The Library Unbound: Milne Library News

John van Steenberg Art Book Collection at Milne Library

The van Steenberg Art Book Collection is provided thanks to a generous bequest to the Huntington Memorial Library by John van Steenberg in honor of his aunt and uncle, Erna and A. Arthur Schiller. The family has long supported the art collection at the Huntington Memorial Library by funding purchases of books about art and art history. Dr. van Steenberg's bequest to the library's Trust will provide funds on an annual basis to continue this legacy.

In 2022 Huntington Memorial Library Director Tina Winstead met with SUNY Oneonta Gallery Director Sarah Simpson and Library Director Darren Chase, and together they developed a Community/SUNY partnership in shared collection building and sharing.  One aspect involved librarian liaison to Art Lori Wienke together with Sarah Simpson in identifying and selecting titles for the Collection. Library staff from each department played roles in making the books in the collection available and discoverable in both libraries' catalogs, shelving and attractively displaying the books, and developing related academic programming and research guides.  It will serve as a dynamic, growing collection, with new books to be rotated each year into the collections available at Milne Library.

SUNY Oneonta students, faculty and staff, along with members of the Oneonta Community are welcome to check out The van Steenberg Art Book Collection on the first floor of Milne Library near the Argo Tea entrance. 

Learn more about the Collection, Dr. John van Steenberg, and discover resources for deeper research and discovery at the John van Steenberg Art Book Collection guide.

Books Pictured in this post

The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago; Arnold L. Lehman (Foreword by); Jane F. Gerhard (Contribution by)

Call Number: Huntington Library Shared Art Books, 1st Floor ; 709.2 Chic

ISBN: 9781580933896

Publication Date: 2014-04-15

The official publication celebrating Judy Chicago's feminist art masterpiece, The Dinner Party installation at the Brooklyn Museum, and an introduction to outstanding women in history. Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party is a defining work of feminist and contemporary art that brought women's history to light on the national stage when it was completed in 1979. Published to coincide with Chicago's 75th birthday and a nationwide series of events and exhibitions, the book features newly commissioned photography and two new essays by Chicago, along with essays by art historian Frances Borzello and historian Jane Gerhard, and a foreword from museum director Arnold Lehman. The Dinner Party, a monumental triangular table, and the Heritage Floor on which the table rests, represents 1,038 women in history - 39 by unique large ceramic plates and runners with another 999 names inscribed on the floor's ceramic tiles. It has been seen by more than a million visitors during its international exhibition tour, and has been a principal destination at the Brooklyn Museum since its permanent housing in 2007. A perfect companion to a revolutionary artwork, the book is a must-have for both long-standing fans of Judy Chicago's oeuvre and young artists and women looking for reflections of themselves in the history of Western Civilization.

Jean Michel Basquiat by D. Buchhart

Call Number: Huntington Library Shared Art Books, 1st Floor ; 759.13 Basq

ISBN: 9782072801532

Publication Date: 2018-11-30

In 2018 the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, will host exhibitons on two of the greatest artists of the 20th century - Egon Schiele, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Both exhibitions will have the same curator, and will be held at the same time. The shows will illustrate exactly what it is that linked the two artists: line, and the use of expressive force. This, the catalogue of the Basquiat exhibition, labelled "the definitive exhibition" by its curator, brings together 100 of the artist's most important masterpieces, sourced from interational museums and private collections. With the astonishing radicalness of his artistic practice, Basquiat renewed the concept of art with enduring impact. This Basquiat retrospective centres on the idea of Basquiat's unique energetic line, his use of words, symbols, and how he integrates collage in his paintings, sculptures, objects, and large-scale drawings. The catalogue includes texts by great authors, including Paul Schimmel who tells of his meeting with Basquiat in California; Francesco Pellizi who knew Basquiat well and has not written about him for a long time; and Okwui Enwezor who talks about the Afro American identity.