[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

NYC ART Meeting Tuesday-Quadriga Art



REMINDER:  NYC Archivists Roundtable Meeting tomorrow, Tuesday
January 25 at Quadriga.  If you've responded already we'll see you tomorrow
night, if not, there's a few seats left!  See information at bottom of message.

We will also be checking the names of *current members* against our
membership list at this meeting.  You will be able to pay new membership
dues if necessary.

JANUARY 2000 MEETING NOTICE

A Premiere Introduction to the Archives of Quadriga Art, Inc. and
Reproducta

Hitherto completely unknown to the academic and curatorial communities,
the archives of Quadriga Art, Inc. will be the focus of the January
meeting. Quadriga Art, and it parent company, Reproducta, both fine arts
publishing companies, possess a kind of treasure-the largest collection
of commercial religious art in the world.

For centuries, the religiously devout of many western traditions have
venerated images of deities embodied in the visual arts. The perfection
of chromolithography (Oleograph) in the 1860s, along with the successful
application of the phototransfer process to printing plates a few years
later, began a revolution which enabled, for the first time, inexpensive
color reproductions of important religious artworks to be disseminated
throughout the world. This availability at once satisfied and created a
demand for such mass-produced images, giving rise to an entire branch of
commercial art dedicated to portraying the sacred. The infusion of these
popular images, saints, angels, and the like, into the cultural
subconscious was accelerated by the increasing speed and sophistication
of mass distribution technology, and has shaped (in ways that have not
yet been fully explored) some of the most common and deeply held
cultural assumptions that people have about "the face of God." One need
look no further than the controversy surrounding the painter Chris
Ofili's interpretation of holiness in his painting, "Holy Virgin Mary,"
so recently the flashpoint of the Brooklyn Museum's exhibition, to see
how cherished is the accepted representation of "the sacred." 

Reproducta Company, Inc. was founded by the family of the late Rudolph
Schulhof in Berlin, Germany, in the early 1920s, with branches in
Prague, London, and Brussels. He re-established the company in New York
after he was forced to flee Europe in 1939. A fine arts publishing
company specializing in the manufacture of what is commonly referred to
as "church goods," Reproducta produced exclusive and commissioned lines
of religious merchandise such as "holy cards," memorial folders,
religious booklets, bookmarks, calendars, greeting cards and Christmas
cards to retailers and religious organizations throughout the United
States. Incorporated as Quadriga Art in 1950, with a branch office in
Milan, Italy, the company subsequently acquired extensive production and
manufacturing facilities in Pennsauken, New Jersey, and in Hong Kong,
enabling it to grow to become a global producer, distributor, and
direct-mail mass-marketer of an even broader array of secular items and
religious articles, including pins, medals, statues, decorative plates,
giftware, novelties, toys, and now, clothing.

Many of the topics to be covered at the program will hinge on the
challenges inherent in maintaining archives of this size and complexity,
and will include:

  * Diverse product lines
  * Archiving requirements for three locations
  * Six separate archival collections:
                  Four-color process films
                  Printers' proofs
                  Product samples
                  Paintings and drawings (original artwork)
                  Color transparencies
                  Electronic imaging (digital archive)
  * Differing requirements for an active commercial archive contrasted
      with an academic or research collection 
  * Explanation of printing manufacturing process; with examples
  * Slide views of New Jersey, Hong Kong and Milan facilities
  * Presentation of representative examples of the six archival
      collections
  * An exploration of the significance of visual portrayals
  * Issues of "taste" implicit in any discussion of the popular arts 

Theodore Grunewald, Chief Archivist of Quadriga Art, Inc. and Reproducta
Company, Inc. since 1998, joined the company as Assistant Pre-Press
Production Manager in 1997. Trained in architecture, Mr. Grunewald was
educated at Parsons School of Design, and later began his apprenticeship
at the firm of Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates in New York, where he
started out as proverbial "office boy" and worked his way through the
company, ultimately establishing the firm's drawings, correspondence,
and photo archives, and managing the office's 300,000-image slide
library, and its 1,000-item materials-sample library. Having reached the
level of junior designer five years later, Mr. Grunewald left the firm
in order to execute his first architectural commission --a public park
in the South Bronx --while at the same time, distinguishing himself as a
landmarks preservation advocate, and establishing The Urban
Archaeologist, his own research consulting firm in architectural
history. Before joining Quadriga, Mr. Grunewald also worked as a
fund-raiser for the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera.

This first Roundtable meeting of the new year will take place at the
executive headquarters of Reproducta / Quadriga, a space designed by Mr.
Grunewald in 1998.
_______________________________________________________________________

Date:             Tuesday, January 25, 2000

Time:             Social:           5:30-6:15
                  Program:          6:15-7:30

Address:          Reproducta/Quadriga Art, Inc.
                  30 East 33rd Street
                  10th Floor

Directions:       Take the Lexington Avenue Local subway (No. 6 train)
                  to the 33rd St. stop.
                  Walk west along East 33rd St. from Park Avenue
                  towards Empire State Building)
                  Mid-block between Park and Madison Avenues, at No. 30
                  is: The "Crystal Building" on the south side of 33rd
                  Street. Take elevator to 10th floor.

Fee:              Members, $3 at the door; non-members, $5
_______________________________________________________________________

R. S. V. P.  to Theodore Grunewald by January 21, 2000
e-mail (preferred):
TGrunewald@QuadrigaArt.com 
or by phone: (212) 685-0751

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>