Thursday, April 19, 2012

Dr. Robert J. Wickenheiser on Terrance Lindall's Milton Illustrations


Though I couldn't be present for the Williamsburg Circle's first meeting, Terrance Lindall kept me informed of the proceedings through emailed photos and reports. Readers may recall that the Circle's central goal is to encourage younger generations to engage with the classics, including of course John Milton!

Our chairman is Dr. Robert J. Wickenheiser, the very man whom you see in the above photograph, book collector and Milton expert, among other things. I'll quote Terrance on the man as collector:
Last Saturday, we were distinctly honored to have one of the world's greatest book collectors, Dr. Robert J. Wickenheiser, . . . give a talk on how he developed his Milton collection, certainly the most comprehensive Milton collections in the world . . . . The April 14th event was special to him, and it was at my request that he made the nine hour journey by car with his daughter Kari and with many of his favorite rare Milton treasures to give his talk and meet with those of you who could attend . . . . [H]e is a sincere and dedicated scholar and also a humanitarian who loves people and loves to meet and talk to them. On top of that, he is a great scholar and leader. As I said in my introduction for his lecture, he is not just a leader. Leaders are multitudinous. Rather, Bob is a transformational leader. There are very few transformational leaders . . . . All of you know of famous book and art collections by wealthy men like J. P. Morgan and others. Very few book collectors are also major scholars. Bob is one of the few, or to my mind the only one of such stature. We were therefore very very honored to have this great man come to join us on that special day.

I missed what must have been a wonderful talk on collecting books by and about Milton, but I received the notes, so I can perhaps at least report on Dr. Wickenheiser's opinion of Terrance's Milton illustrations, an opinion offered in the context of praise for such illustrators as William Blake and Gustav Doré:
And OH YES, then there is Terrance Lindall, of course, whom it has been my great fortune to know and also to have broadly represented in my Milton collection through a great many originals in a great many formats and style.

Terrance, I cannot tell you how grateful and how proud I am to have your spectacular illustrations, which make you the greatest illustrator of Paradise Lost in our time and rank you among the very finest and most visionary of all time!

High praise indeed! When I became aware of Terrance's Milton works, I was surprised, for I had first -- as a young man -- encountered his illustrations for the magazines Creepy and Heavy Metal, and those images were not of Adam and Eve!

At the time that I first blogged on his Milton work, those illustrations were already a quarter-century in the past, and Terrance was involved mostly in curatorial work for the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center and theorizing on art in various essays published in a number of venues, having withdrawn from making art himself -- or so he said -- but within a couple of years of my blog posts on him and his work, he began to revive his interest in illustrating Milton.

I don't claim to have played any role in that, but I'm grateful to have been present, even if 12,000 miles away, in this time of his interest's revival!

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6 Comments:

At 6:15 AM, Blogger Carter Kaplan said...

Linked to Highbrow

 
At 4:47 AM, Anonymous Bienvenido Bones Banez Jr. said...

According to Dr.Robert J. Wickenheiser:
This wonderful elephant folio featuring Terrance Lindall's remarkable illustrations for Paradise Lost along with his splendid synopsis of Milton's great epic is now in my personal Milton collection at home and will one day become a centerpiece in my Milton collection bearing my name at the University of South Carolina. There is will also be unique unto itself, since it only one of two such folio editions Lindall did, providing marvelous historiated, initial letters, and additional illustrations all by hand and in 24 k gold, with one copy being in the Yuko Nii collection at the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center in Brooklyn, NY, and the other being my copy; each is very different from the other and of course I am prone to say that mine is especially compelling, truly genius in the illustrations and the illumination of the folio. I know that as well as being a centerpiece to my Milton collection, it will also serve as one of the major illustrated "editions" of Paradise Lost through the ages, ranking with the 1688 first illustrated edition, Blake, Martin, and Doré, as well as at the head of a growing collection of contemporary artists illustrating Paradise Lost which I have been fortunate to collect in a very special way of late through the support and efforts of my close friend Terrance Lindall and other new artists friends like Bienvenido Bones Banez, several pieces of whose art adorn my Milton collection, and Robert Beal, whose unique art also stands at the center of my growing collection of contemporary artists who have illustrated Milton's great epic.

Here's the website-photos-'Paradise Lost Exhibits & Elephant Folio...
http://www.welcomebones666artworld.trilogistick.com/index.php?id=photo

 
At 4:51 AM, Anonymous Bienvenido Bones Banez Jr. said...

According to Dr.Robert J. Wickenheiser
I couldn't agree more with Bienvenido Bones Banes's statement on this picture: "I declares this one of the world's greatest printed and embellished books, while Terrance, looking into the future, foresees the future impact of Milton on the world and declares that Milton will be seen as the foremost icon of freedom among his many other virtues."

Here's the website-photos-'Paradise Lost Exhibits & Elephant Folio...
http://www.welcomebones666artworld.trilogistick.com/index.php?id=photo

 
At 4:54 AM, Anonymous Bienvenido Bones Banez Jr. said...

According to Dr.Robert J. Wickenheiser
Bienvenido Bones Banez and Terrance Lindall admire the wonderful elephant folio featuring Terrance Lindall's remarkable illustrations for Paradise Lost along with his splendid synopsis of Milton's great epic. This copy is now in my personal Milton collection at home and will one day become a centerpiece in my Milton collection bearing my name at the University of South Carolina. There is will also be unique unto itself, since it only one of two such folio editions Lindall did, providing marvelous historiated, initial letters, and additional illustrations all by hand and in 24 k gold, with one copy being in the Yuko Nii collection at the Williamsburg Art and Historical Center in Brooklyn, NY, and the other being my copy; each is very different from the other and of course I am prone to say that mine is especially compelling, truly genius in the illustrations and the illumination of the folio. I know that as well as being a centerpiece to my Milton collection, it will also serve as one of the major illustrated "editions" of Paradise Lost through the ages, ranking with the 1688 first illustrated edition, Blake, Martin, and Doré, as well as at the head of a growing collection of contemporary artists illustrating Paradise Lost which I have been fortunate to collect in a very special way of late through the support and efforts of my close friend Terrance Lindall and other new artists friends like Bienvenido Bones Banez, pictured here, several pieces of whose art adorn my Milton collection, and Robert Beal, whose unique art also stands at the center of my growing collection of contemporary artists who have illustrated Milton's great epic.


Here's the website-photos-'Paradise Lost Exhibits & Elephant Folio...
http://www.welcomebones666artworld.trilogistick.com/index.php?id=photo

 
At 5:03 AM, Anonymous Bienvenido Bones Banez Jr. said...

According to Dr.Robert J. Wickenheiser:
My good fortune to be with two great artists of our time, Bienvenido Bones Bañez and Terrance Lindall. Several of Bien's drawings illustrating Paradise Lost and a major grouping of original drawings by Terrrance Lindall as well as the only other copy of his magnificent elephant folio illustrating Paradise Lost in the style of a medieval manuscript are in my private Milton collection and will ultimately become center pieces in my Milton collection in Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of Special Collections.

Here's the website-photos-'Paradise Lost Exhibits & Elephant Folio...
http://www.welcomebones666artworld.trilogistick.com/index.php?id=photo

 
At 7:01 AM, Blogger Horace Jeffery Hodges said...

Bones, let me make that link easier to access, using the code provided under "Leave your comment."

Jeffery Hodges

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