Editor’s note: This guest post comes from Robert Resnik, a librarian at the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington, host of Vermont Public Radio’s “All the Traditions” and, according to his VPR bio, a well-known “wild mushroom hunter and chef.” — M.H.
My acquaintance with Elfriede Abbe (1919-2012) began with one book about ferns and too many about mushrooms.
In the winter of 1998 I was dealing with what might be described as a “mushroom book problem.” What had started as one bookshelf full of field guides and beautifully illustrated, antique tomes had blossomed into a crazy collection of hundreds of books, from the potentially psychedelic kid’s classic The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet to arcane British textbooks about fungi. I had no room left in the house and no time to read. And, honestly, most of the books were of no use to me or anyone else.
It was about the same time that a friend, University of Vermont botanist David Barrington, showed me his copy of The Fern Herbal, a hand-printed book full of vibrant, alluring woodblock prints. Barrington had helped Elfriede Martha Abbe, the author and illustrator, with some of the information in the book, and as thanks had received one of 150 signed, handmade copies.
The prints that illustrated Abbe’s book were exquisite: various shades of green printed on handmade paper; lovely, handset type; and details that seemed impossible with only hand-carved woodblocks and ink. I wanted one, badly.
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Elfried Abbe was a long time artist and member of the Southern Vermont Arts Center. They have an opening this Saturday, May 18th from 2-5, where Elfriede and three other (recently deceased) women artists will be honored. Abbe, McCabe, Armstrong and Webb.
P.S. Thank you for writing such a wonderful history about Elfriede!
I have some of my Aunt Elfriede Abbe’s books (and prints) which all deserve a better home among collectors of fine art and print.
The most important to me as explained to me during the year I stayed with her in 1959 while attending Cornell is The Revelations of St. John the divine”. Only those who truly understand her will understand how this book had to be Elfriede’s necessary and direct act of artistic violence against a religion that she witnessed defacing her mother’s life by decree during her mother’s (Freida Dauer Abbe) memorial service in 1956. She told me the whole story during Christmas while burning many of the wood blocks from The Revelations in her huge fireplace in Ithaca.
Aesop’s Fables, 13”x9”, 71pp, #33 of 500 Printed 1950
Rip Van Winkle, Washington Irving, 36pp, 12-1/2”x 8-1/2”, #166 of 275 Printed 1951
Garden Spice, W.C. Muenscher, 212pp, Boxed 12-1/4”x8-3/4”, #69 of 90 Printed 1954
The American Scholar, R.W. Emerson, 24pp, 8-1/2”x11”, #4 of 275, Printed 1955
Seven Irish Tales. Ed. Yeates and Others, 45pp, 11-1/4”x8-1/2”, #3 of 274, Printed 1957
The Revelation of St. John the Divine. St. James ver., 42pp, 15”x10-1/2”, #3 of 135, Printed 1958
Anyone who is interested may contact me at david@glopar.com
David Conrad Abbe