the restoration of the japanese...

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

SPRING/SUMMER 2012

The Restoration of theJapanese House

THE GRAPHIC HISTORYOF ROCK’SPSYCHEDELIC ERA

WHAT IS A LETTER?

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IN THE 1960S, ROCK CONCERT POSTERS SERVED A DISTINCT

purpose—they got people to pay money to hear their favorite performers.Displayed on the walls of ticket outlets or record shops, such postershelped give shape to the psychedelic era, indelibly linking bands like Moby

Grape, the Grateful Dead, and Country Joe and the Fish with eye-catchingcolors, shapes, and typography.In this issue of Huntington Frontiers, David Mihaly, the Jay T. Last Curator

of Graphic Arts and Social History at The Huntington, explains how a group of posters designed by graphic artist Wes Wilson for San Francisco’s FillmoreAuditorium form a unique kind of time capsule. Wilson may have been aproduct of the 1960s, but he shows the influences of earlier artistic styles andmovements, including Art Nouveau, particularly in his free-flowing and nearlyillegible lettering. Mihaly explains how Wilson’s posters—recently donated toThe Huntington by Tony Newhall—have a rightful place in the vast holdingsof The Huntington, where visual and cultural connections can be discovered. Also in these pages we get a fresh glimpse of the Japanese House through

the eyes of preservation architect Kelly Sutherlin McLeod, whose efforts allowvisitors to see the crown jewel of the Japanese Garden in ways they hadn’tbefore the garden closed in 2011 for a one-year renovation. McLeod explainsthat she has simply returned the house to its “period of significance”—that is,to the way it looked 100 years ago when it first adorned the garden duringHenry E. Huntington’s lifetime. Through meticulous research and painstakingcraftsmanship, she and the restoration team accomplished this transformationone wood shingle at a time and with carefully applied layers of paint and plaster.What was once old has become new again. And, like those rock posters,

what seems new is timeless.

MATT STEVENS

The Huntington Library, Art Collections,and Botanical Gardens

SENIOR STAFF OF THE HUNTINGTON

STEVEN S. KOBLIKPresident

JAMES P. FOLSOMMarge and Sherm Telleen/Marion and Earle Jorgensen

Director of the Botanical Gardens

KATHY HACKERExecutive Assistant to the President

STEVE HINDLEW. M. Keck Foundation Director of Research

KEVIN SALATINOHannah and Russel Kully Director of the Art Collections

RANDY SHULMANVice President for Advancement

LAURIE SOWDVice President for Operations

ALISON D. SOWDENVice President for Financial Affairs

SUSAN TURNER-LOWEVice President for Communications

DAVID S. ZEIDBERGAvery Director of the Library

MAGAZINE STAFF

EditorMATT STEVENS

DesignerLORI ANN ACHZET

Huntington Frontiers is published semiannually by theOffice of Communications. It strives to connect readerswith the rich intellectual life of The Huntington, capturingin news and features the work of researchers, educators,curators, and others across a range of disciplines.

This issue printed in September 2012.

INQUIRIES AND COMMENTS:Matt Stevens, EditorHuntington Frontiers1151 Oxford RoadSan Marino, CA [email protected]

The magazine is funded by charitable gifts and advertising revenues. For information about how to support this publication, please contact KristyPeters, director of foundation and corporate relations,626-405-3484, [email protected].

Unless otherwise acknowledged, photography is providedby The Huntington’s Department of Photographic Services.

Printed by Pace Marketing CommunicationsCity of Industry, Calif.

© 2012 The Huntington Library, Art Collections, andBotanical Gardens. All rights reserved. Reproduction or use of the contents, in whole or in part, withoutpermission of the publisher, is prohibited.

Opposite page, left: Kelly Sutherlin McLeod, AIA, project architect for the restoration of The Huntington’sJapanese House, reviews the preservation plans prior to implementation. Photo by John Ellis. Right:Captain Beefhart [sic] & His Magic Band, Chocolate Watchband, The Great Pumpkin (BG 34 poster),designed and copyrighted by Wes Wilson, 1966. From a group of posters recently donated to TheHuntington by Tony Newhall. Bottom: Pinus wallichiana, more commonly known as the Himalayan pine,from Zsolt Debreczy’s Conifers Around the World. Photo by István Rácz.

Correction: An article in the fall/winter 2011–12 issue of Huntington Frontiers, “At theCrossroads” by Jennifer A. Watts, misidentified the “Round House” depicted in the photographRound House Yuma, Arizona Territory, 1880, by Carleton Watkins. Several readers pointed outthat locomotives were not rotated in the structure featured at the left of the photo but ratheron the turntable that appears at the right. The barn and turntable together comprise the“Round House.”

FROM THE EDITOR

NOW THAT WE HAVE YOUR ATTENTION

[ VOLUME 8, ISSUE 1 ]

SPRING/SUMMER 2012

FEATURES

ARE YOU VISUALLY EXPERIENCED? 16

What rock concert posters have in common with 19th-century and early 20th-century graphic artBy David H. Mihaly

BENEATH THE SURFACE 8

Preservation architect Kelly Sutherlin McLeod reflectson the restoration of the Japanese HouseBy Diana W. Thompson

DEPARTMENTS

NEWS BYTES: There’s more to the story… 4

A CLOSER LOOK: What is a Letter? 6

By Peter Stallybrass

FRESH TAKE: The evolution of Blake’s Genesis 22

By Matt Stevens

POSTSCRIPT: ConiferWatch 24

IN PRINT: Recommended reading 25

Contents

HUNTINGTON FRONTIERS 3

What’s in a Number?CONTEMPLATING THE MANY WAYS TO ADD UP A COLLECTION

[ NEWS BYTES ]

In writing his new book, The Feathery Tribe: Robert Ridgway and the ModernStudy of Birds, Huntington curator Daniel Lewis transcribed nearly 2,000 lettersfrom archives around the world, including The Huntington. Ridgway was thefirst curator of birds at The Smithsonian, where his career spanned from the 1870s to the1920s. He left a rich paper trail for Lewis, who concedes that his transcriptions might well

have streamlined his writing process, but he neverunderestimated the value of looking at the realthing. One of his favorite manuscripts, from theRidgway archive at Utah State University, is a letterfrom Ridgway to his mother that features doodlesof three postage stamps—one each with a wood-pecker, an owl, and a crow.

