• Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 124: Henri Courvoisier-Voisin, et alia, [Recueil de Vues de Paris et ses Environs], depicting precursors of the modern roller coaster, Paris, [1814-1819?]. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 148: Pablo Picasso & Fernando de Rojas, La Célestine, First Edition, Paris, 1971. $30,000 to $40,000.
    Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 201: Omar Khayyam & Edward Fitzgerald, Rubaiyat, William Bell Scott's copy of the First Edition, London, 1859. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 223: Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, First Edition, extra-illustrated with hand-colored plates by Palinthorpe, London, 1861. $7,000 to $9,000.
    Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 248: L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, First Edition, inscribed by the illustrator, Chicago & New York, 1900. $20,000 to $30,000.
    Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 305: Tycho Brahe & Pierre Gassendi, Tychonis Brahei Vita, Paris, 1654. From the Collection of Owen Gingerich. $8,000 to $12,000.
    Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 338: Giovanni Battista Riccioli, Almagestum Novum, two folio volumes, Bologna, 1651. From the Collection of Owen Gingerich. $8,000 to $10,000.
    Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 350: Tobias Cohn, Ma'aseh Toviyyah, first edition, Venice, 1707-8. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Swann, Apr. 22: Lot 359: Alan Turing, Computing, Machinery, and Intelligence, first edition, Edinburgh, 1950. $3,000 to $5,000.
  • Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: The Shem Tov Bible, 1312 | A Masterpiece from the Golden Age of Spain. Sold: 6,960,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Ten Commandments Tablet, 300-800 CE | One of humanity's earliest and most enduring moral codes. Sold: 5,040,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: William Blake | Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Sold: 4,320,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: The Declaration of Independence | The Holt printing, the only copy in private hands. Sold: 3,360,000 USD
    Sotheby's
    Sell Your Fine Books & Manuscripts
    Sotheby’s: Thomas Taylor | The original cover art for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sold: 1,920,000 USD
    Sotheby’s: Machiavelli | Il Principe, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began. Sold: 576,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Leonardo da Vinci | Trattato della pittura, ca. 1639, a very fine pre-publication manuscript. Sold: 381,000 GBP
    Sotheby’s: Henri Matisse | Jazz, Paris 1947, the complete portfolio. Sold: 312,000 EUR
  • Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: BELLEFOREST (François de). La cosmographie universelle de tout le monde. €12,000 to €15,000.
    Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: DESNOS (Louis Charles). Mappe-monde, ou Carte Generale de la Terre. €5,000 to €6,000.
    Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: BLAEU (Willem Janszoon & Joan). Theatrum Sabaudiae. €18,000 to €20,000.
    Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: LINASSI. Ferdinando Ie Maria Anna Carolina nel Litorale in Settembre 1844. €4,000 to €5,000.
    Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: AMBROSOLI (Francesco). Monumento a Francesco Primo in Vienna. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: Plano de la plaza de Mesina y de su ciudadel y castiglios. €5,000 to €6,000.
    Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: ROCKSTUHL (Alois Gustav), GILLE (Florent A.). 78 Lithographies du Musée de Tzarskoe-Selo. €1,000 to €1,500.
    Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: Chtchedrovski, Ignatiy Stepanovitch. €2,000 to €3,000.
    Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: DE BRUYN (Cornelis). Voyage au Levant. €3,000 to €5,000.
    Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: ABI ISHAQ AHMAD B. IBRAHIM AL-THAʿLABI (M. 1035) : TROISIÈME VOLUME DU KASHF WA-L-BAYAN ʻAN TAFSIRI AL-QURʼAN. €3,000 to €5,000.
    Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: DESNOS (Louis Charles). L’Afrique. €3,000 to €4,000.
    Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: DE BRUYN (Cornelis). Voyages de Corneille Le Brun par la Moscovie, en Perse, et aux Indes orientales. €1,500 to €2,000.
    Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: DESNOS. (Louis Charles). Amérique septentrionale et Méridionale. €4,000 to €5,000.
    Gros & Delettrez, Apr. 23: ÉLIOT (J.B.) ; MONDHARE (Louis Joseph). Carte du théatre de la guerre actuel entre les anglais et les treize Colonies Unies de l'Amérique Septentrionale. €5,000 to €6,000.
  • Old World Auctions (April 23):
    Lot 748. Second volume of Blaeu's atlas featuring 89 maps of the Americas and Asia (1642) Est. $12,000 - $15,000
    Old World Auctions (April 23):
    Lot 12. A world map with popular cartographic myths and unique embellishments (1788) Est. $3,000 - $3,750
    Old World Auctions (April 23):
    Lot 30. One of the most sought-after charts from Cellarius' work (1708) Est. $1,200 - $1,500
    Old World Auctions (April 23):
    Lot 38. Anti-Vietnam War persuasive cartography on a velvet poster (1971) Est. $350 - $425
    Old World Auctions (April 23):
    Lot 43. Ortelius' influential map of the New World - second plate (1584) Est. $4,750 - $6,000
    Old World Auctions (April 23):
    Lot 95. Scarce German map illustrating the French & Indian War (1755) Est. $8,000 - $9,500
    Old World Auctions (April 23):
    Lot 149. Bachmann's dramatic view of the Mid-Atlantic region (1864) Est. $1,200 - $1,500
    Old World Auctions (April 23):
    Lot 373. De Jode's very rare map of Europe with costumed figures (1593) Est. $6,000 - $7,500
    Old World Auctions (April 23):
    Lot 674. De Bry's Petits Voyages, Part VII with all plates and map of Sri Lanka (1606) Est. $1,400 - $1,700
    Old World Auctions (April 23):
    Lot 704. The first printed map devoted to the Pacific in full contemporary color (1589) Est. $7,500 - $9,000
    Old World Auctions (April 23):
    Lot 734. Superb hand-colored image of the Tree of Jesse (1502) Est. $700 - $850

