Happy Chinese New Year!

In celebration of Chinese New Year, the February highlight from the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives features a beautiful photograph taken at Dongyue Miao, a Daoist temple in Beijing, on the morning of the Chinese New Year in 1925. This photograph is from the Benjamin March papers. Benjamin March (1899 - 1934) was a respected scholar and curator of Chinese art. The many photographs, journals and diaries that comprise the Benjamin March papers document his scholarship and interesting travels. March's photographs from Beijing in February of 1925 document the Chinese New Year ritual of morning prayers for fortune.

Rachael Cristine Woody
Archivist
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives
woodyr@si.edu

Black History Month: Selma Burke

Selma Hortense Burke (1900-1995) was a distinguished African-American woman sculptor and a dedicated educator. In addition to sculpting figures of women and children, she also made portraits of several prominent people, including the portrait of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that is pictured on the dime. Several other photographic portraits of Burke are in the Smithsonian’s collections, along with photographs of her sculptures, including a memorial to Martin Luther King, Jr. in Charlotte, North Carolina.

See also: African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian

Pictured: Selma Burke in her studio. Photographed by Peter A. Juley & Son. Photograph Archives, Smithsonian American Art Museum, J0100404. To view the full record, click here. To read more about American Art's Photograph Archives, click here.

-Nicole Semenchuk, Research and Scholars Center, Smithsonian American Art Museum

That Snowbound Feeling: The USS Vincennes in the South Atlantic Ocean

This has been a winter to remember in the Washington, D.C. region. Early February brought at least a couple of feet of snow to the area, and it seems that everyone here at the Smithsonian has been looking through their collections for snowy scenes. Something with icebergs, frolicking penguins, and a tall-masted ship, for instance.

This lovely image shows the war sloop USS Vincennes in Disappointment Bay, near the coast of Antarctica in the South Atlantic Ocean, in early 1840. The Vincennes was the flagship of The United States Exploring Expedition (1838-1842), commanded by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, whose sketch of the ship was used for this engraving. The voyage (sometimes referred to as "the Wilkes Expedition") was commissioned by the United States Congress to conduct a geographic and scientific survey of the southern oceans. The Smithsonian was later given many of the scientific specimens, ethnological artifacts, drawings, correspondence, and other materials collected by The United States Exploring Expedition. The published reports of the Expedition can be found in the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. The Smithsonian Institution Archives has a number of the manuscripts and sketches created by members of the Expedition, and the National Museum of Natural History has cultural and scientific specimens collected on the voyage.

The illustration is from Wilkes' Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition During the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842 (Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard, 1845), Q115.W68 1845c SCNHRB, from the Joseph F. Cullman 3rd Library of Natural History.

Diane Shaw, Smithsonian Institution Libraries

Garden Bones in Winter

“Garden bones” refer to those design elements (paths, trees, structures, etc.) that define the structure of a garden and are often best seen in the winter under a blanket of snow.

The bones of “Bonaire,” located in Orange, New Jersey, are clearly seen here – with its long axial view and symmetrical layout bordered by clipped box hedges typical of a formal garden. This design style was favored by Ellen Biddle Shipman (1869-1950) who designed “Bonaire” for Robert A. Franks (treasurer of industrialist Andrew Carnegie) in the 1930s.

Shipman designed numerous residential gardens like Bonaire. She is most well-known for her designs at Longue Vue Gardens in New Orleans, the Cummer Estate (now the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens) in Jacksonville, Florida, and Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens in Akron, Ohio, where she collaborated with landscape architects Charles Platt and Warren Manning.

Click here to view more images of Bonaire.

Click here to view a slideshow of more gardens in the snow.


--Kelly Crawford, Museum Specialist
Archives of American Gardens
Smithsonian Gardens

A Man, A Phonograph and His Primates

"From childhood, I believed that all kinds of animals have some mode of speech by which they can talk among their own kind; and I have often wondered why man has never tried to learn it."
-Richard Lynch Garner, 1892

Primatologist Richard Lynch Garner devoted his life to studying the speech and habits of apes and monkeys in zoos and central Africa. At times, Garner placed himself in an elevated cage to observe primates in their natural habitats of Africa. He used a phonograph to record and interpret primate sounds and language.

The Richard Lynch Garner Papers 1828-1920 is the National Anthropological Archives featured collection for February. His papers consist of diaries, manuscripts (including his charming "An Autobiography of a Pie,") photographs, poetry, maps, artwork and clippings. For more information on the Garner Papers, please see the catalog record. Some of Garner's photographs are available to view online here.

Leanda Gahegan, National Anthropological Archives

It’s all in a name

Ethnographic filmmaker John Marshall became close friends with the Ju/’hoan Bushmen he filmed and worked with over fifty years. He was given a Ju/’hoan name, ≠Oma (after his mentor) as well as a Ju/’hoan nickname, Xosi. Ju/’hoansi assign nicknames based on notable physical characteristics and notable deeds. During the 1950’s in the Kalahari Desert, Marshall knew men named for their hunting prowess, skills as healers, and in one case, for an unusually shaped belly-button. As for Marshall’s nickname, Xosi means “long cheeks” or “long face”. And Marshall himself has become the basis of new nicknames; his longtime assistant, also named ≠Oma, is known as ≠Oma Johnmarshall.

Watch a moving film clip of Marshall’s reunion with his mentor, ≠Oma, after a twenty-year absence at the HSFA’s Marshall Collection web exhibit.

Hear more of ≠Oma’s infectious laughter in a film clip from 1955.


– Karma Foley, Human Studies Film Archives

An Archaeologist and His Pets, (Pets In the Archives Series: 1 of 3)

The Ernst Herzfeld Papers, 1899-1962 are the papers of an outstanding scholar in the field of Iranian studies, Ernst Herzfeld (1879–1948) explored all phases of Near Eastern culture from the prehistoric period to Islamic times. His collection documents excavations at Samarra, Persepolis, Pasargadae, and Aleppo and includes correspondence; field notebooks; drawings; sketchbooks; inventories of objects; "squeeze" copies of architectural details; and photographs.

There are two items in the the Herzfeld collection that document his beloved pets. The first one is the photograph to the left titled, "Herzfeld feeding his pet boar, Bulbul," taken while he was in Persepolis.




The second item is of "Persepolis (Iran), great stairway to the Terrace complex, plan and elevation by Karl Bergner, 1935 [drawing]." (Click on the hyperlink to see the drawing without dog prints!) This drawing was done by the late Karl Bergner, who was a highly gifted architectural draftsman. He worked in his late 20's for Herzfeld at Persepolis where this drawing was made. Since Herzfeld brought his pet Bulbul the boar, and his Welsh Terrier with him to the archaeological sites, I think it's safe to conjecture the Welsh Terrier had a hand (or paw) in this drawing!

Rachael Cristine Woody
Archivist
Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives
woodyr@si.edu