When it comes to looking at the real thing,you might think that the equivalent raw materialof ornithologists would be limited to birds in treesor in flight. But in fact, as Lewis explained in hisbook, Ridgway and his tribe of bird professionalsat other museums kept drawers and cabinets fullof stuffed dead birds. They relied on these “studyskins” to help them understand how particularspecies had evolved over time. Ridgway kept

300 to 400 specimens for each species so he could lay them all out in front of him toassess variations in color, beak size, or other criteria. Too many birds, and the distinctionswere lost; too few, and the sample size was inadequate to measure change over time.

The Feathery Tribe was published by Yale University Press and will soon be available on Audible.

A Manuscript in the Hand

COLLECTIONS IN MOTION

“Calendula Collection,” a video from Verso’s Videre series, shows a collectionof 176 flower specimens from The Huntington’s Shakespeare Garden. The2 ½ minute piece explores how a collection can simultaneously reveal patternswithin a particular group and distinctions between individuals. Videre, Latinfor to see, is part of In Motion,Verso’s video project that aims to bring newlight to the unique physical spaces, collections, and processes that constituteThe Huntington.

“Just as archival materials inthe aggregate—letters by thedozens, hundreds, or thou-sands—provide useful grist fora research mill, so too do birdcollections, similarly arrayed byscientists in rows of dozens oreven hundreds, reveal newthings about the world.”

—Daniel Lewis, the Dibner Senior Curatorof the History of Science, Medicine, and

Technology and the head of the manuscriptsdepartment at The Huntington

4 Spring/Summer 2012

Letter from Robert Ridgway to his mother,June 24, 1867, Special Collections andArchives, Merrill-Cazier Library, Utah StateUniversity, Caine Manuscript Collection.

Study skin of a Kioea (Chaetoptilaangustipluma), a Hawaiian bird that is nowextinct. From the department of ornithology,American Museum of Natural History.Photo by Daniel Lewis.


NOT FAR FROM THE PHYLOGENETIC TREE

In August, John Zaborsky needed to collect leaf samples from a plant indigenousto Madagascar. He had just completed his first year of graduate school inbotany at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and didn’t have the resourcesfor a trip abroad, so he did the next best thing: He flew out to Californiaand visited The Huntington.Zaborsky is working on the genus Uncarina, which is in the Pedaliaceae,

or sesame, family. There are 14 known species of Uncarina that range from thenorthern part of Madagascar to the southern part of the island nation, butThe Huntington had nine of those species in its collection, complete withfull documentation of the source and history of each plant. All he had to dowas clip the leaves. “Through chemical processes, I extract the DNA from the leaves and

then run it through different computer programs to generate a phylogeneticevolutionary tree that will show how those species are related to one another,”he explained. Zaborsky hopes to present his findings at an upcoming conferenceof the Botanical Society of America.

The Back Story

In Global Loft (Spread), artist Robert Rauschenberg usedappropriated imagery, collage, and found objects, includ-ing a set of three glue brushes, to create a compositionthat is eight feet tall and more than nine feet wide. Theimages used in the painting include photographs of theearth taken from space, a reptile cracking out of an egg,skiers making patterns in the snow, and a landscape witha windmill and grazing cattle.

“It’s actually a triptych,” says Jessica Todd Smith,Virginia Steele Scott Chief Curator of American Art atThe Huntington. “If you were to turn it over you wouldsee that there are three panels that are constructed to beput together.” The three panels—and their numerouscomponents of fabric and paint and wood—unify toform one composition.

The recent acquisition of Global Loft (Spread) by RobertRauschenberg (1925–2008) was made possible by a gift froman anonymous donor for the purchase of American art madeafter 1945 in memory of Robert Shapazian.

Verso is the newly named and redesigned blog of The Huntington.Bibliophiles know verso as the term for the back of a page or forthe left-hand page of an open book (opposite the recto). It can alsobe used to describe the reverse side of a leaf and even the back sideof a painting. As the new name for the blog,Verso might evoke thatfeeling of turning a page and finding something that you mighthave missed on first inspection.

Learn more about these stories at www.huntingtonblogs.org, whereyou can click on “News Bytes” on the right side of Verso's homepage.

Gregg Bayne, Huntingtonexhibits manager, and AlHerrmann of Cooke's Cratingprepare the painting forinstallation. Photo by LisaBlackburn.

Instructor Quinton Bemillerdiscusses the new acquisitionwith five- and six-year-old participants of the Huntington Explorers in August. Photoby Martha Benedict.

John Zaborsky with The Huntington’s Uncarina grandi-dieri. Photo by Karen Zimmerman.


Reading Between the LinesHOW TO READ A 19TH-CENTURY LETTER

by Peter Stallybrass

[ A CLOSER LOOK ]

BETWEEN 1828 AND 1832, ELIZABETH

Barrett Barrett (later Elizabeth BarrettBrowning) became increasingly infatuatedwith Hugh Stuart Boyd, a Greek scholar

and neighbor, who was her father’s age, married, with adaughter Elizabeth’s age (the “Annie” of the letter). BecauseBoyd was blind, he needed readers who were proficientin Greek, like Elizabeth, to read to him. But this meantthat all of Elizabeth’s letters to him had to be read aloudby his wife or daughter, and consequently Elizabeth couldnever fully express her feelings for him.In the spring of 1831, when this letter was written, there

were two impending catastrophes in Elizabeth’s life. First,her father had lost a considerable part of his fortune andhad decided, without explicitly telling his family, that theywould have to sell Hope End, the much beloved familyhome. But no one was fooled by the father’s silence, asthe reference to “the land surveyor” in this letter shows.Second, the Boyds’ lease on their nearby house was runningout, and they were considering moving to Hastings.Elizabeth was passionately committed to keeping Boydnearby until the Barretts’ own plans for moving were settled,when she hoped that he and his family would move to benear her family. Despite Elizabeth’s attempts at restraint,the letter here reveals much of her feelings in the details,especially in the intimate salutation. At the same time, thematerial features of the letter tell us considerably morethan is contained in the text. For example, althoughElizabeth’s mother is not mentioned, the black seal showsthat Elizabeth was still mourning her two and a half yearsafter her death. �

Peter Stallybrass is the Walter H. and Leonore C. AnnenbergProfessor in the Humanities and Professor of English and ofComparative Literature and Literary Theory at the University of Pennsylvania. He was the R. Stanton Avery DistinguishedFellow at The Huntington during the 2011 –12 academic year.