Rare Book Monthly

Articles - March - 2021 Issue

Small Museum in Asheville, N.C. Meets The Challenges of the Pandemic

Carissa Pfeiffer, Development Manager, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center in Asheville, NC masks up and keeps her distance as she navigates the complexities of operating an arts facility during a global pandemic.

Carissa Pfeiffer, Development Manager, Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center in Asheville, NC masks up and keeps her distance as she navigates the complexities of operating an arts facility during a global pandemic.

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center carries on in difficult times

 

Black Mountain College was a famous experimental college founded in 1933. Many of the school's faculty and students would go on to become highly influential figures in American arts, including Josef and Anni Albers, Walter Gropius, Robert Rauschenberg, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Buckminster Fuller and Willem de Kooning plus a host of other high profile luminaries. Though the college closed in 1957, its history and spirit are preserved by the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center in Asheville, NC. (BMCM+AC)

 

In a lengthy email Carissa Pfeiffer, Development Manager described how the small but mighty organization is facing the challenges of the pandemic.

 

A benefit of being on the small side,” she wrote, “is flexibility. When we ended in-person visits on March 15th, our staff of four immediately leapt into action reimagining how we could continue to bring meaningful experiences and opportunities for education to our audience, with three of us working from home and the fourth, our program director, remaining in the museum to photograph objects.

 

By the 22nd, we had managed to launch a Wordpress-based online version of the exhibition that had just opened in late January, Question Everything! The Women of Black Mountain College, a digital resource that includes many of the objects, oral histories, and biographies included in the exhibition.

 

A few days later our Museum from Home page was up, providing links to this and other digital resources, recordings of past performances and lectures, podcasts, the online journal, and social media.

 

We continued to support artists, curators, and scholars by inviting them to present their work in a variety of ways—from Instagram takeovers to discussions over Zoom. Shifting things online also offered an opportunity to consider a new model for our Active Archive artist and curator residencies.

 

In the summer, Leap Then Look (a UK-based creative duo consisting of the artists Bill Leslie and Lucy Cran) completed a ten-day residency that included workshops over Zoom and creative prompts on Instagram, inviting the public to engage with the themes of process, experience, and material exploration.

 

Since mid-September, we have been open to the public again, though we now require appointments, restrict our capacity, and mandate masks and distancing.

 

Our exhibition on the women of Black Mountain College was cut short, so we made the decision to extend it in an abbreviated format and to add two new exhibitions, one featuring recent gifts to our collection and one about Jonathan Williams and the network of friends and collaborators associated with his small press the Jargon Society. Because these exhibitions were curated by our staff and mostly include works from our own collections, we’re able to conserve funding that would otherwise be spent on things like travel and artwork shipping.”

