligence officer the the US Army’s Signal Corps. The Kleins established permanent residence in New Rochelle, NY, in 1956.  Spoken Arts, Inc. was actually born in the basement of their home. Luce earned her Ph.D. in French Literature at Columbia University in 1969. Her pre-feminist thesis topic was a study on the portrayal of the Jewish woman in French literature, Portrait de la Juive dans la literature française.  It can be found in the Yale University Library, and in many others around the world.   In addition to pursuing her own writing, painting and raising a family, Luce owned an antique shop, “Luce A. Klein, Antiquaire,” in the two floors of the Spoken Arts Building in New Rochelle for a number of years.

The Kleins donated their extensive catalog of over 750 recordings, known as the Klein Archive, to the Gilmore Music Library’s Historical Sound Recordings Collection in 2001.  The collection includes master tapes, a comprehensive collection of all commercially-produced Spoken Arts recordings, as well as the company’s business records.  The company offered a wide variety of recordings, including children’s literature, classic European and American novels, folk and fairy tales, poetry, essays, and historical speeches.  Many authors read their own works, including Arthur Miller, Dorothy Parker, Langston Hughes, Pablo Neruda, Gertrude Stein,  and Anaïs Nin, to mention only a few.  This amazing donation expanded Library's capacity to support research and teaching in non-music disciplines, bringing the spoken word to life in an exciting and fresh way.

The Gilmore Music Library has been enriched by this generous gift.  With her family and friends, we mourn the loss and celebrate the amazing and rich life of Luce A. Klein.

More complete information about the collection can be found on the Historical Sound Recordings' website or by contacting Mark Bailey, Head of the Historical Sound Recordings Collection. 

Dr. Arthur Luce Klein and Luce Arthur Klein, March 9fh, 1961, founders of Spoken Arts, Inc. a pioneering literary recording company.   Photo by Philippe Halsman used with permission of Irène Halsman

Dr. Arthur Luce Klein and Luce Arthur Klein, March 9fh, 1961, founders of Spoken Arts, Inc. a pioneering literary recording company. Photo by Philippe Halsman used with permission of Irène Halsman

Post on December 5, 2019 - 1:23pm |