From about 1540 to 1910, letterwriters folded sheets of paper inhalf to create three smaller pagesfor writing and a fourth page forthe superscription.

The recipient owed two pence for postage. It was not until the postal reform of RowlandHill in January 1840 that the sender paid —a single penny’s postage to anywhere inEngland. Elizabeth welcomed the reform as“the most successful revolution” of her age,noting the “wonderful liberty” that it gave toher letter writing.

Elizabeth Barrett Barrett to Hugh Stuart Boyd, April 1831, HuntingtonLibrary (HM 4912).


“My dearest friend” was, as Elizabeth was fully aware, a shock-ingly intimate salutation between a man and a woman at thisdate. In the secret diary that she kept about her passionate lovefor Boyd, Elizabeth wrote, concerning a later letter to him: “Myletter to Mr. Boyd began ‘my dearest friend.’ How will hisbegin to me?”

One of the most curious features of letter writing from 1540 to1910 is that the majority of letters were written on only the firstof the four pages created by prefolding the sheet. The cram-ming of writing into the margins, frequent as it was throughoutthis period, gives the misleading impression of a lack of space.But pages 2 and 3 (on the other side) are completely blank.

Here Elizabeth’s subscription reads, “Ever affectionately yours /EBBarrett.” Much later, Elizabeth would complain about theformality of Boyd’s salutations to her, and she herself beganto write more informal subscriptions, using just her first name.

The superscription is what we would now call the address.Before envelopes became common in the 1840s, the super-scription was written on the fourth page of the prefolded sheet,which was folded again in a variety of ways before posting.

BENEATHtheSURFACE

Architect Kelly Sutherlin McLeod reflects on the restoration of the Japanese House

By Diana W. Thompson


When you set out to restore a houselike this, do you take it back to theday it was first built? Not necessarily. In preservation, theissue of “historic significance” is notmerely academic. Research helps usidentify a property’s most historicallynoteworthy period, also known as the“period of significance.” It providesthe lens through which we identifyany number of features, materials, andeven finishes that reflect and conveya property’s historic significance. Thisapproach helps us retain and protectthe relevant stories that a historicbuilding and site have to tell. With the Japanese House, we iden-

tified a 16-year period of significance:from 1911, when Huntington pur-chased and relocated the house to hisranch, until his death in 1927. Thisperiod encompasses the JapaneseHouse as Henry Huntington envi-sioned it, in the context of his JapaneseGarden. This determination helped tofocus our restoration plan on physicalfeatures dating from this period inaddition to the relationship betweenthe house and its garden setting.

And how did you and other mem-bers of the project team find outmore about that period, particularlywhen it came to a detail like the colorof the plaster, which has changedfrom brown to a charcoal-gray? We started with investigative work,including studying correspondencebetween Huntington and his superin-tendent, William Hertrich. Hertrichreported details about reassemblingthe house at the Huntington ranch,including the installation of newexterior plaster.

Q&A

When architect Kelly Sutherlin McLeod, AIA, accepted the job ofrestoring The Huntington’s Japanese House as part of a centennialrenovation of its Japanese Garden, she did so without the benefitof original plans, building specifications, or a clear history ofprevious alterations. Instead, she pored through photos, letters, and other documents

that trace the building’s history back to 1903, when antiquesdealer George T. Marsh had the house built for his commercialtea garden in Pasadena, and to 1911, when Henry E. Huntingtonbought the house from Marsh and moved it to his San Marinoranch as the focal point of his Japanese Garden. McLeod andother members of the team consulted carpenters, plasterers, his-torians, and experts on traditional Japanese architecture. Togetherthey worked to determine the historical context and significance ofthe Japanese House. They concluded the structure was composedprimarily of materials originating in Japan, and that it representeda hybrid of traditional Japanese architectural styles. As one of veryfew such buildings, it was a prime example of early 20th-centuryJapanese architecture built in California by Japanese Americancarpenters. Huntington staff members also weighed in about thestructure’s more recent history. Ultimately, however, it was the house itself that revealed the

most about its origins. As McLeod and her team began peelingaway the layers, they made a series of exciting discoveries thatprovided a blueprint for restoring the Japanese House to its early20th-century elegance.


At the start of our project the plas-ter was a multi-layered patchwork ofrepairs in various colors of brown andwhite, as well as differing textures andfinishes. An epoxy-like coating hadbeen applied in recent years to mostof the exterior plaster surfaces, whichwas peeling away in several locations,revealing underlying plaster layers. On-site investigation revealed an

underlying plaster that was dark incolor, with a smooth finish. The proj-ect team’s conservator, John Griswold,found this 1911 finish to be a porousand organic plaster more consistentwith traditional Japanese plaster, notthe cement-based plaster found inWestern construction. Unfortunatelythe nonporous coatings that had beenapplied trapped moisture, causingsevere damage to the original plaster.The deteriorated condition of theplaster led to our decision to replacenearly all of it. John’s firm (GriswoldConservation Associates, LLC) designeda multi-layered finish system usinglayers of lime mixtures over moderncementitious plaster, the exteriorplaster commonly used in construc-tion today. (For more on the use oftraditional natural plaster, see sidebar.)The new exterior plaster, with its

dramatic charcoal color, restores theoverall appearance of the plaster tothe period of significance while pro-viding a durable, cost effective, andeasy-to-maintain finish.

Research helps usidentify a property’smost historicallynoteworthy period,also known as the“period of significance.”

Opposite: Project architect Kelly Sutherlin McLeod, AIA (center), and associate Heather Donaghy Ballard(right) review restoration plans with Andrew Mitchell, the master craftsman at The Huntington. Photographby John Ellis. Above: In 1903, the Japanese House served as an antique shop on the corner of Fair Oaks Ave.and California Blvd. in Pasadena. Below: By 1914, the house had been moved to Henry E. Huntington’sSan Marino ranch as the centerpiece of his Japanese Garden. Previous spread: Celebrating its 100-yearanniversary in April 2012, the Japanese House emerges resplendent after a year-long renovation. Photographby Martha Benedict.