 

Asked about how it all started she explained: “The museum and arts center began in 1993 as a grassroots effort directed by Mary Holden. Since its very early days, it has been organizing exhibitions, publishing books, and acquiring items for its permanent collection—even though it had no dedicated public space for the museum to exhibit until 2003.

 

Collaboration was absolutely essential from the beginning. Fellow local organizations provided the space to host exhibitions and house collections. In 2016 the Board hired Executive Director Jeff Arnal, and in September 2018 we were able to move into our current home: a newly renovated 6,000 square foot space that provides room to exhibit, host events, and house collections all under the same roof….

 

Acquisitions are mostly acquired as gifts from college alumni, family members, and through the museum’s growing network of relationships with collectors and friends of alumni. The collection has grown to encompass more than 4,000 objects. This includes works created at BMC while it existed—but it also goes beyond that. An underlying principle of our collecting policy is not to freeze alumni or faculty in time..., but to provide a full view of their contributions over the years and of the lasting influence of BMC as a community. 

 

Highlights of the collection include:

 

  • Works by potters M.C. Richards, Peter Voulkos, and Karen Karnes, created at Black Mountain College

  • A collection of family letters written by Alma Stone Williams, the first African American student to attend Black Mountain College in 1944 (ten years before the Supreme Court ruling on Brown v. Board of Education), which shed light on an important milestone in the history of integration in the Jim Crow South

  • A loom from the Weaving Workshop that provides a direct connection to Anni Albers’s teaching and artistic practice at Black Mountain College

  

In addition, there are textiles, furniture, paintings, photographs, and broadsides made at the college.

  

Oral histories are also a particular strength, with over 60 created since recording began in 1999, and several dozen more donated. The museum also holds custody and responsibility for the Hazel Larsen Archer Estate, which includes some of the most iconic photographs from BMC, as well as the only extant moving image films created there by Archer and her students.

 

The collection is made available to the public primarily through exhibitions,” she continued.

 

As part of the current exhibition on the women of BMC, for instance, we commissioned a piece for percussion and modular synthesizer by Bana Haffar, which was performed in February by the Grammy-winning Chicago-based percussion ensemble Third Coast Percussion. Haffar used the resources in our research library to conduct research for her work, Shed, which had a graphic musical score inspired by the weaving notation of BMC weaving instructor Anni Albers. Before the premiere performance, Haffar also led a community workshop explaining the process behind the composition and inviting participants to actively engage with the score.

 

The museum has also published more than 30 print exhibition catalogues (most recently VanDerBeek + VanDerBeek) and 11 volumes of a peer-reviewed open-access digital journal, The Journal of Black Mountain College Studies. The museum’s print publications are available to purchase in our bookstore, along with books about BMC by other publishers, and a selection of publications by the Jargon Society, the influential small press founded by BMC alumnus Jonathan Williams in 1951.

  

These books and many more are also available to the public through our research library. Visitors to the museum can browse our general stacks in person, and/or ask us to pull materials for them. Books in our special collections must be requested in advance. These include publications of the Jargon Society, rare exhibition catalogues, artists’ books, serials relating to the Black Mountain Poets, and—the most popularly requested item—a first edition of Josef Albers’ 1963 Interaction of Color. We work with researchers to provide resources whenever possible, whether by having them here in person or (more frequently, especially these days) by sharing digital scans/photographs.

 

When we first started cancelling events, we didn’t know how long the pandemic would last. (Did anyone?) But we’re open now, with a limited capacity and by appointment only. Plans for in-person events continue to be hard to predict, especially for major events (like the planned Faith in Arts Institute and our annual conference) since decisions will have to be made in consideration of public health recommendations.

 

What we do know is that we will continue to offer online events, which have been such a great way not only to stay connected with our local audiences, but also to expand that community to include others around the globe. We’re also preparing for the possibility of hybrid events, which might be able to accommodate a limited in-person audience but provide opportunities to engage more participants virtually as well.

 

With our planned guest-curated exhibitions on John Cage and Leo Amino postponed, we’ve also been putting together staff-curated exhibitions that draw more from our own permanent collection and local collections (such as the wonderful Western Regional Archives, a division of the State Archives of North Carolina) to present exhibitions that are meaningful and information-rich, but also require fewer financial resources than exhibitions that draw heavily from loaned works.

 

We are also prioritizing connections with contemporary artists in the BMC legacy with loans, commissions, and programs and collaborating with local organizations like the Campaign for Southern Equality’s Southern Equality Studios.

