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Object Timeline

1940

  • Work on this object began.

1993

  • We acquired this object.

2011

2015

2024

  • You found it!

Book, The Ghost in the Underblows by Alfred Young Fisher

This is a Book. It was designed by Alvin Lustig. It is dated 1940 and we acquired it in 1993. Its medium is lithography in orange and black ink on off-white wove paper. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.

This object was donated by Tamar Cohen. It is credited Gift of Tamar Cohen and Dave Slatoff.

Its dimensions are

H x W: 23.9 x 31.5 cm (9 7/16 x 12 3/8 in.)

It is inscribed

Printed in black ink, left: That stands a little while amidst the floods,/My heart catches its head in two veined hands,/And bends more closely to my map./Like snail spoor, silken on the grass/The little tracks of planets trace/Their shining and their wavering./Where is the point of destruction to come?/Bends closer in the lines to the mind/Seeing within itself the involved stones,/Weak granite things fronting the sea,/Like structures built of light,/Like towering memory./One day older pine tassels hang/And in the autumn air swing all/Like treble carillon in a cathedral/Or as the tinkling brains of kings that rang/At a fool’s festival./XVII/And now in paradise division stands/Like two men quarrelling on the sidewalk:/About them gather tribes with growl and glance/That one might think they speak of importance./They soon are bloody from the other’s fists/’Til gradually all the populace/Shows like a bloodied face./Mutterings commence, an angry blow,/Sides taken, and presently the whole street turns/With ants excited by the falling of a leaf./The hill country is not enough,/The enemy has iron chariots/But nevertheless will be cut down and blown to hell./‘The London Naval Conference,/The Treaty of Versailles,/Cost many ten pence/And many an eye;/One wonders, why?’/120.

Cite this object as

Book, The Ghost in the Underblows by Alfred Young Fisher; Designed by Alvin Lustig (American, 1915–1955); lithography in orange and black ink on off-white wove paper; H x W: 23.9 x 31.5 cm (9 7/16 x 12 3/8 in.); Gift of Tamar Cohen and Dave Slatoff; 1993-31-191-6

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<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18645155/ |title=Book, The Ghost in the Underblows by Alfred Young Fisher |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=23 April 2024 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>