• Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
  • 19th Century Shop
    Catalogue 198 just published
    19th Century Shop. Darwin and Wallace, first printing of the first paper on natural selection
    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas
  • Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.

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.

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

  • Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Alken (Henry). Sporting Notions, first edition, T.McLean, 1832-33. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Bardi (Lorenzo). Nuova Raccolta delle piu interessanti Vedute della Citta di Firenze…, Florence, Lorenzo Bardi, [c.1840]. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Crawfurd (John). Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava..., first edition, 1829. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Dawe (George, engraver). The Life of a Nobleman, first edition, Geo. Henderson, [c.1825]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: [Doyle (John)], "H.B.". Political Sketches &c., 10 vol. including The Descriptive Key to H.B., Thomas McLean, [1829-51]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Eben (Adolphus Christian Frederick, Baron von) and Nicolaus Heideloff. Modèles de l'Uniforme Militaire Adopté dans l'Armée Royale de Suède, Rudolph Ackerman, 1808. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Geissler (J.G.G.) and Friedrich Hempel. Mahlerische Darstellungen der Sitten, Gebrauche und Lustbarkeiten bey den Russischen, Tartarischen…, 4 parts in 1, Leipzig and Paris, [1804]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Hunt (Charles). Portraits of Winning Horses...of the Derby, Oaks, & St. Leger, from the Year 1842 to 1849…, Rock Brothers & Payne, 1849. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Kunike (Adolf Friedrich). Zwey hundert und sechzig Donau-Ansichten nach dem Laufe des Donaustromes…, Vienna, Leopold Grund, 1826. £3,000 to £5,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Lasinio (Carlo). [Matrimony], Florence, 1790. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Reinhardt (Joseph). A Collection of Swiss Costumes, in Miniature, second English edition, James Goodwin, [1828]. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Wengen (Gottfried Durst von). Die Öffentliche Maskerade Bamberg am Fastnachts-Montage 1833…, Bamberg, [1833]. £2,000 to £3,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Winston Churchill. The Second World War. Set of First-Edition Volumes. 6,000 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: A.A. Milne, Ernest H. Shepard. A Collection of The Pooh Books. Set of First-Editions. 18,600 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Salvador Dalí, Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Finely Bound and Signed Limited Edition. 15,000 USD
    Sotheby’s
    Modern First Editions
    Available for Immediate Purchase
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ian Fleming. Live and Let Die. First Edition. 9,500 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter Series. Finely Bound First Printing Set of Complete Series. 5,650 USD
    Sotheby’s, Available Now: Ernest Hemingway. A Farewell to Arms. First Edition, First Printing. 4,200 USD

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