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Object Timeline

1951

  • Work on this object began.

2001

  • We acquired this object.

2011

2015

2024

  • You found it!

Book Cover, Muriel Rukeyser: Selected poems

This is a Book cover. It was graphic design by Alvin Lustig. It is dated 1951 and we acquired it in 2001. Its medium is lithograph on thin glossy paper. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.

It is credited Gift of Susan Lustig Peck.

  • Book Cover, Illuminations
  • offset lithograph on cream shiny wove paper.
  • Gift of Tamar Cohen and Dave Slatoff.
  • 1993-31-165-13

Its dimensions are

18.4 x 26.4 cm (7 1/4 x 10 3/8 in. )

It is signed

Signature printed, lower right center: lusitg.

It is inscribed

Printed in black ink, front cover upper center: Muriel Rukeyser: Selected Poems. Printed vertically in white ink, side cover: MURIEL RUKEYSER. Printed vertically in black ink, side cover: SELECTED POEMS; printed horizontally in black ink, side cover: NC 32. Printed in black ink, inside flap of front cover: SELECTED POEMS/Muriel Rukeyser/These poems are selected from the whole/body of Muriel Rukeyser's published verse, from the Theory of Flight (1935) to the recent/Orpheus. Readers of poetry are thus enabled/for the first time, to see how this relatively/young poet has developed over a fifteen-year/period./"At thirty-six Miss Rukeyser comes before/us the vetran of an unremitting effort to/reconcile her scientific and political assump-/tions with those of the romantic personalism/and the world-oppressed sensibility/which are/perhaps our chief modern conventions. It has/been a difficult effort, too often losing itself/in an unhappy, violent confession of dilemma/or wishfully asserting an incompletely earned/sense of triumph. But she has been, probably,/the most persistent of those poets who have/tried, in the Thirties especially, with so much/passion to force through this reconciliation./(Among those whose work seemed to affect/her most when she began writing were the/'Auden-Group' in England and Hart Crane/(Continued on back flap)/$1.50.

Cite this object as

Book Cover, Muriel Rukeyser: Selected poems; Graphic design by Alvin Lustig (American, 1915–1955); USA; lithograph on thin glossy paper; 18.4 x 26.4 cm (7 1/4 x 10 3/8 in. ); Gift of Susan Lustig Peck; 2001-29-19

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<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18694785/ |title=Book Cover, Muriel Rukeyser: Selected poems |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=26 April 2024 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>