Irish Aran Knit

The Aran Islands are a group of small windswept islands situated off the west coast of Ireland, which has given us a unique and often copied knit genre.

It is important not to confuse Aran with the Scottish island of Arran, which has nothing to do with Aran knit and is in no way related or linked in anyway with the Irish Aran even though both share a west coast vista.

Knit on the Aran Islands was traditionally made using wool that had not had the lanolin, the natural oils of the wool, removed making it more or less waterproof, a must for any wind swept and damp coastal areas, particularly those areas of northern Europe that face the Atlantic ocean with its constant and unending weather fronts. Wool was also traditionally not dyed on the island limiting the number of processes involved from start to finish, but also giving the knitwear a more natural look with the use of only white or black sheep.

It would be tempting to see Aran knit as an age-old craft whose traditions and origin are lost in the mists of Western Ireland. However, the craft of knit itself only reached the islands in the seventeenth century and the particular genre of Aran knit was only developed in the early twentieth century as an expansion of the domestic wear produced by the island women, but perhaps more importantly, as a potential tourist export for a particularly deprived area of Ireland. All the garments were knitted by women, who were also in control of the spinning of the indigenous wool supply, making the island women responsible for most of the processes involved in the enterprise.

During the 1940s and 1950s, Aran patterns were first standardised and published commercially, but exports from the island itself were still increasing in number.

Today Aran knitwear is still produced on the islands, both as hand and machine knit, but is also now produced in other parts of Ireland as it is around the world through a whole host of various pattern books that are now available.

Aran knit may not be a particularly old craft skill, but it does have a pedigree. The various designs that make up the pattern work that has become associated with Aran, was produced largely by the group of women who took a pro-active stance in the early twentieth century in order to try to change the outlook and circumstances of their community. They were able to set that community onto the world stage where it has now become both a worldwide trademark and a household name.

An interesting site to visit with a good overall history of Aran knit with examples of a number of the traditional patterns is the Irish Culture and Customs site, which can be found here. The Further reading links also give a short list of Aran pattern books that are available on Amazon.

Further reading links:
Aran Knitting
Harmony Guide to Aran Knitting: Diamond; Cables; Twists; Honeycombs; Textures; Panels; Backgrounds; Bobbles; Plaits; Ribs: Charts and Written Instructions for Each Stitch.
Traditional Aran Knitting
The Great American Aran Afghan
The Harmony Guide to Aran and Fair Isle Knitting: Patterns, Techniques, and Stitches (The Harmony Guides)
Patterns for Guernseys, Jerseys, and Arans: Fishermen's Sweaters from the British Isles 
220 Aran Stitches and Patterns: Volume 5 (The Harmony Guides)
The Harmony Guides: Cables & Arans: 250 Stitches to Knit
Traditional Island Knitting: Including Aran, Channel Isles, Fair Isle, Falkland Isles, Iceland and Shetland
Traditional Aran Island Knitting

Tribute To Bad Men and Changing Times

Big enough film stars were always coddled. It’s disillusioning to find out what big babies certain he-man idols could be offscreen. So much bad behavior was indulged when moat-like factory walls protected actors. It was only when the studios and their contract systems broke down that we finally got peeks into reality of celebrity lives. Tabletop weeklies initiated profiles approaching candor about Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Gary Cooper and others once longtime employers sprang them loose. Minus muzzles, they made fun copy with opinions formerly suppressed under front office rule. Bogart took to running down films he’d finished that were awaiting release. Gable sounded off over how badly MGM had treated him, while Cooper ventured into conservative political waters. Publicists also separated from weekly checks peddled tell-alls about experiences they’d had behind company barricades. One of these was James Merrick, formerly with Metro, and later truth teller as to what really happened when Spencer Tracy was fired off Tribute To A Bad Man in 1955. Merrick spilled it all for Look Magazine in January 1962, seven years past the fact and long after Tracy was free-lanced and subject to press lancing unbound by MGM enforced restrictions. Merrick’s made a bracing story. Here was revered actor Tracy convulsing with tears as his career seemed all but over, unceremoniously dumped after twenty years with his studio employer. Look readers must have been shocked by revelation shorn of tact carefully applied back in 1955 when the same drama played out much quieter …