How did you know you were closeto finding the original color?We carefully removed small core sam-ples from different locations of theexterior walls and used them to deter-mine the original color and finish ofthe plaster from Henry Huntington’sera. We made an exciting discoveryabove the second-floor storm doors,where the exterior wall had not beentreated with heavy coatings—as hadmost of the exterior—but was cov-ered only with a layer of oil paint.Under the paint, we found originalHuntington-era plaster. We left thismaterial intact and protected underthe painted surface. We also foundunderlying layers of beige-coloredplaster above the front entry of thehouse that we determined to be orig-inal to the Marsh era. We left thismaterial intact as well. The team made yet another amaz-

ing discovery at the back of the housewhere the wood steps were badlydeteriorated. We pulled the steps awayfrom the house and found a com-pletely untouched panel of the origi-nal 1911 plaster—a perfect match tothe new plaster installed during therestoration project!

Another distinctive feature of theJapanese House is its undulating hip-and-gable wooden roof, or irimoya-zukuri. What challenges did you facein restoring this section? Historical photos show stacks of newwood roof shingles ready for installa-tion on the house after it was relocat-ed to the Huntington property. TheHuntington staff told us that the shin-gles were replaced again about 40 yearsago, with spot repairs taking placesince then. We removed the roof shin-gles with the hope that we might findsome of the original shingles, but wenever did. We enlarged the historicalphotos and analyzed them to deter-mine the original dimensions and

Our crew carefully shaped and installedindividual shingles to re-create the complexcurves at the roof hips and eaves.

Entry at the Japanese House, with distinctive Chinese-style curved gable (karahafu唐破風), after restoration.With a layer of flat brown paint removed, exquisite carvings come into view. Photograph by John Ellis.


The same material that keeps the ceiling ofRome’s Pantheon intact after nearly 2,000years now coats the exterior of The Hunting-ton’s Japanese House: lime plaster. Made fromnatural limestone that has been heated in akiln to create quicklime and then mixed withwater and other compounds, lime plaster hasbeen valued as a building material for cen-turies. Natural plasters can be found in manyolder constructions, including the Egyptianpyramids, the Great Wall of China, and asarchitect Kelly Sutherlin McLeod discovered,the Japanese House.In a November 1911 letter, Henry Hunt-

ington’s superintendent William Hertrich de-scribed the exterior finish as a “very fineJapanese plaster.” Indeed, when conservatorJohn Griswold analyzed the underlying layersof plaster, he found a substance high in organiccontent, not the hard, impermeable cement-based plaster used to recoat the JapaneseHouse over the years. These later layers wereforcing moisture to remain trapped withinthe walls.One of lime plaster’s key benefits is

breathability. Lime wicks water to the build-ing’s exterior, where it can evaporate, whileordinary Portland cement traps moisture. If acement plaster is used over a traditional limeplaster, moisture can form and literally pulldown the existing wall. “We needed to reversethe order of plaster materials on the exteriorwalls,” explained McLeod. “Although therewere no signs of mold, water infiltration wasstarting to take its toll. And yet a radical changeback to a pure lime plaster system wouldhave imposed too great a change in the in-terior environment, putting the historic ma-terials at risk.”The solution was to remove the existing

plaster and replace it with a new plaster base.Alpine Plaster, subcontractor to Valley Crest,performed that step. This was followed witha traditional lime plaster system formulatedto emulate the original appearance of thesoft, natural Japanese-style plaster.

The Staying Power of Ancient Rome

Above: The project team discusses treatment options for the plaster restoration. Clockwise fromfar right: John Griswold, principal conservator at Griswold Conservation Associates, LLC (GCA),James Polson of Alpine Plastering, Inc., Kelly Sutherlin McLeod, AIA, and Catherine Smith, alsoof GCA. Photograph by Andrew Mitchell. Below: The restored plaster shows the reveal with thefinely grained wood. Photograph by Martha Benedict.


installation pattern of the wood roof shingles and theamount each shingle extends beyond the one above it,which is called the exposure of a shingle. But the oldphotos aren’t very sharp, so that was a challenge. Then the project team had another dramatic break-

through. After taking down the wood ridge-box above theentry, we exposed the back of the ornamental concretecap and discovered a clear imprint of the original shin-gles—shape, size, and profile—molded into the mortar atthe base of the concrete cap. This discovery confirmed thatthe original shingles extended two and a half inches—half the exposure of standard Western shingle installation.The photographs from 1903 and 1911 showed com-

mon Western-style wood roof shingles. After comparingvarious options, we chose an 18-inch cedar “rebuttedand rejointed” wall shingle to simulate the original roofinstallation. Our crew carefully shaped and installed indi-vidual shingles to re-create the complex curves at theroof hips and eaves. The curved gable over the entryporch is a highly visible, character-defining feature of thehouse and was one of the most complicated areas forinstallation of shingles, but we knew restoring the originalroof design was critical to the overall impact of the project.When the roof installation was finished, after more than amonth of painstaking work, the house came back to life.

You said that the brown paint that coated much ofthe wood was not original to Henry Huntington’s time.How did you go about removing it?Most all of the exterior wood elements at the house hadbeen painted with an opaque brown paint. We learnedfrom letters between Huntington and Hertrich that theexterior wood of the house had been treated with stain.We then found the original rich brown stain finish at afew discrete locations. So we carefully removed all of thebrown paint from the sliding wood storm doors, beams,vertical posts, and trim without removing the originalstain finish or the patina of age. Our goal was not tomake the house look pristine and brand-new but ratherto have it appear a well-maintained, appropriately aged100-year-old building. The crew also removed paint from wood panels above

the storm doors, which had been thought to be replace-ment panels of contemporary plywood. They uncovereda highly figured grain pattern, the same pattern shown inphotos dating back to 1903 as well as in photos from the1950s. Atsuko Tanaka, a Japanese historian and scholar,advised the team that the panels have a very similarappearance to sugi, a wood commonly used for traditionalJapanese houses. Sugi wood, which is a Japanese cedar,

For application of this outer finish, McLeod andGriswold turned to Scott Nelson of Natural Walls, a localartisan who started his company after becoming inspired bythe traditional architecture he viewed while touring Europe.Using a natural hydraulic lime from southwestern

France, Griswold developed a formula mixing a natural,breathable plaster tinted with black oxide and a smallamount of raw umber to achieve the rich, dark charcoalcolor of the Huntington-era plaster, which was skillfullyapplied by Nelson.