 

Looking ahead to this spring, we plan to open a new exhibition with a focus on global citizenship, grounded in the college’s international influences, robust immigrant community, and principles of democratic responsibility. The exhibition will pair works from our collection alongside works by contemporary artists. It will be curated by BMCM+AC Program Director Alice Sebrell and Outreach Manager Kate Averett, who also curated Question Everything! The Women of Black Mountain College.

 

As for the money to stay afloat?

 

BMCM+AC does not have an endowment, instead relying on the generosity of individual donors, private foundations, and government sources. This year, we were so lucky that many of our core supporters recognized the need for additional operating support to cover the cost of rent, utilities, insurance, and staff salaries, especially while we were completely closed.

 

Out of consideration for the fact that individuals, too, are struggling, we made the decision early on that we would delay appeals to individual donors, offer all of our online programs at no cost to the public, and extend membership expirations for the length of our closure.

 

Instead, we focused on reaching out to foundation support and submitting applications for emergency funding from government sources. We were lucky to receive emergency funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Windgate Foundation, and others which together enabled us to retain our entire staff and reopen safely.

 

Although we didn’t primarily focus fundraising efforts on individual giving while we were closed, it has been wonderful to see how many of our individual donors were incredibly generous, increasing donations from previous years even if it was just from $15 to $20. We actually reached a record for donor retention from 2019 to 2020, meaning that even without being able to visit us in person for half the year, our supporters stuck with us. We’re still experiencing and anticipating reduced revenue in 2021, so I hope that our funders both large and small will continue to respond to the need for support. 

 

Another revenue stream that typically provides us with a small portion of operating support is our bookstore, through which we sell our own museum publications, other books relating to BMC, and select publications of the Jargon Society, the influential small press founded by BMC alumnus Jonathan Williams in 1951. One hundred percent of the proceeds from the bookstore support the museum. We’ve begun trying to expand the bookstore’s reach by sharing more about these publications on Instagram and listing offerings not only on our web store but also on Biblio.com, which is also based here in Asheville, so that our books are more easily discoverable.”

 

Reach

 

Carissa Pfeiffer 

 

Development Manager

 

Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center

 

Asheville, NC 28801

 

carissa@blackmountaincollege.org

 

828-350-8484

 

www.blackmountaincollege.org

 



 

Links:

 

Journal Article - A Small But Mighty Museum www.jstor.org/stable/45124309?seq=1

 

