'Love Days' and the Surrealist Book: Books as Objects in the Very Long 19th Century

What happened to the book when the Surrealists took it up as a tool for artistic experimentation? What secrets are contained in a novel written by a witness to the avant garde of the early twentieth century? Jodi Hauptman , The Robert Lehman Foundation Chief Curator of Drawings and Prints at the Museum of Modern Art, joins the cofounders of Mandylion Press , Madeline Porsella and Mabel Capability Taylor, to answer these questions and more. The Surrealist Book: Tomorrow Lives in Mirrors , an exhibition curated by Hauptman at MoMA, features artworks by André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Claude Cahun, Max Ernst, and Toyen and demonstrates how the book emerged as a portal to the unexpected, the irrational, and the marvelous beginning in the 1920s. Mandylion Press recently reissued Ettie Stettheimer’s Love Days. Originally published in 1923 and forgotten in the decades since, Love Days traces a young woman’s entrée into an avant-garde milieu based on the community of artists and thinkers hosted by the Stettheimer sisters at their salon. The new Mandylion edition of Love Days invites a reconsideration of Ettie Stettheimer. Overshadowed by her older sisters, painter Florine and dollhouse-architect Carrie, Ettie used Love Days to write herself into the art historical record. This panel considers the book as a tool for artistic legacy. Registration is encouraged, but not required. PARTICIPANTS Mandylion Press unearths lost literary gems written by women & weirdos in the (very) long nineteenth century. Founded by Madeline Porsella and Mabel Capability Taylor, Mandylion resurrects special stories, pairs them with contemporary introductions and compendiums of period imagery, and offers readers totally cute books of historic merit. Mandylion also hosts a podcast called 1-800-1800. Madeline Porsella , cofounder and editor of Mandylion Press, is pursuing a PhD in art history at Yale University. Mabel Capability Taylor , cofounder and editor of Mandylion Press, works at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Jodi Hauptman is The Robert Lehman Foundation Chief Curator of Drawings and Prints at the Museum of Modern Art.