Herewith is MGM's version of the Tribute To A Bad Man breakdown as dutifully reported in June-August 1955 by The New York Times: Work was proceeding on Colorado mountain locations under the direction of Robert Wise. Mr. Tracy had experienced difficulties working in the high altitude, said the studio’s publicity department. Gossip suggested otherwise, however. Metro acknowledged as much by admitting there were other causes for Tracy’s summary departure off the location. Spencer is very exacting about everything he does, remarked one executive, and he is unhappy about several things. The studio has to determine if it wants to give in to him on some points. Meetings with the actor’s agents convened as the crew of 110 sat idle. Two days later (June 23) it was reported that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is resigned to replacing Spencer Tracy in "Tribute To A Bad Man," due to Tracy’s being not physically up to the assignment. By June 30, Gregory Peck had turned down replacing him, as would several others. James Cagney was then announced as being under consideration. By August 4, Cagney was confirmed for the lead and set to begin work by mid-month. This was the official version of events as conveyed by MGM. What had actually taken place was longer in surfacing. Late in life interviews with Robert Wise and Cagney filled in details even James Merrick omitted. The saga of Tribute To A Bad Man, all told, offers considerable insight into ways of doing Hollywood business very soon to end.

Stars often acted out once they sized up projects for dogs. Spencer Tracy had recently done Broken Lance for Fox and saw Tribute To A Bad Man as more of the same. Even its title was shopworn, having been intended for what became The Bad and The Beautiful in 1952. Grace Kelly was proposed as co-star for Tracy. There was indication of his having a little crush on her and willingness maybe to do even a bad picture so long as she came with it. That scuttled fast once Kelly saw the script. Tracy’s support was largely culled from newcomer ranks. That would make his a higher hill to climb, a fit analogy, as these Rocky Mountain settings were eight to ten thousand feet in altitude. Among Hollywood’s bigger challenges was development of young talent to succeed veterans like Tracy. Universal prospered at star manufacture. Others less so. Metro would borrow Columbia’s Robert Francis, late of The Caine Mutiny, to work alongside Tracy. An untried Greek actress, Irene Papas, was tabbed for the Grace Kelly part. Tracy claimed to be early bound for the Colorado location, but didn’t show up. Weeks later, he flew in, socialized with the crew, then disappeared for parts unknown. Wise finished everyone else’s scenes as overhead soared (cost to Metro: $30,000 per day). Producer Sam Zimbalist panicked as search parties found no trace of Tracy. When he finally surfaced after two weeks, ST bitched over the script and said he couldn’t breathe thin mountain air. Robert Wise recalled his star’s outlandish suggestion that the entire ranch complex built for the film be relocated to lower elevations. Metro trouble-shooter Howard Strickling arrived to try and reason Tracy back to work. Hours were spent negotiating in trailers. Wise was sick of having authority usurped by his leading man (seems ST was determining which of his shots were keepers). MGM tried covering with bogus accounts of Tracy attending local functions amidst work’s smooth continuance. Finally, Wise had enough and said he wanted Tracy gone. This was a standoff the actor would have won ten years before, but 1955 being a new day, it was Spence what got the hook. Doubtlessly stunned by said new rules in play, he broke down utterly to a stunned Robert Wise: That’s the end. My career is finished. I’ll never work again.

The first call for replacement went to Clark Gable, now a free agent and much in demand. To wrangle a major name on mere weeks' notice wouldn’t be easy, and besides that, Gable still nursed enmity over ways Metro had done him wrong. Tribute’s several months break was further complicated by the death of Robert Francis in a plane crash (7-31-55) during that interim. He’d be replaced with Don Dubbins, a neophyte to film whose prior work was juvenile lead in the road-company of Tea and Sympathy. Spencer Tracy was meanwhile let out of Metro via settlement of his contract, said parting announced as an amicable one with ST in receipt of a pension for two decades service to the firm. James Cagney said years later that he did Tribute To A Bad Man mostly as a favor to Tracy, one of his closest filmland friends. Jim was fifty-six going in, having developed a paunch that was there to stay, but game withal for stunts not limited to an acrobatic fistfight with Stephen McNally reminiscent of fleet-footed Cagneys of yore. Sensitive Don Dubbins was so much so as to be frankly a bore, especially in circumstances where you’d lots rather him take up arms to liven things up. This was product of postwar trends toward softened males inclined to (endlessly) hand-wring conflicts rather than strapping on irons the way Cagney’s crowd would have in livelier times. Only bad boys (like Vic Morrow here) got much fun out of mislabeled "action" parts for youth.