A defining feature of lime plaster is that it strengthensas it cures. The heating process that creates quicklimedrives off carbon dioxide, leaving behind calcium oxide.During the curing process, lime plaster pulls carbon diox-ide from the air, returning it to a carbonized, hardenedstate. This can take anywhere from a few days to a month.The majority of the new exterior wall panels are com-posed of modern cementitious plaster with a naturalhydraulic lime finish layer and six or seven layers of limepaint (pure high-calcium hydrated lime). Nelson was extremely careful with the measurements.

“When you have that many vertical panels, it can lookuneven if you don’t get it right,” he said. “So we matchedthe thickness from panel to panel.”The newly applied plaster also reestablished an important

aesthetic, the proper reveal between the plaster and thelevel of the wood trim. “Over the years,” explained McLeod,“patching and caulking had raised the level of the plaster,reducing the reveal between wood trim and plaster.”The defined reveal between wood trim and plaster has

been returned to its original dimension—“A simpledetail with a large aesthetic impact,” said McLeod.

–DWT

Natural plasters can be foundin many older constructions,including the Egyptian pyra-mids, the Great Wall of China,and as architect Kelly SutherlinMcLeod discovered, theJapanese House.


was used for panels at the base of theoriginal shoji screens that are still inplace at the house today. So the lami-nated wood material had been delib-erately used to simulate sugi, yet anothercharacter-defining element of the house.

How would you summarize, then,what we now know about the house?At the beginning of the project, wedidn’t have a clear understanding ofthe historic integrity of the house orof its authenticity. In other words, weweren’t sure how much of the housewas original and to what extent it hadbeen altered over the years. Throughcareful investigation—accompaniedby verification from Japanese buildersand scholars who clarified the house’speriod and regional style—we were

able to confirm that the materials, de-sign elements, and construction tech-niques were in fact original andauthentic and that the house had re-mained relatively unaltered for thepast 100 years.

What are you proudest of?The successful outcome of this proj-ect, on every level. Not only has theJapanese House been returned to itsplace of honor in The Huntington’sJapanese Garden, there is also richerunderstanding and appreciation for itssignificance as a historical and culturalresource. Atsuko Tanaka, the historianI mentioned earlier, reports that theJapanese House is one of only fourstructures of its type and era remainingin the United States and that it’s the

best example of early 20th-centuryJapanese architecture in California. Itwas an honor to serve as projectarchitect on this restoration, and I lookforward to having the privilege ofsharing the house and its story withinterested audiences for many years. �

Interview conducted by DianaW. Thompson,a freelance writer based in South Pasadena,Calif. Kelly Sutherlin McLeod will con-tribute an essay to One Hundred Yearsin the Huntington’s Japanese Garden:Harmony with Nature, which will bepublished by the Huntington Library Pressin spring 2013.

Discoveries during restoration of the exterior could help guide future work on the interior, shown here cleaned but not yet restored. Photograph by John Ellis.

What rock concert posters from the 1960s have in common with

19th- and early 20th-century graphic art

By David H. Mihaly

ARE YOU VISUALLY EXPERIENCE

In 1967 The Jimi HendrixExperience recorded a songthat would become ananthem of the psychedelicera. “Are You Experienced?”

appeared as the final track on theband’s groundbreaking debut albumof the same name, its lyrics invitingthe listener to break through and gobeyond “your little world”; to journeypast limitations and explore newhorizons; to get “your mind together”and find inner peace and beauty. The“experience” Hendrix wrote aboutand translated into a symphony of dis-torted notes for electric guitar cameto define a new genre of Americanmusic called psychedelic rock. Withinnovative recording techniques andsound effects, and lyrics infused withcountercultural values, musiciansattempted to replicate, enhance, andinterpret the mind-altering experienceof psychedelic drugs. The creative impact generated by

the psychedelic era—loosely coveringthe mid-1960s to the early 1970s—manifested in other forms of popularculture, perhaps none more visually rec-ognizable than commercial art. Younggraphic designers began to push theboundaries of artistic expression andinventiveness by translating the sights,sounds, and emotions of an era intoadvertising posters for dance concerts.Sixty-two of these energetic works arenow part of The Huntington’s printsand ephemera collection. They form anexceptional foundation for building anarchive of music, graphic art, and socialhistory from the latter half of the 20thcentury, with strong connections to thecultural heritage of California.

Avibrant psychedelicrock music sceneemerged in Americain 1966 and 1967,nowhere more preva-

lent than on the West Coast, andnowhere more influential than in SanFrancisco. The city’s legacy of unin-hibited artistic creativity and culturalnonconformity blossomed in the1950s when New York writers of theoriginal Beat Generation foundthemselves together in San Francisco.A decade later, the city became anucleus for musical expression asnumerous local bands played at venues

in and around San Francisco, includ-ing neighborhood coffeehouses andfour landmarks that would becomelegendary: the original FillmoreAuditorium, the Carousel Ballroom(renamed Fillmore West in 1968), theWinterland Ballroom, and the AvalonBallroom. Among the rising talent ofhome-grown musicians were the psy-chedelic rock groups Jefferson Airplaneand the Grateful Dead. Both of thesebands headlined concerts promotedby a young music impresario namedBill Graham (1931 –1991), who wouldrevolutionize the business of concertpromotion with new standards in

Right: Graphic artist Wes Wilson designed postersfor San Francisco–based concert promoter BillGraham in the 1960s. The Huntington now hasthe first 62 posters in the Fillmore series. This photowas taken in 1966 by an unidentified photographer;reproduced courtesy of Wes Wilson.



