Campus Stories - Stanford University LIbraries
Leonardo da Vinci is celebrated at Stanford’s Green Library
Chocolate Heads Movement Band, a genre-defying student performing arts group put on an unconventional and unexpected performance in the rotunda of Green Library’s Bing Wing for the opening reception of the exhibition Leonardo’s Library: The World of a Renaissance Reader, on view through Oct. 13, 2019. Under the direction of Aleta Hayes, a lecturer in…
New Stanford exhibit showcases propaganda posters made during China’s Cultural Revolution
A new Stanford exhibition displays propaganda posters from Mao Zedong’s rule in China, offering a window into the country’s chaotic and bloody Cultural Revolution of 1966-1976. This 1951 poster is titled “Celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the Birth of the Chinese Communist Party.” (Image credit: Courtesy East Asia Library, Stanford University) The exhibit, Modern Chinese Political Posters, is…
New Stanford Libraries exhibition highlights rare artifacts important to Stanford research
A 17th-century volume of William Shakespeare’s plays, a piano roll recorded by Claude Debussy and a 1959 edition of the Green Book, a travel guide for African Americans driving through the Jim Crow-era South, are among dozens of unique artifacts now on display at Stanford’s Green Library Bing Wing as part of a new exhibition. Scholars…
Samuel Beckett letter at Stanford opens new opportunities for scholarship
A coffee-stained handwritten letter from renowned Irish playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett to Radomir Konstantinović, a Yugoslav and Serbian writer and philosopher, is now available in Stanford Libraries’ SPECIAL COLLECTIONS. The Beckett-Konstantinović letter at Stanford is one of only about two dozen surviving letters between the two literary figures. Much of their correspondence was lost when Konstantinović’s summer home…
Exhibition “Hand and Eye” celebrates East Asian ceramic traditions
A new campus ceramics exhibition that displays many works produced in wood-burning kilns – including sculptures, jars and tea sets – shows that the ceramic traditions of East Asia are alive and evolving in contemporary Japan and United States – and at Stanford. A mere 1 percent (by weight) of iron oxide in an otherwise…
Cantor Arts Center and Stanford Libraries collaborate to make Warhol photography archives publicly available
For those who ever wondered about the exact design of John Lennon’s iconic glasses or what it would have been like to have had a front-row seat at Maria Shriver’s wedding to Arnold Schwarzenegger, the newly accessible archive of Andy Warhol’s photography provides a rare opportunity to get up close and personal with the social…
Unparalleled collection of Warhol’s photography at Stanford University includes images never exhibited before
Photographs by Andy Warhol that have never publicly been displayed are the heart of the new exhibition, Contact Warhol: Photography Without End, on view Sept. 29, 2018, through Jan. 6, 2019, at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. The show traces Warhol’s artistic process from the most fundamental level of a photo negative to its transformation…
New on the Shelf: Rare Books & Artists’ Books
A new exhibition in Stanford’s Green Library offers a window into recent acquisitions in Special Collections. Books—both manuscript and print—are the focus of the display on the second floor of the Bing Wing, on view September 4, 2018 through January 6, 2019. Cases in the Peterson Gallery, adjacent to the Special Collections Reading Room, feature…
Hernán Diaz and Robert Moor win Stanford Libraries’ 2018 Saroyan Prize for Writing
Hernán Diaz and Robert Moor are the 2018 winners of the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. The prize, established in 2003 by Stanford Libraries and the William Saroyan Foundation, commemorates Saroyan’s life and legacy, and just as importantly, honors emerging authors who have found a distinctive creative voice. Diaz and Moor will each receive…
Knight Fellow’s project leads to a new collection at Stanford Libraries
When Stanford John S. Knight Journalism Fellow Michael Grant was researching the lack of diversity in journalism, he stumbled upon a 1987 article online, titled “Black Designers: Missing in Action.” The piece, written by successful multiracial designer and diversity advocate Cheryl D. Miller, captivated Grant, the creative director of the San Francisco Business Times and a 2017–18 participant in Stanford’s John…
Adelante Comunidad: New exhibit showcases four decades of graphic arts by the Stanford Chicanx & Latinx community
Adelante Comunidad opens this week in the South Lobby of the East Wing of Green Library. The exhibit, which draws on posters and other materials from the collections of the Stanford University Archives, celebrates over four decades of graphic arts produced by the Stanford Chicanx and Latinx community. Many of the posters were transferred from El…
Science library installs artwork giving new life to vintage book covers
Karen Kinney is a Los Angeles based artist whose work has been displayed in numerous exhibitions, both nationally and internationally. Her artwork was purchased for the Lionsgate film “The Lincoln Lawyer” and resides in private collections across country. “Points of Departure” was previously exhibited at the Thomas Bradley terminal of Los Angeles International Airport. In addition…
Stanford’s spring quarter guest artists
Guest artists are all over campus this spring. Indie rock band Glass Animals play Stanford Stadium; the open-air literary celebration Stories of Exile, Reckoning and Hope takes place on the main stage in White Plaza; Mina Morita directs Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan in Roble Studio Theater; and Stanford Live’s popular Cabaret series continues in Bing’s cozy…
Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon focuses on making a difference
The Bowes Art & Architecture Library will host an Art + Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on Thursday, March 8, which is also International Women’s Day. Students, faculty, staff and community members are encouraged to drop in anytime between 9:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. to participate. Turns out that less than 10 percent of Wikipedia contributors identify…
Stanford Libraries’ rare score of Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Aida provides clues to the past
A rare, orchestral score of Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Aida has become a valuable source of instruction and inspiration for Stanford scholars. The handwritten manuscript, used in Aida’s Paris premiere in 1876, appears to be the earliest surviving copy of the famous opera’s full score – and the only surviving score from a performance…