Tribute To A Bad Man dawdles among interiors hashing a Code-denuded romance between Cagney and twenty-five years his junior Irene Papas, side-stepping the essential question of whether or not she’s his mistress. Vets like JC treaded much 50's water playing (and replaying) lions in winter. Cagney especially tended to roar beyond capacity of jangled patron ears, ramping up decibels as if to compensate for age slowing him down. There was an interesting trailer wherein he extolled virtues of young Tribute players, putting up front Metro’s anxiety to mold a next generation now that his own was waning. Jim opens the preview seated on a tractor at his own working farm, reassurance that there’s life in the old boy yet (and above are 1955 publicity stills of Cagney tending agrarian matters). JC's passing a torch to dubious successors he garlands with praise, though Dubbins and Papas sputtering at the gate would frustrate those hopes. They’d continue to work, but never at lofty heights achieved by Cagney in his youth. Dressed out as it was in Cinemascope and color, Tribute To A Bad Man seemed poised to gross along lines of adult westerns then fashionable, but $2.8 million spent, much of that attributable to false starts with Tracy, Robert Francis, and others whose footage was scrapped, wilted in the face of only $1.2 million in domestic rentals plus $1.4 foreign. The final loss of $1.3 million landed Tribute To A Bad Man on a scrap heap piled high with MGM losers of that year, including Forever, Darling, Meet Me In Las Vegas, Gaby, and The Swan. Television’s merciless assault upon theatres was really being felt in the mid-fifties. Tribute To A Bad Man is recently out from Warner’s Archive. It’s a gorgeous wide transfer, certainly my first time seeing it decently presented. These lesser 50’s westerns play so much more effectively given advantage originally had in stereo-equipped theatres with scope capacity. Its DVD release may (should) occasion reevaluation for Tribute To A Bad Man as well as others so long ignored.

Looking Back

A stranger standing on the millennium bridge taking in the view up the Thames (and contemplating the history of it all too, no doubt) seemed like a good place to reflect on the end of a decade. This evening we will welcome in the new year. I wish all of you, your friends, families, and important beings a very Happy New Year!

Happy 100th Birthday to Milton Rogovin!

Milton Rogovin by Alec Soth. 2004.

Sometimes life gets in the way of the art. This is one of the few plausible explanations of why Milton Rogovin, who turns 100 today, is not more widely know or celebrated than he is. I have been lucky enough to represent Milton’s work for the last few years and have put up a show that re-opens next week and runs through January 16. If you don’t get a chance to see it in person, I hope you’ll check out all the pictures on the Danziger Projects website. (Click here to view.) Hopefully you’ll see why he’s such a photographer’s photographer – a particular favorite of Alec Soth and Tanyth Berkeley amongst many others.

Rogovin’s pictures consist almost entirely of portraits of workers and the working class. His prints are nearly all a modest 8 x 10 inches – a size that suits his commitment to activism above art world recognition and his dedication to social issues, most notably the plight of the miners around the world; the decline of the American steel industry, and the struggle of the working people of his home town of Buffalo, New York.

This is not to say Rogovin is unknown. In 2007 he received ICP’s prestigious Cornell Capa Award and his work is in the collection of most major museums, but it would be fair to say he’s not a household name.

Deceptively straightforward, Rogovin’s photographs reveal a personal style that up-ends the usual balance between a great photographer and the subject. While most masters of photography wittingly dominate the picture, in Rogovin's work the subject commands equal strength. The photographic style is deadpan. The camera simply provides a stage for his subjects to present themselves as they see fit. Rogovin trusts them and their ability to present themselves as the unique individuals they are. Whether because of his respect and empathy for his sitters or the sincerity of his humanism and politics, this seemingly simple concept re-addresses the delicate balance of power between the observer and the observed.

Still healthy at 100 years old, Milton is celebrating his birthday with friends and family in Buffalo. So let’s salute an artist without artifice, a democrat of the darkroom.

Happy Birthday Milton!

Harriet Powers Bible Quilt

Illustration: Harriet Powers. Bible quilt, 1886.

The quilting work of Harriet Powers is a symbolists dream. The two quilts shown here, detail some of the important stories and legends of the Bible set within a panelled quilt. However, these are by no means pieces that can be judged as either 'naive' or 'folk' art as they were produced by a woman with an instinctive understanding of some of the complex messages underlying the stories. Her use of symbolism is extraordinary and even though it would be jumping to conclusions that may well not be true, it is tempting to believe that Powers, who started life as an American slave, still had at least some tenuous connections to the complex symbolism of Africa. The two pieces seem to share some of creative power of African artwork and the use of symbols, colours and textures make it all the more believable. It is part of the great human tradition of storytelling through pictures and symbols, and although Powers herself was not illiterate as some sources in the past have believed, her work resembles the power imbued by the simplicity of the symbol, much as in the later work of Matisse, though Powers produced these pieces over half a century before Matisse.

Illustration: Harriet Powers. Pictorial quilt, 1898.

I must admit that I first discovered the work of Harriet Powers through the research of Kyra Hicks, so this is not so much an article about the quilting work of Powers, which needs an article in its own right, but more about the extraordinary detective work of Hicks.

