From the Publications Office: Using the Study Centers

When you're reading a book, you probably don't think too much about where all the materials in it came from or how they were compiled. A large part of the process of creating something visually exciting for you to hold in your hands consists of tracking down material to illustrate the final result. Sometimes (a lot of times, in fact) that means contacting museums and other lenders to get them to supply high-resolution photographs of works of art. But what if you have a book that's mostly text? How do you give it some visual flair? A lot of that is up to the graphic designer, and the Georgia Museum of Art works with many talented freelance designers, who have won countless awards for their projects with us. In the case of "Louise Blair Daura: A Virginian in Paris" (which opens at the end of September and has a large book to accompany it), we were lucky enough to have the Pierre Daura Study Center close at hand.

The study center includes an amazing trove of material produced by both Pierre Daura and his American wife, Louise Blair Daura, the focus of this upcoming exhibition. The book will include her letters home from Paris to her family in Virginia written from 1928 to 1930, giving wonderful and witty insight on the art and social scene of the time. It also makes use of family photographs in the archive, Louise's creative projects (valentines, for example) and even passports, as in the snapshots here. We wanted some of the script font in the book to resemble Louise's actual signature, which can be small or blurry or written in an abbreviated form in the letters. A passport is a perfect place to get a nice, clear signature.

Other times, as with the image above, Louise makes reference in her letters to a drawing, so we needed to pull the actual letters and scan them to extract her sketches. Going through these pages and family photos gives one an even better feel for the daily life of these people than reading about them in a book, but we're doing our best to capture that feel for everyone who reads the final product.

The contents of the archive are listed through the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, online. To make an appointment to use the archive, you can call the museum's main line, at 706.542.4662 or email gmoa@uga.edu.