Rare Book Monthly

  • Jeschke Jádi
    Rare Book Auction 155
    Saturday April 26, 2025
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 962. Baird. United States Exploring Expedition. Philadelphia 1858.
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 772. Edith Holland Norton. Brazilian Flowers. Coombe Croft 1893.
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 49. Petrarca. Das Gluecksbuch, Augsburg 1536.
    Jeschke Jádi
    Rare Book Auction 155
    Saturday April 26, 2025
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 1496. Jacob / Picasso. Chronique des Temps, 1956.
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 8. Augustinus. De moribus ecclesie. Cologne 1480.
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 17. Heures a lusaige de Noyon. Paris 1504.
    Jeschke Jádi
    Rare Book Auction 155
    Saturday April 26, 2025
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 13. Schedel. Buch der Chronicken. Nürnberg 1493.
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 957. Donovan. Insects of China. London 1798.
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 123. A holy martyr. Tuscany, Florence, mid-14th century.
    Jeschke Jádi
    Rare Book Auction 155
    Saturday April 26, 2025
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 438. Dante. La Divine Comédie. Paris 1963.
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 602. Firdausi. Histoire de Minoutchehr. Paris 1919
    Jeschke Jádi, Apr. 26: Lot 994. Westwood. Oriental Entomology. London 1848.
  • University Archives
    Rare Autographs, Books & Photos; Abraham Lincoln Collection
    April 23, 2025
    University Archives, Apr. 23: Best Image of Abraham Lincoln: "Closest… to ‘seeing' Lincoln… A National Treasure" Original Hesler/Ayres Interpositive. $800,000 to $1,000,000.
    University Archives, Apr. 23: Einstein, 3pp of Unified Field Theory Equations: “I want to try to show that a truly natural choice for field equations exists.” Formalizing His Final Approach, Association to Theory of Relativity. $80,000 to $120,000.
    University Archives, Apr. 23: Marilyn Monroe's Best Personally Owned & Annotated Script for Unfinished Last Film, "Something's Got to Give" (1962). $75,000 to $100,000.
    University Archives
    Rare Autographs, Books & Photos; Abraham Lincoln Collection
    April 23, 2025
    University Archives, Apr. 23: David Ben-Gurion ALS: "The Jewish people have attained the epitome...the State of Israel is born," 1 Day After Signing Israeli Declaration of Independence, Best Ben-Gurion Ever! $80,000 to $100,000.
    University Archives, Apr. 23: Lincoln ALS to Youth: "A young man, before the enemy has learned to watch him...votes... shall redeem the county" Evocative of Famous "Work" Letter. $70,000 to $100,000.
    University Archives, Apr. 23: Lincoln Appointment for Cabinet Member With Largest, Boldest, Full Signature! Important Content: Detente with England. $10,000 to $15,000.
    University Archives
    Rare Autographs, Books & Photos; Abraham Lincoln Collection
    April 23, 2025
    University Archives, Apr. 23: Abraham Lincoln Rare Signed Check To Law Partner W.H. Herndon, Perhaps Unique as Such! $20,000 to $25,000
    University Archives, Apr. 23: Tokyo War Crimes Files of Prosecuting Attorney For POW Camp Atrocities, 500+ Pages, Unpublished Court Documents, Photos and More. $25,000 to $35,000.
    University Archives, Apr. 23: 1698 South Carolina Slavery Archive Huguenot Planters Earliest Rare Plat Maps for Plantations 41 Docs 107 pp. Most Colonial. $25,000 to $35,000.
    University Archives
    Rare Autographs, Books & Photos; Abraham Lincoln Collection
    April 23, 2025
    University Archives, Apr. 23: Adam Smith ALS While Revising “The Wealth of Nations” - A New Discovery Documenting Meeting with Influential Editor. $18,000 to $24,000.
    University Archives, Apr. 23: Margaret Mitchell Rare ALS to Her Editor as Epic Film "Gone With the Wind" Gains Heat "Forgive this scrawl. I haven't written a letter in long hand in years and I've almost forgotten how it's done." $3,000 to $4,000.
    University Archives, Apr. 23: Einstein 1935 TLS, Hopes to Warn Non-Jews of "The true nature of the Hitler regime.” $8,500 to $10,000.
  • Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: ANDERSEN'S EXTREMELY RARE FIRST APPEARANCE IN PRINT. "Scene af: Røverne i Vissenberg i Fyen." in Harpen, 1822.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: FIRST ISSUE OF THE FIRST THREE FAIRY TALE PAMPHLETS, WITH ALL INDICES AND TITLE PAGES. Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. 1835-1837.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: THE FIRST FAIRY TALES WITH A SIGNED CARTE DE VISITE OF ANDERSEN AS FRONTIS. Eventyr, fortalte for Børn. 1835-1837.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: KARL LAGERFELD. Original pastel and ink drawing in gold, red and black for Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes (1992), "La cassette de l'Empereur."
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: PRESENTATION COPY OF THE SIXTH PAMPHLET FOR PETER KOCH. Eventyr, Fortalte For Børn, Second Series, Third Pamphlet. 1841. Publisher's wrappers, complete with all pre- and post-matter.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN RARE AUTOGRAPH QUOTATION SIGNED IN ENGLISH from "The Ugly Duckling," c.1860s.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: HEINRICH LEFLER, ORIGINAL WATERCOLOR FOR ANDERSEN'S SNOW QUEEN, "Die Schneekönigin," 1910.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: FIRST EDITION OF ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES IN ENGLISH. Wonderful Stories for Children. London, 1846.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: ANDERSEN ON MEETING CHARLES DICKENS. Autograph Letter Signed ("H.C. Andersen") in English to William Jerdan, July 20, 1847.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: PRESENTATION COPY FOR EDGAR COLLIN. Nye Eventyr og Historier. Anden Raekke. 1861.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: DOLL HOUSE FURNITURE BY HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSON, DECORATED WITH FANTASTICAL CUT-OUTS, for the children of Jonna Stampe (née Drewsen), his godchildren.
    Bonhams, Apr. 21-29: PRESENTATION COPY FOR GEORG BRANDES. Dryaden. Et Eventyr fra Udstillingstiden i Paris 1867. 1868.

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