Keeping Score: The Deborah Hay Papers EXHIBITION ON VIEW THROUGH AUGUST 20

Internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer #Deborah Hay (b. 1941) was a founding member of the Judson Dance Theater, a group of dancers and choreographers in New York=City who sought to break free from the traditional constraints of classical ballet and modern dance. For more than 50 years, she has pioneered new ways of creating performance. Four of Hay's dance scores drawn from her archive reveal how she has documented and extended the artistic practice of her choreography. See these and other selections from the Deborah Hay Papers on view in the museum galleries.

"Collecting Conversations: Five Women in American Photography" is a series of timely interviews with five artists whose work has recently entered the Ransom Center’s photography collection: Betty Hahn, Joanne Leonard, Joan Lyons, Bea Nettles, and Susan Ressler. Conducted by Dr. Jessica S. McDonald, the Ransom Center’s curator of photography, these expansive conversations introduce newly acquired works and situate them within each artist’s creative practice and personal life.

Explore the history behind Copy number 17. This first edition copy of "Ulysses" signed by the author is the first feature in a new series devoted to objects that tell the story of women who supported author James Joyce and the publication of his landmark 1922 novel.

Now on view: Women and the Making of Joyce’s Ulysses

James Joyce's Ulysses, considered a landmark work of literary modernism, was first published on February 2, 1922. This exhibition at the Harry Ransom Center, curated by Clare Hutton of Loughborough University, marks the 100th anniversary of the book's publication and investigates the important and largely unacknowledged role of women in realization of his famed masterpiece. Objects from the Ransom Center's James Joyce Collection tell the story of the formative role of his family members and, in particular, of four women—Margaret Anderson, Jane Heap, Harriet Shaw Weaver, and Sylvia Beach, who were associated with innovative literary experimentation of the period—all of whom helped Joyce's novel gain widespread notoriety and success. See more than 150 rare objects that tell this story, including a first edition of Ulysses, page proofs for its first printing, original copies of The Little Review, manuscripts in Joyce's hand, rare books, printed ephemera, and photographs.

Explore the exhibition: https://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/2022/women-and-the-making-of-ulysses/ About the Exhibition Curator Dr. Clare Hutton is Reader in English and Digital Humanities at Loughborough University. Her monograph, "Serial Encounters: Ulysses and the Little Review" (OUP, 2019) has just been reissued in paperback. Her other research includes editing The Irish Book in English, 1891-2000 (OUP, 2011), and many essays on Yeats, Joyce, and the Irish Literary Revival.

The Harry Ransom Center is now home to the archive of Award-winning choreographer Deborah Hay. A founding member of the Judson Dance Theater, Hay is recognized as a pivotal figure in the development of post-modern dance.

The archive constitutes more than 60 boxes of material spanning the full breadth of her life and career, including films, music, letters, diaries, photographs, production files, dance scores, interviews and manuscripts for her published books.

Read more about the life and work of legendary dancer and choreographer Deborah Hay: https://sites.utexas.edu/ransomcentermagazine/2021/10/13/choreographer-deborah-hays-archive-goes-to-the-harry-ransom-center/

📷: Deborah Hay in “Shaking Awake The Sleeping Child,” 1981. Photograph by Ken Fryer.

In this three-minute video, Curator of Art Dr. Tracy Bonfitto gives viewers an in-depth look at one of Frida Kahlo’s most celebrated paintings: "Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird" (1940). Learn more about the iconic work here, and see it in person at the Ransom Center. Learn more: https://ransom.center/frida 📢 Connect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ransomcenter/ 📢 Connect on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ransomcenter​​ 📢 Connect on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ransomcenter

Check out our latest blog post about online resources to study human rights issues http://bit.ly/2Xa93Sn

“The Rise of Everyday Design: The Arts and Crafts Movement in Britain and America”

February 9–July 14, 2019    https://hrc.utexas.edu 

 See more than 200 items including books, drawings, furniture, decorative arts objects, photographs, and flyers, broadsides and advertising ephemera that offer a new and detailed look at the history of the Arts and Crafts movement. The Arts and Crafts movement occupied a central place in discussions about modern life in Britain and America from the late 1840s to the early 1920s and beyond. 

