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The Walker Library of the History of Human Imagination is a private library and collection of artistic, scientific, and historical artefacts. The Library was founded and is owned by Jay Walker. [1]
The 3,600-square-foot facility is a wing of Walker’s home in Ridgefield, Connecticut. It contains about 30,000 books as well as maps, charts, artworks, and a wide variety of museum-level artefacts. It is not open to the public. [2]
The Library was constructed in 2002 to house and showcase a collection of books and artifacts that Walker had been assembling for two decades. [3]
Designed by architect Mark P. Finlay [4] and owner Jay S. Walker, the room combines traditional architecture with floating platforms, multiple stairways, and a glass bridge. [2] The bridge connects the entryway at the middle of three levels. Sound and lighting were designed by artist Clyde Lynds with architectural lighting design by Lana L. Lenar. [5] A series of approximately 3x4 etched glass panels are used as part of the railings around the stairs and platforms. Each of the nearly 200 etched plates depicts a seminal invention in human history in symbolic form.
Items on display at the Walker Library include an original 1957 Russian Sputnik, the world’s first space satellite (one of several backups built by the USSR), and the U.S. response, a Vanguard satellite made from surviving parts of the American satellite that exploded on the launch pad. [2]
One of two known anastatic facsimiles of the original 1776 U.S. Declaration of Independence, made directly from the original using a wet-copy process. [2]
The Harmonia Macrocosmica by Andreaus Cellarius. This 1660 atlas included the first published heliocentric depiction of the solar system. [2]
"The Flayed Angel", was published in Paris by the anatomist and artist Jacques Gautier d'Agoty in 1745. This is a three-foot-high, colour portrait of a nude, seated woman, viewed from the back with her face turned in a three-quarter profile. Her back is slit open up the spine, and her skin and muscles are peeled aside on both left and right to reveal the ribs and spine beneath.
A White House cocktail napkin, circa March, 1942, upon which President Franklin D. Roosevelt briefly outlined his three-point strategy for winning World War II in his own handwriting. The president jotted down his thoughts on the napkin during a Rose Garden meeting with U.S. Army Air Corps General Hap Arnold, who took the napkin back to the Pentagon where it remained classified for many years.
Additional artifacts in the Library include: [6] [2]
Henry Patrick Clarke RHA was an Irish stained-glass artist and book illustrator. Born in Dublin, he was a leading figure in the Irish Arts and Crafts Movement.
The Dungeon Master's Guide is a book of rules for the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. The Dungeon Master's Guide contains rules concerning the arbitration and administration of a game, and is intended for use by the game's Dungeon Master.
Victor Ambrus was a Hungarian-born British illustrator of history, folk tales, and animal story books. He also became known from his appearances on the Channel 4 television archaeology series Time Team, on which he visualised how sites under excavation may have once looked. Ambrus was an Associate of the Royal College of Art and a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Society of Painters, Etchers and Engravers. He was also a patron of the Association of Archaeological Illustrators and Surveyors up until its merger with the Institute for Archaeologists in 2011.
Francis Barlow was an English painter, etcher, and illustrator.
Lynd Kendall Ward was an American artist and novelist, known for his series of wordless novels using wood engraving, and his illustrations for juvenile and adult books. His wordless novels have influenced the development of the graphic novel. Although strongly associated with his wood engravings, he also worked in watercolor, oil, brush and ink, lithography and mezzotint. Ward was a son of Methodist minister, political organizer and radical social activist Harry F. Ward, the first chairman of the American Civil Liberties Union on its founding in 1920.
Joseph Pennell was an American draftsman, etcher, lithographer, and illustrator for books and magazines. A prolific artist, he spent most of his working life in Europe, and developed an interest in landmarks, landscapes, and industrial scenes around the world. A student of James Lambdin and Thomas Eakins, he was later influenced by James McNeill Whistler. He was married to author Elizabeth Robins, and he also was a writer.
Thomas Babbit Lamb (1896–1988) was an American industrial designer. He is best known for his innovative handle designs closely modeled on the mechanics of the human hand.
The National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM) is a museum in Silver Spring, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. The museum was founded by U.S. Army Surgeon General William A. Hammond as the Army Medical Museum (AMM) in 1862; it became the NMHM in 1989 and relocated to its present site at the Army's Forest Glen Annex in 2011. An element of the Defense Health Agency (DHA), the NMHM is a member of the National Health Sciences Consortium.
Jay Scott Walker is an American entrepreneur and chairman of Walker Digital, a privately held research and development lab focused on using digital networks to create new business systems. Walker is also curator of TEDMED since 2011, and a founder of Priceline.com and Synapse Group, Inc. In 2000, Forbes estimated his net worth at $1.6 billion. By October 2000, his estimated worth was down to $333 million. As of 2013, he is not on the Forbes list of the world's billionaires.
John Warner Barber was an American engraver and historian whose books of state, national, and local history featured his vivid illustrations, said to have caught the flavor and appearance of city, town, and countryside scenes in his day.
Hugh Charles McBarron Jr. (1902–1992) was an American commercial artist. Known for his wide body of work featuring the United States Armed Forces, he is considered by many to have been the "dean of military illustrators."
The Minnesota History Center is a museum and library that serves as the headquarters of the Minnesota Historical Society. It is near downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Mark P. Finlay is an American architect and member of the American Institute of Architects, whose firms, Mark P. Finlay Architects, AIA and Mark P. Finlay Interiors, LLC are in Southport, Connecticut.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to books:
Gods' Man is a wordless novel by American artist Lynd Ward (1905–1985) published in 1929. In 139 captionless woodblock prints, it tells the Faustian story of an artist who signs away his soul for a magic paintbrush. Gods' Man was the first American wordless novel, and is considered a precursor of the graphic novel, whose development it influenced.
George Alexander Walker is a Canadian artist and writer best known for his wood engravings and wordless novels.
There are more than 100 illustrators of English-language editions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass (1871), with many other artists for non-English language editions. The illustrator for the original editions was John Tenniel, whose illustrations for Alice and Looking Glass are among the best known illustrations ever published.
Biological illustration is the use of technical illustration to visually communicate the structure and specific details of biological subjects of study. This can be used to demonstrate anatomy, explain biological functions or interactions, direct surgical procedures, distinguish species, and other applications. The scope of biological illustration can range from the whole organism level to microscopic.
The Legend of Zelda: Art & Artifacts is an art collection book about Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda video game series. It is published in English by Dark Horse Comics out of a partnership with Nintendo and is the second book of an official series called the "Goddess Trilogy" that began with the publication of Hyrule Historia and was completed with the publication of The Legend of Zelda Encyclopedia. It was released on February 26, 2017 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda series. The book provides a collection of illustrations created in the first 30 years of The Legend of Zelda video games. Two editions were published including a standard edition with a red cover and a purple limited edition that depicts the Master Sword on its cover.
Tolkien's artwork was a key element of his creativity from the time when he began to write fiction. A professional philologist, J. R. R. Tolkien prepared a wide variety of materials to support his fiction, including illustrations for his Middle-earth fantasy books, facsimile artefacts, more or less "picturesque" maps, calligraphy, and sketches and paintings from life. Some of his artworks combined several of these elements.