The Green Sheaf

roppo

Teheuti said:
Roppo - feel free to include the portrait from my copy of Widdicombe Fair on your website - perhaps you could eventually get a little portrait gallery from different copies of the material.

Mary

Thank you very much for the proposal, Tahueti. Today I updated my website and included your Widdicombe Fair portrait in the PCS section. Other materials for the updating are a number of pictures from "The Book of Friendly Giants" (really cool!), and some Mrs Colman's childrens' book.

http://www7.ocn.ne.jp/~elfindog/pcsworks2.htm

BTW, I want to know if anyone did a serious PCS research on the Debussy side.
 

Cerulean

Hello Roppo...not Debussey but Stieglitz...and Jack Yeats

I saw that Teheuti also posted this image and "The Craftsman" links from her blog. Below is a bit more information on the actual letter...followed by a separate reference with the Broadsheet images from Jack Butler Yeats and Pamela Colman Smith...I don't know if I've seen the Broadsheet digital archive referenced at aeclectic.net before. My apologies if my attribution is not correct--please let me know and I'll credit the finders appropriately!

I've also posted this before or a link...but you might want to add this to your "PCS to Stieglitz" section, since it's the photocopy of PCS' note of 80 cards to A. Stieglitz...the image is from the online Cary-Beinicke Library database, among other digital images you can search...I'll send the link to you pm and you can pick and choose the images that work for your updates...

Here's the full text attribution from the Cary image database:

Image ID:39002037505584
Image File Name: 3750558
CALLNUMBER : YCAL MSS 85
BOX : 45
FOLDER: 1076
PAGE NUMBER: 1
SOURCE AUTHOR:
Smith, Pamela Colman
SOURCE TITLE:
ALS to Alfred Stieglitz
REPRO TYPE:
5x7 bw neg
CREDIT LINE:
Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
SOURCE DATE:
19 Nov 1909
BEINECKE FILE HEADING
Smith, Pamela Colman

The dating and the historical link may be of some interest.

I know I've posted the Bryn Maw links before at aeclectic.net...and sent it to you via p.m.--that is, if you haven't seen it already!

Below is the Broadsheet images and poetry in context--I liked this online collection for the ability to magnify the image and it's crisp reproduction for personal image viewing.

Best wishes,

Cerulean
 

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Cerulean

Broadsheets Jack B. Yeats and Pamela Colman Smith 1902-1903

Here's a new collection with better images and information....

http://images.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/i/image/image-idx?c=yeats&page=index

The mysterious "A.E." dates back to 1902-03 with Jack Butler Yeats and PCS...I think someone identified AE before as George Russell...I think I have a copy of "The Celtic Twilight" in paperback...but I'll be checking...

Best wishes,

Cerulean
 

roppo

Gordon Craig's experimental theatre

I have been making a hunting journey deep into the forest of early 20th century magazine publications, hoping to find a footstep or two of Pamela Colman Smith. Today I found a rather interesting photo.

http://grimoire.blog.ocn.ne.jp/doll/files/actorless.jpg

It's in the 1908 May issue of "Current Literature" p.546. The article says

"On the reconstructed stage Mr Craig would endeavor to give the effect of vast spaces, and for actors he would provide not even puppets, but 'gaunt profile figures fashioned from boards.' These figures would have no gestures, but could be moved from point to point, while for perspective purposes smaller boards cut in oulined semblance of human creatures could be used to represent persons at varying distances -- something the present stage does not achieve with that fidelity to perspecive that alone satisfies the artistic sense."

Mr Craig is of course Edward Gordon Craig, a son of Ellen Terry, and a good friend of PCS. I'm under the impression that Gordon Craig was doing a large scale "Toy Theatre" which PCS was very fond of, and the "profile figures" in the photo reminds me of the figures in the PCS's musical paintings.

Perhaps these were designed by her?
Friends, I want to hear your opinion.
 

Cerulean

Just fyi...Gordon Craig was an illustrator and artist as well...

If I find anything of his style, I will post. It does look like the 'house style' of A.E. as well as P.C. Smith.

Just fyi, a listing of a Gordon Craig illustration..

http://www.ilab.org/db/book2316_202385.html

Productions by him...a set sketch as well (no puppets):
http://www.artsalive.ca/en/thf/histoire/metteursenscene.html

More background info on Gordon Craig:
http://www.themargins.net/bib/D/d17.html

The photograph scan looks quite well done, I'll check the photographer's name as well...

Cerulean
 

Lavandula

What a find! Thanks for sharing :)
 

rota

"bi-dimensional drama"...? Maybe he means movies and tv? :)
 

roppo

"The Critic" Jan. 1899.

Today I received an old magazine, the January issue of "The Critic" 1899 which shows the following photo of PCS.

http://grimoire.blog.ocn.ne.jp/doll/files/critic01.jpg

This photo is well-known and can be seen everywhere, but the accompanying article is not. Here goes --

" At the present moment the work of Miss Pamela Colman Smith is known only to the few, but I predict that as soon as Mr Russell has her hand colored prints on the market her name will be a household word among amateurs of art. She is, I believe, quite a young woman, and her home is in Jamaica, B.W.I., but she has studied at the Pratt Institute, where her original talent was soon recognized. Miss Smith has the cleverness of Aubrey Beardsley without his coarseness. Refinement is the key-note of her work. It is a pity that the two examples here given are not in color, as are the originals. They lose much by the change to black and white. Miss Smith, who is clever with her pen as well as with the brush, has written several plays to be performed by pasteboard figures on a stage across which they are moved by means of grooves and strings. The stage, scenery, and the properties are all the work of Miss Smith's deft fingers. A number of the "Annancy," or folk tales of Jamaica, have been written down and illustrated by Miss Smith, and will be published by Mr. Russell. The illustrations of these strories bear little resembrance to the examples of Miss Smith's work here given. the are bolder, and while they show no more imagination, they are more striking because of their weirdness."

the two examples :
http://grimoire.blog.ocn.ne.jp/doll/files/critic02.jpg

By the way I'm now into the making of "W.T.Horton Esoteric Tarot".
For your pleasure --

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=98392

Some might call this shameless advertisement. I agree (lol).
 

Cerulean

I really am delighted by the black and white images...

...somehow black and white with these designs seem to be such a natural fit.

Thank you for your amazing generosity and creative sharing.

Cerulean
 

roppo

another little finding

I'm now reading "Edy Craig"(Frederick Muller, London, 1949). an anthology of the recollections of Edith Craig by her friends, published after her death. It's strange PCS didn't contribute anything. Irene Cooper Willis wrote about PCS as follows:

"... my impressions are merged - of scenes af the 'Gourmets' restaurant, where they lunched and dined regularly and gave audience to a galaxy of friends ( Laurence Alma Tadema, whome they called 'the Queen of Poland', was one of them and another was dear, funny, Chinese-looking little artist and paitner of 'musical pictures', Pixie Colman Smith)..." p.108

By the way there's a lovely photo of Ellen Terry and young girl Edith in the book.

http://grimoire.blog.ocn.ne.jp/doll/files/edy11.jpg

It convinced me the Widdicomb Fair #304 drawing Taheuti shows us is a portrait of young Edith Craig.