Arts and Crafts reformers were concerned with the daily realities of the industrial age, and used design to envision and promote a new and improved way of living. Discover how theorists and makers—like John Ruskin and William Morris (along with lesser known figures like Lucy Crane) in Britain and Candace Wheeler, Alice and Elbert Hubbard, and Gustav Stickley in America—spread their ideas through books, retail showrooms, and world's fairs, and how Arts and Crafts objects, which were originally handmade and costly, came to be manufactured and sold to the everyday consumer. Items on display from the Ransom Center's collections will include hand-drawn designs and sketches by Ruskin and Morris, a first edition copy of Owen Jones's Grammar of Ornament, books and marketing materials of the Kelmscott and Roycroft presses, stained glass designs by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones, and plates from Frank Lloyd Wright's Wasmuth portfolio. 

These items will be paired with photographs, furniture, and decorative arts objects from the University's Alexander Architectural Archives, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and private collections. Opening on the 200th anniversary of John Ruskin's birth, the exhibition will show how the Arts and Crafts idea made its way into everyday homes, transforming the lives of ordinary people in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and remaining influential to this day. 

A companion volume, edited by exhibition curators Monica Penick and Christopher Long and published by Yale University Press in association with the Ransom Center, offers a new understanding of the Arts and Crafts idea, its geographical reach, and its translation into everyday taste.

Powerful currents: John Wilson’s "Down by the Riverside" prints, currently on view as part of "Stories to Tell," "help demonstrate the haunting timeliness of their depiction of displacement, separation and loss, tragedy, and desperate hope." 

https://ransom.center/john-wilson-prints

Alicia Bush, an undergraduate at Florida A&M University, dips a toe into the field of cultural conservation. Here's how she spent her days as a Ransom Center intern. The internship was made possible by University of Delaware Art Conservation Programs and HBCU Library Alliance. https://ransom.center/alicia-bush

The actor David Garrick's diary documenting his 1751 trip to Paris was thought to have been lost for more than a century.  It ended up in the hands of Harry Houdini, who was a collector of magic and theatre history. Houdini made the diary available to scholars for the first time in 1922, filling in one of the last major gaps in the life of Garrick. Now you can view the diary at https://hrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p15878coll94. 

Ed Ruscha: Archaeology and Romance

The Harry Ransom Center presents the exhibition “Ed Ruscha: Archaeology and Romance” from August 11, 2018, through January 6, 2019. http://sites.utexas.edu/ransomcentermagazine/2018/06/19/ruscha/

image:  Ed Ruscha (American, b. 1937), “Pool #2,” from the portfolio “Pools,” 1968; printed 1997. Chromogenic color print, 40.4 x 40.7 cm (image). Edward Ruscha Papers and Art Collection, 2013.16.2 © Ed Ruscha

John Wilkes Booth's “Richard III”: Staging the Past

What makes this "Richard III" new & unusual?

The Ransom Center’s Cline Curator of Theatre and Performing Arts Eric Colleary and The Hidden Room's Artistic Director Beth Burns lead a team of award-winning actors, scholars, and designers to resuscitate the ghost of this infamous production based on John Wilkes Booth's promptbook.

They share how collection materials inspired and informed this forthcoming production as well as respond to your questions.

Love the humanities and the Harry Ransom Center? We are looking for docent, special event, and visitor service volunteers. Benefits include specialized training and behind-the-scenes insights into exhibitions and collections. APPLY online by Friday! http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/about/participate/volunteer/

Meticulous free verse: Mallarmé’s Un Coup de Dés and Ellsworth Kelly 

Ellsworth Kelly's "The Mallarmé Suite" (1992), a suite of four prints created in relation to a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé, are currently on display in "Stories to Tell" through August 12, 2018. Art Curator Tracy Bonfitto shares insight about the prints and poem. 

Film screening: “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” (1982)

June 21, 7 p.m.

Marking the 40th anniversary of the stage production! 

A town's sheriff and regular patron of a historical whorehouse fights to keep it running when a television reporter targets it as the devil's playhouse. We hold the papers of actress Carlin Glynn, who originated the role of Mona Stangley, and Peter Masterson, who co-wrote and co-directed the original production. See materials from their collection on display in the exhibition Stories to Tell. Introduced by Eric Colleary, the Ransom Center's Cline Curator of Theatre and Performing Arts. Runtime: 114 minutes. Free; doors at 6:30 p.m.

Scholarship, time machines, and madness! The Hidden Room Theatre’s Beth Burns on John Wilkes Booth’s promptbook for "Richard III." https://budurl.me/unedv