NEWMAN BOOK PRIZE AWARDED TO 
HUNT INSTITUTE FOR BOTANICAL DOCUMENTATION
for release April 9, 2005

American Botanical Prints of Two Centuries has won the annual book award sponsored by American Historical Print Collectors Society.  The Ewell L. Newman prize honors titles that enhance understanding and appreciation for prints in the history and culture of North America.

Published by Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon University, the exhibition catalogue presents a new survey of historical plant images.  The handsome illustrations show works ranging from elaborate scientific monographs to the humblest children’s book, beginning with a Charleston intaglio picture of 1806, executed in such media as woodcut, etching, and lithography.  Besides well-written essays on the role of botanical illustration in American cultural history, the volume provides valuable reference material about publishing sources, scholarly explications of the many printmaking techniques, and biographies of numerous botanical artists and printmakers.

The book is a collaboration of three experts at the Hunt Institute in Pittsburgh.  Gavin D.R. Bridson is a bibliographer and a scholar of picture-printing technique.  James J. White is curator of art, and a founder member of American Society of Botanical Artists.  Assistant curator and exhibitions preparator Lugene Bruno designed the publication.

“This reasonably-priced, excellent reference belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who wants to know about botanical prints,” says Michael McCue of Asheville, North Carolina, chair of the award jury.  Other jurors were Jourdan Houston, Durango, Colorado; Rosemarie Tovell, Ottawa, Ontario; Jonathan Flaccus, Putney, Vermont; and William Huntington, Omaha, Nebraska.  The Newman award, which comes with a prize of $500, will be awarded May 14, 2005 in Springfield, Massachusetts, during the Society’s annual conference.

Last year the prize was awarded for Winslow Homer and the Pictorial Press by David Tatham (Syracuse University Press).  The award is funded by an endowment in memory of Ewell L. Newman, a founder of American Historical Print Collectors Society, which fosters the collection, preservation, and study of prints produced from the beginning of the 17^th century through the 19^th century.  The Society’s web site at www.ahpcs.org includes an index of Imprint, its journal of the field, as well as a chronicle of the past distinguished winners of the Newman Prize.

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Last updated June 02, 2006