sound, lighting, stage design, advertis-ing, and merchandising. Both bandswould also define the San Franciscosound of the 1960s with lyrics aboutpeace, love, and mind-expansion setto electronically altered music. San Francisco’s psychedelic music

scene created a sense of communityfor like-minded young people sharinga common culture. The city became ahaven for alternative dance concertsand a breeding ground for experi-mental bands, and Bill Graham saw aneed to promote both. In 1966 hebegan to advertise his productionsusing handbills and posters designedby local graphic artists. Graham dis-continued the thin, paper handbillswithin a year in favor of smaller, moredurable postcards ideal for mailing,

but he kept making posters through-out his advertising and merchandisingcampaigns. For six consecutive years—from 1966 to 1971—Graham produceda numbered series of 287 FillmoreAuditorium posters, one poster foreach event, and all numbers prefacedby his initials, BG. The posters servedas timely tools of promotion whendisplayed in Bay Area store windowsbefore each concert and then becamedesirable souvenir reminders of recentevents when offered for sale at theend of each concert or days later atlocal ticket outlets, including recordshops, bookstores, university eventcenters, and drug paraphernalia shops. The posters recently donated by

Tony Newhall are the first 62 in thenumbered series. Not only are they

the earliest examples of Bill Graham’sFillmore posters, but they also illustratea body of work created primarily bypioneering poster artist Wes Wilson(born in 1937 and featured in the photoon page 18). Wilson’s designs for BillGraham are early examples of his cre-ative brilliance and mark a commer-cially successful but turbulent rela-tionship with Graham that stopped in1967 with the production of Fillmoreposter BG 62, Grateful Dead, Paupers.Disputes over existing royalty agree-ments fueled a separation that lasted18 months before Wilson producedhis final two posters for Graham atthe end of 1968: BG 150, Santana &Grass Roots; and BG 151, Steve MillerBand, Sly and the Family Stone.

The influence of a 19th-century poster by Will H. Bradley—The Modern Poster, 1895—can be seen in Wes Wilson’s poster for a concert featuring the Byrds,Moby Grape, and Andrew Staples (BG 57, designed and copyrighted by Wes Wilson, 1967). Both posters are in The Huntington’s prints and ephemera collection.


In the context of the Library’sextensive holdings of printsand ephemera, the TonyNewhall collection is an addi-tion of major importance. As

graphic art, the collection character-izes one of the most influential eras ofCalifornia history, American musichistory, and international poster design.The collection also forms a seminalarchive of psychedelic art that illustratesthe continuum of American graphicdesign and popular culture from the19th century to the 20th. Such a linkis evident between one of the Fillmoreposters and a 19th-century posteralready in The Huntington’s collection. The Modern Poster, designed in

1895 by distinguished American illus-trator and graphic artist Will Bradley(1868–1962), advertised the identicallynamed book published by CharlesScribner’s Sons (see page 19). Theposter highlights stylistic elements ofthe Art Nouveau movement thatinfluenced European and Americandesign primarily between 1890 and1910: naturalistic forms, free-flowinglines, and whiplash curves. More than 70 years later, San Fran-

cisco poster artist Wes Wilson createdBG 57 to promote a 1967 FillmoreAuditorium concert featuring thefolk-rock band the Byrds (see page19). One inspiration behind Wilson’sgraphics of psychedelia was ArtNouveau design and, in particular, acatalog he saw for an exhibition titled“Jugendstil and Expressionism inGerman Posters,” on view at theUniversity of California, Berkeley, in1965 (at right). That publication con-tributed to Wilson’s awareness of ArtNouveau styles in central Europe,especially interpretations by a group ofAustrian artists known as the ViennaSecession, who united in 1897 to offeran alternative to the conservatism oflate 19th-century art and design inVienna. A co-founder of this move-

ment was graphic artist Alfred Roller(1864–1935). Wilson would adapt thetypeface on a 1903 Secession exhibi-tion poster designed by Roller (at right)into his own fluid style of expandedoutlines and exaggerated shapes, cre-ating the single most recognizablefeature of the psychedelic rock poster:illegible lettering that bends, twists,turns, and meanders in all directions.Bill Graham would later say that hecould not read Wilson’s lettering, towhich Wilson replied, “And that’s whypeople are gonna stop and look at it.”Other elements of Wilson’s design

vocabulary that came to define thegraphics of psychedelia include un-inhibited color mixing, undulating orpulsating patterns of stylized geometricand organic forms, and free-flowingshapes that barely seem to hold theircontents of tightly fitted text. His mas-terful manipulation of subtle, vibrant,and often electric ink hues laid downin kaleidoscopic combinations were,according to Wilson, inspired by thespecial effects of concert lightshows,but they also reflect the more daring

Wilson found inspiration in a catalog hesaw for an exhibition titled “Jugendstil &Expressionism in German Posters,” onview in Berkeley in 1965. The catalog(left) was designed by Alice P. Erskine,copyright 1965. The illegible lettering inmany of his posters echoes the typefaceon a 1903 Secession exhibition poster(above) designed by Alfred Roller.Huntington Library, Art Collections, andBotanical Gardens.

Opposite: BG 56 poster, Moby Grapewith The Chambers Brothers and TheCharlatans, designed and copyrighted byWes Wilson, 1967.

and arresting color palettes applied bygraphic artists from earlier periods of20th-century design, including Frenchpochoir (meaning “stencil”) prints ofthe 1920s and commercial postersfrom the 1940s and 1950s executed influorescent inks. Clearly, Wilson’sinspirations go beyond his personalexperiences with the psychedelic eraand, in so doing, reveal the range ofhis creative awareness and the influ-ences that helped to fashion it.

The Tony Newhallcollection of rockconcert posters wasformed out of pureenjoyment of the

music, the art, and the social experi-ence of 1960s San Francisco, and theearly years of the psychedelic era. Thecollection was not consciously assem-bled to preserve a fleeting moment ofCalifornia culture or to document theearly works of a gifted poster artist.Instead, individual items came togetherfortuitously, either by the collector’sactive participation in events as theyhappened, or by his association withrecent events through souvenir re-minders of their ephemeral existence.But the role played by serendipity inassembling collections exists in similarform in a collection like The Hunt-ington’s. When seemingly disparateobjects are melded into one extraor-dinary “collection of collections,” theyoften create unexpected but resonantconnections that place them into histor-ical context and increase our apprecia-tion for the study of the humanities.�

David H. Mihaly is the Jay T. Last Curatorof Graphic Arts and Social History at The Huntington.

