The Magic of Handwriting. The Pedro Corrêa do Lago Collection. Cet article n’est pas disponible.The Magic of Handwriting. The Pedro Corrêa do Lago Collection

Handwriting works magic: it transports us back to defining moments in history, creativity, and everyday life and connects us intimately with the people who marked the page. For nearly half a century, Brazilian author and publisher Pedro Corrêa do Lago has been assembling one of the most comprehensive autograph collections of our era, acquiring thousands of handwritten letters, manuscripts, and musical compositions as well as inscribed photographs, documents, and drawings.

From an 1153 parchment signed by four medieval popes to a 2006 thumbprint signature by physicist Stephen Hawking, the items illustrated here span nearly nine hundred years, and along the way bring us up close and personal with writers, artists, composers, political figures, performers, explorers, scientists, philosophers, and rebels whose actions and creations have made them legends.

Rather than focusing on a single era or subject, Corrêa do Lago made the ambitious decision to seek important autographs in eight broad areas of human endeavor—art, history, literature, science, music, philosophy, exploration, and entertainment. The 140 extraordinary selections gathered in this book—displayed for the first time in a major exhibition at New York’s Morgan Library and Museum—include letters by Lucrezia Borgia, Vincent van Gogh, and Emily Dickinson, annotated sketches by Michelangelo, Jean Cocteau, and Charlie Chaplin, and manuscripts by Giacomo Puccini, Jorge Luis Borges, and Marcel Proust.

Handwriting is one of the most visceral means by which we leave tracks of our existence. At a time when so much of our communication has become utterly immaterial, this collection conveys the power of the pen to illuminate the energy, passion, vulnerability, and imagination of humankind across the ages.

Christine Nelson es la conservadora de la Fundación Drue Heinz de manuscritos literarios e históricos en el Morgan Library & Museum. Autora de The Brontës: A Family Writes y Drawing Babar: Early Drafts and Watercolors, ha sido comisaria de importantes exposiciones sobre la obra de Henry David Thoreau, Charlotte Brontë, Robert Burns, Oscar Wilde, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry y Voltaire.

Julius Wiedemann estudió diseño gráfico y marketing, y fue editor de arte en periódicos y revistas de diseño en Tokio antes de sumarse al equipo de TASCHEN en 2001. Sus títulos incluyen Illustration Now! y series dedicadas al diseño de portadas de discos musicales, así como la colección infográfica y libros sobre publicidad y cultura visual.