Hicks book: This I accomplish: Harriet Powers' Bible Quilt and Other Pieces, is a detailed and comprehensive investigation of Harriet Powers two remaining documented quilts, from their inception to their movement over time from one caring owner to another.

Hicks extensive and meticulous research has left no stone unturned, and as she unfolds the story of the quilts history through a series of careful and loving owners, each with their own often complex and engaging life story, the quilts themselves are imbued with these owners lives as well, giving the works even more symbolic power and resonance.

The book itself  not only tells the factual story of the journey of Powers quilts from maker to treasured museum piece, it also opens up the historical and cultural world of African America, from slavery itself, through to the complex and often difficult relationship with European America. The book made me aware that although African and European America is often seen, particularly by outsiders, as being of separate cultural traditions and with little interaction or familiarity, the opposite is often true. Hicks tells a different story, one of a much more intertwined and interdependent relationship, where although cultures might well have originated from different parts of the world, their interest, fascination and familiar identity with the symbolism and structure of Harriet Powers quilts is most definitely shared.

Kyra Hicks has left one more tantalising fact in her book, Harriet Powers is known to have produced more than two quilts, the others may yet still exist.

Illustration: Harriet Powers, 1897.

Kyra Hicks has produced a number of books within the quilting genre, some of which are listed below. All are linked to Amazon.com. She also has a fascinating and comprehensive blog Black Threads which highlights the African American quilting world.

Further reading links:This I Accomplish: Harriet Powers' Bible Quilt and Other Pieces
Martha Ann's Quilt for Queen Victoria
Black Threads: An African American Quilting Sourcebook
The Liberian Flag Story & Love of Liberty Quilt
Stitching Stars: The Story Quilts of Harriet Powers (African-American Artists and Artisans)
Harriet Powers's Bible Quilts (Rizzoli Art Series)
Signs and Symbols: African Images in African American Quilts (2nd Edition)
Always There: The African-American Presence in American Quilts
Crafted Lives: Stories and Studies of African American Quilters
Stitched from the Soul: Slave Quilts from the Antebellum South
Stitching Memories: African-American Story Quilts
Facts and Fabrications: Unraveling the History of Quilts and Slavery: 8 Projects, 20 Blocks, First-Person Accounts

Heathrow Airport

Believe it or not this is Heathrow airport in the midst of the post Christmas rush to return to work

Greens of Winter-Wow!

It was a cold, wet day but if you stopped and looked closely....there was beauty all around us.



This lichen is just so interesting!



Even on the tree trunks it was beautiful.

The Grand Old Man

By any measure, William Ewart Gladstone was one of the major figures of the Victorian age. Born on this day 200 years ago, he served as Prime Minister during four separate terms of office, and was as fascinating and controversial a figure as any of his predecessors or successors.

To mark the anniversary of his birth, the image shown is of a print from the Library's collections which links Gladstone to Henry Wellcome. It's a facsimile of a letter of thanks, sent by Gladstone to Burroughs Wellcome & Co in 1893, on receipt of one of the company's famous medicine chests.

Burroughs Wellcome & Co realised the importance of having their products associated with the great and the good. In this instance, their products are endorsed by the Prime Minister of the day. The company's medicine chests were also given to at least one US President (Teddy Roosevelt) and two British monarchs (Edward VII and George V): it all aided the image of Burroughs Wellcome & Co as a company of respectability and distinction.

But even in Gladstone's eighty-fourth year, this letter offers signs of his famous endurance, printed as it is, on sycamore wood "felled by Mr Gladstone". An advertisement then, not just for the establisment virtues of Burroughs Wellcome & Co, but for the health and fitness of the "Grand Old Man" as well.

From Brandreth's Pills to the Black Death

Over the festive season, two documentaries were broadcast which drew upon the resources of the Wellcome Library.

On BBC Radio 4, Brandreth's Pills told the story of Benjamin Brandreth, a pioneering patent remedy salesman of the nineteenth century.

Brandreth's Vegetable Pills earned their creator a fortune, and the documentary investigated Brandreth's ground-breaking marketing techniques. It also featured William Schupbach, Curator, Paintings, Prints and Drawings, Wellcome Library, discussing the testimonials included in Brandreth's publication The Doctrine of Purgation.

The concluding part of Man on Earth, Channel 4's series on how changes in climate have affected humans throughout history, aired on 28th December. To illustrate the effects of the Black Death on the population of Europe, presenter Tony Robinson was filmed in the Library's Reading Room, quoting from relevant works in our collection. The episode is available from the Channel 4 website.

Men at Work #16

Restoration work at Highgate Cemetery.