This section of the Eakins Press Foundation web site is reserved for information pertaining to the current programs and events related to Eakins Press publications. It will be updated periodically by the publisher.

Statement from the Publisher:

The Eakins Press Foundation is pleased to announce the publication of four new Pocket Albums derived from the world-renowned collections at the John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art Circus Archive. Based on historical photographs and circus memorabilia from the heyday of the American Circus, these small, exquisitely printed albums are a must-have for the Circus aficionado, the fan of the historical Eakins Press or the collector of fine publications.

The albums are printed tri-tone or four color dry-trap in Italy at the fine Trifolio press. 6 x 4 inches when folded and 6 x 34 inches when open for display. Exhibition quality reproductions.

Circus: The Photographs of Frederick W. Glasier
Edited by Peter Kayafas and Deborah Walk
Essay by Luc Sante
New York: Eakins Press Foundation
2009, 168pp., 75 tritones, Oversize: 12.5 x 12 in.
$75.00 cloth, ISBN: 978-0-87130-068-3

This elaborately produced new volume showcases the rediscovered work of the great American photographer Frederick W. Glasier. Glasier made extraordinary photographs of the American circus during its Heyday, 1890-1925. A contemporary of such recognized masters as Eugene Atget in Paris, August Sander in Cologne and Ernest J. Bellocq in New Orleans, Glasier is arguably in that class of the greatest practitioners of the medium. With 75 gloriously reproduced images from the 1,700 existing glass plate negatives from the collections of the John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art at Florida State University, informative anecdotal captions by the circus historian (and co-editor of this volume) Deborah Walk and a fascinating essay by Luc Sante, this book will establish Glasier in the canon of the great American photographers from the 20th century.

From the essay “Frederick Glasier’s Canvas Opera” in by Luc Sante from Circus: The Photographs of Frederick W. Glasier

“Glasier’s circus world is the magnificent realization of everything we have ever thought we knew about the circus, more classic and sexy and dignified and strange than anything we are likely to have seen in our own experience. Taken together, his pictures compile drama and intimacy, close-up and long-shot, center and periphery, teeming masses and solitude, posed and candid, into a 360-degree view so complete that it is more like a movie than a set of stills. And even though the photographs were taken over a span of several decades, and perhaps in widely-dispersed locations, they interlock with an irresistible narrative rhythm. They show the high points, naturally--Glasier was not making an exposé--but neither are they simply advertising or propaganda. Like his subjects, Glasier was a performer, who made each of his pictures into a breathtaking display of poise and dramatic intensity, expertly guiding his viewers through the panoply of emotions, taking their breath away and then restoring it, and leaving them wanting more. Since the pictures were probably never seen more than a few at a time by their original audience--and we cannot be sure about the exact purposes to which they were put--we have the good fortune to be the first to experience them in ideal circumstances. Glasier was certainly aware of his own capabilities, but he may not have known that he created a masterpiece, a documentary record fully equal to the matter it documented, a thrilling and heartbreaking show.”  

Lincoln Kirstein: Program Notes
Edited by Randall Bourscheidt
Spring 2009, 224pp., 9 3/4 x 6 1/2 in.
$35.00 cloth, ISBN-13: 978-0-87130-091-1

The pieces collected in Lincoln Kirstein: The Program Notes are all short essays in persuasion, to an extent rarely encountered in the obscure literary form of the program note. Never missing a chance to make his case, Kirstein used the program note not only to provide useful information but also to beat a drum for the value of the classical idiom, the intimacy achieved by the greatest choreographers and their living or historical musical collaborators, and the importance of the form itself.

The early program notes are experimental. Kirstein is himself learning about ballet and passing this knowledge on to his readers. But he is also publishing a manifesto, just as many other artists of his time were doing. As a classically educated young American, he freely embraced the canonical art forms of Europe, but he also espoused a New Deal faith in the power of American culture to transform traditional modes into populist expressions with a native resonance.

Those who understand his project of uplifting the culture of this land know why he called it the School of American Ballet. The development of this idea over decades, from the founding of SAB to his last years in charge of City Ballet, are subtly revealed through these notes. In them, one passes from the effrontery of early declarations of Balanchine’s breaks with tradition, to his later explanations of how deeply imbedded in the classical line Balanchine’s art actually was. In the same evolution, one hears the unmistakable change of voice from the assertive adolescent to the established authority.

But there is another way to see these notes, one which gives them much of their charm. Kirstein invested his wide-ranging knowledge and enthusiasm in them, so that more than almost any other mere program note they contain interesting facts about the composers or artists who collaborated with Balanchine and the other choreographers at the City Ballet, or about history in general.

The compilers of this volume offer it as a modest but irrepressible complement to Lincoln Kirstein’s other published work. He published these little pieces every season and they speak with the same voice as his best work, including his unique and sometimes awkward usages of English. It is fitting to bring them together for the first time in the centennial year of his birth.

Lincoln Kirstein: A Bibliography of Published Writings
Edited by Peter Kayafas
2007, 196pp., 11 duotone photographs, 9 1/4 x 6 in.
$45.00 cloth, ISBN-13: 978-0-87130-065-2

Released on May 4th, 2007, Lincoln Kirstein’s centennial birthday, Lincoln Kirstein: A Bibliography of Published Writings is a comprehensive listing of Kirstein’s huge literary output. It is thoroughly annotated, indexed and separated into categories: Fiction; Poetry; Drama and Ballet Libretti; On Dance; On Drawing, Painting, Sculpture and Architecture; On Photography; On Film; On Literature, History, Politics and other Subjects; and Memoir. There are 575 entries, selected excerpts and a chronology of Kirstein’s life. Of the First Bibliography (1978), Hilton Kramer wrote in the New York Times: “This preliminary record of his writings on many subjects is an indispensable guide to his remarkably versatile career – one of the careers, it is well to remember, that has helped to shape some of the most valuable parts of our culture.”