Come Together

Tony Newhall just happened to be in San Francisco when the psychedelic rockmusic scene was emerging in 1966 and 1967. He had just returned toCalifornia from a two-year volunteer mission in Peru with the Peace Corps anddecided to pursue a graduate degree in business administration at StanfordUniversity. As a diversion from his studies, Tony frequented music venues inthe city, including the Fillmore Auditorium.

He acquired his first posters while attending concerts at the Fillmore, thenserendipitously received about 20 more directly from Bill Graham when heinterviewed the San Francisco –based promoter for a business school project.Tony supplemented his growing collection with occasional purchases fromvarious vendors around the Bay Area, eventually obtaining 60 Fillmore concertposters during his graduate school days. Tony originally intended to plasterthem on his college room walls, but his appreciation for the posters as superbexamples of psychedelic graphic design caused a change of heart and he keptthem free of pins, thumbtacks, or tape.

When Tony donated his collection in 2010, he learned about two gaps in theseries: BG 19, The Beard by Michael McClure (a play performed by theAmerican Theatre); and BG 59, Howlin’ Wolf and Country Joe & the Fish.Newhall immediately set out to complete the sequence that he unintentionallystarted decades ago and purchased both ”missing” posters for The Huntington.“My donation didn’t seem complete without these two,” Newhall said.


The Evolution of William Blake’s GenesisA PAIR OF SCHOLARS BRINGS SOME CLOSURE TO A PROJECT THAT HAD TWO BEGINNINGS

by Matt Stevens

[ FRESH TAKE ]

LATE IN HIS LIFE, WILLIAM BLAKE BEGAN

work on a version of Genesis that, like manyof his works, would be a composite of text andillustration. Motivated both by the request of

John Linnell, Blake’s longtime patron, and his own fasci-nation with biblical interpretation, the poet and artistundertook to transcribe and illustrate the first book ofthe Bible but completed only 11 pages of it before hisdeath in 1827. That incomplete manuscript is at TheHuntington, along with a diverse collection of Blakematerials, such as Songs of Innocence and of Experience; manyof his letters; watercolors illustrating John Milton’s poetry,including Paradise Lost; three books annotated in Blake’sown hand; and the only known copy of his first illumi-nated book, All Religions Are One.The Blake collection at The Huntington straddles the

art and library holdings, equal parts visual wonder andtextual marvel. In 1974, Robert Wark, then director ofthe Huntington’s art collections, wrote an introductoryessay for a planned facsimile edition of Genesis to bepublished by the American Blake Foundation. Due to thevagaries of publishing budgets, the project never made itbeyond the production of two preliminary proofs. Now a full generation after Wark wrote that essay (he

died in 2007), and nearly two centuries since Blake beganhis Genesis, the two works appear side by side in a newvolume with annotations and an extensive commentaryby Mark Crosby and Robert N. Essick. Genesis: WilliamBlake’s Last Illuminated Work was published by theHuntington Library Press in March 2012, with a forewordby John Murdoch, former Hannah and Russel KullyDirector of Art Collections at The Huntington.Essick is one of the world’s leading authorities on

Blake. Among his books are William Blake, Printmaker ;William Blake’s Commercial Book Illustrations; and WilliamBlake at the Huntington. He is also coeditor of the onlineBlake Archive, www.blakearchive.org, and an active col-lector of Blake and his circle. His roles as scholar andBlake collector converged fortuitously with this project,

first in 1974, when he read an early version ofWark’s essay before its submission to theAmerican Blake Foundation, and then again,in 2009, when Essick the collector couldn’tpass up the opportunity to purchase one ofthose two press proofs that had foundtheir way onto the rare book market. Soon after, Essick showed the Wark

volume to Mark Crosby, and the pairquickly found themselves collaboratingon a textual and interpretive essay.Crosby completed his doctorate atOxford in 2008 and this fall begins anew position as assistant professor ofEnglish at Kansas State Universityafter most recently holding aLeverhulme Early CareerFellowship at Queen’s Univer-sity, Belfast, and a MellonFoundation Fellowship at The Huntington.“Mark wrote the first

draft of the commentary, andI went through it as a kindof editor,” said Essick, whopraised Crosby for hisexpertise on the subject ofpatronage. The essay considers Linnell’scontributions as Blake’s patron, the ways Blakeread Genesis, and the iconography of his designs and theirrelation to his earlier works. Literary scholars, particularly students of Blake, have to

be versatile. Crosby took a master’s degree in visual artsspecifically to give him more authority to assess Blake theartist. Crosby also had to become, in his own words, anamateur biblical scholar, dabbling in Hebrew along theway. Crosby and Essick’s essay places Blake within thetradition of competing interpretations of Genesis; in theprocess they show Blake’s own conflicting views. “We

trace a kind of narrative arc that Blake went throughdating back to his seven-year apprenticeship in the1770s,” says Crosby.

Although his final project was incomplete, with onlya faint pencil drawing on the last page of the Genesismanuscript, Blake had arrived at a clear view of God. His manuscript ends with a scene from chapter 4, verse 15,when “the Lord set a mark upon Cains [sic] forehead”—butthe mark takes the form of a gentle kiss from God. In Blake’stheology, according to Crosby and Essick, “the Old Testamentlawgiver becomes a forgiving deity who practices reconciliationas the true form of atonement.”�

Matt Stevens is editor of Huntington Frontiers.

Left: One of two title pages from Blake’s Genesis manuscript. Below: Robert Essick and Mark Crosby enjoy a break from their research. Essick is an Overseer Emeritus at The Huntington, and Crosby recently completed a Mellon Foundation Fellowship. Photo byMartha Benedict.


ConiferWatchZSOLT DEBRECZY COMPLETES THE BOOK ON CONIFERS

[ POSTSCRIPT ]

Musial. “I first met Zsolt in 1996 after I joined EarthWatchand signed up for one of his research trips to Chile,” recalledMusial at the event. Botanists like Debreczy rely on manycollaborators, most of them volunteers, who, like Musial,find ways to combine their love of travel with theirinterests in nature. Musial eventually joined Debreczy ontrips to Taiwan and Japan and organized additional field-work in New Zealand and Australia. “No other publication on conifers to date depicts them

in photographs from natural habitats in a standardized,consistent format,” says Musial. “Many recent publicationsare about growing conifers; Zsolt’s book is about conifersas they occur in the wild.”

