Book Collections Net Prizes

Two students received the Philip Hofer Prize yesterday, an award given to students whose personal collections of books or works of art best represent the work of Philip Hofer '21, the founding curator of the Department of Printing and Graphic Arts in the Houghton Library and a former Secretary of the Fogg Art Museum.

Hope Mayo, Philip Hofer Curator of Printing and Graphic Arts, said that six students submitted their collections, writing an annotated bibliography and an essay about how and why the collection was formed.

"We judge the collection in terms of its interest and originality and coherence," she said. "But we don't look at rarity or the extent or size ... It's a judgment of the quality of the collection, rather than a judgment of external factors that may influence people's abilities to collect."

Graduate student Philip C. Mead's collection, "The Art of War in Revolutionary America," was awarded the first-place prize of $2000.

He said his collection "consists of maps, printed materials like books and newspapers as well as engraved portraits and some objects like canteens with names inscribed ... All of these objects are from the period between 1750 and 1800."

Noah M. Silver '10, who is also a Crimson associate editorial chair, won the second-place prize of $1000 for his collection entitled, "Figbash and the Wild Things: The Illustrations of Edward St. John Gorey and Maurice Sendak."

"It's a collection of 50 items—that's what the entry was limited to—including mostly books (first-edition and some signed), prints and posters, other ephemera, as well as some figurines and toys to be honest," Silver said. "Gorey actually made some beanbag toys in the seventies, which are pretty hard to find, and I have a couple of those."

Silver started his collection in his youth.

"In third grade, I was reading these books illustrated by Edward Gorey with these weird—but at the same time intriguing—macabre illustrations of supernatural things in pen-and-ink and some color," he said. "I really enjoyed the books, and as a by-product of that I started getting more interested in the illustrations."