Not one to rest on his laurels (or Laurus nobilis),Debreczy is still at work on his othermagnum opus, begun back in 1971—the Dendrological Atlas, a 14-volume sur-vey of all the woody flora of the tem-perate and adjacent regions of the world.Though a publication date has yet to bedetermined, Debreczy is now returninghis attention to the project and planningthe publication of the first four volumes,on the gymnosperms.

For more information aboutConifers Around the World, visitwww.dendropress.com and conifers-aroundtheworld.com.�

CONIFERS TAKE A LONG TIME TO GROW.

So, too, do books about them. In the Fall/Winter 2005 issue of Huntington Frontierswe wrote about Zsolt Debreczy’s quest to

document all of the conifers of the world’s temperate zones,a goal that sent him to the woods of Europe, China, Taiwan,Japan, North America, Chile, the Caribbean, New Zealand,and Tasmania. It also sent him to The Huntington to con-sult with Kathy Musial, curator of living collections, whoserved as primary editor for the project.At the time we published that article, “Seeing the Forest

and the Trees,” Debreczy was 15 years into his project. Sixyears later, in late 2011, he finally published Conifers Aroundthe World, an impressive tome that includes 3,700 gloriousfull-color photographs by fellow Hungarian István Ráczand documents 541 species, subspecies, and varieties oftemperate-zone conifers in two volumes published byDendroPress. Earlier this year Debreczy came to The Huntington to

deliver a lecture about his travels, sharing the dais with

Kathy Musial, The Huntington’s curator of living collec-tions, with Zsolt Debreczy. Photo by Lisa Blackburn.

In PrintA SAMPLING OF BOOKS BASED ON RESEARCHIN THE COLLECTIONS

NO NAILS, NO LUMBER: THE BUBBLE HOUSES

OF WALLACE NEFF

Jeffrey HeadPrinceton Architectural Press, 2012

Architect Wallace Neff (1895–1982) is bestknown for his elegant Spanish Colonial–revival estates inSouthern California, but he had a private passion for dome-shaped “bubble houses” made of reinforced concrete cast inposition over an inflatable balloon. In No Nails, No Lumber,author Jeffrey Head makes extensive use of The Huntington’sNeff archive to show the beauty and versatility of Neff ’sdesign. The book includes new and vintage photography,previously unpublished illustrations, and archival materialand ephemera.

HERBERT EUGENE BOLTON: HISTORIAN OF

THE AMERICAN BORDERLANDS

Albert L. HurtadoUniversity of California Press, 2012

Herbert E. Bolton (1870–1953) was aleading historian of the American West,Mexico, and Latin America. He also was

a student of Frederick Jackson Turner, The Huntington’sfirst research director, who catapulted to early fame in the1890s after developing his so-called Frontier Thesis—published as “The Significance of the Frontier in AmericanHistory.” Albert Hurtado explains how Bolton formulatedhis own geographical concept—that of the borderlands—which has since become a foundation of modern historicalstudies of the American West.

THE CHINATOWN WAR: CHINESE

LOS ANGELES AND THE MASSACRE OF 1871

Scott ZeschOxford University Press, 2012

In October 1871, a simmering, small-scaleturf war involving three Chinese gangsexploded into a riot that engulfed the small

but growing town of Los Angeles. An angry mob of whiteAngelenos, spurred by racial resentment, rampaged throughthe city and lynched some 18 people before order wasrestored. Zesch, who intensively studied the Los Angelescourt records housed at The Huntington, offers a com-pelling account of this little-known event, which ranksamong the worst hate crimes in American history.

WRITING CLUBCatherine Molineux and Anne Stiles each spent the2009–10 academic year at The Huntington on BarbaraThom Postdoctoral Fellowships, which W. M. KeckFoundation Director of Research, Steve Hindle, callsthe “single most important category in the entireHuntington fellowship program” because it gives earlycareer scholars—who have not yet published and havenot yet secured tenure—the luxury of time and resourcesto turn their dissertations into books. This year, Molineuxand Stiles have delivered on their promise, each pub-lishing a new book less than two years after the com-pletion of their fellowships: Faces of Perfect Ebony:Encountering Atlantic Slavery in Imperial Britain byMolineux (Harvard University Press); and Popular Fictionand Brain Science in the Late Nineteenth Century by Stiles(Cambridge University Press). This fall, The Huntingtonwill welcome three Thom Fellows to the research program.

HAPPY ENDINGSTwo new books tackle grim subjects but end well, since the papers of both authors are housed at The Huntington. In To ForgiveDesign: Understanding Failure, Henry Petroski uses plane crashes and other technological disasters to explore what failure meansfor designers and engineers. Petroski, a professor of civil engineering and history at Duke University, has written widely about theinnovations of engineering and in this book explores how the failure to imagine the possibility of failure might be the most profoundmistake an engineer can make.

Hilary Mantel has followed up her 2009 Man Booker Prize–winning novel Wolf Hall with a sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, which ison the shortlist for the 2012 Man Booker Prize. (The winner will be announced on Oct. 16.) It follows the role played by ThomasCromwell in the trial and execution of Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn. Although fiction, Mantel’s two novels are based onmeticulous research, and she has dedicated both of the books in what eventually will be a trilogy to Mary Robertson, The Huntington’sWilliam A. Moffett Curator of English Historical Manuscripts, who wrote her doctoral dissertation on Cromwell and has maintaineda long and fruitful correspondence with Mantel.

On the CoverIn the 1960s, graphic artist Wes Wilson designed dozens of postersfor rock concert promoter Bill Graham, who staged events atthe Fillmore Auditorium and other venues in and around SanFrancisco. In this issue, David Mihaly, the Jay T. Last Curator ofGraphic Arts and Social History at The Huntington, describes agroup of 62 posters that came to The Huntington recently as a giftfrom collector Tony Newhall. While they are marvelous keepsakesof the psychedelic era, the posters also occupy an importantplace in graphic history—a history that dates all the way back tothe 19th century.

Otis Rush & His Chicago Blues Band, Grateful Dead, The Canned Heat BluesBand (BG 56 poster), designed and copyrighted by Wes Wilson, 1967.

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