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 A Lasting Impression
Sept-Oct 2007
During the decades that he spent building his extensive collection of lithography, Jay T. Last was deepening his understanding of the art form’s history and authoring books to share his enthusiasm with others. With great passion and diligence, he amassed more than 100,000 printed items, most of them created in 19th-century America when techniques in lithographic color processing were rapidly developing. Last’s collection is rich in posters and advertisements, citrus labels, sheet music covers, maps and city views, and container labels from this era. It also includes 2,500 books with lithographic illustrations.
“It’s the greatest collection on the history of lithography in private hands,” says David Zeidberg, Avery Director of the Library. As such, it opens a wide window onto the developing field of graphic arts as a means of expressing cultural ideas.
In the interest of ensuring long-term protection and care for the material and to make it available for scholarly research, Last is placing his beloved collection into capable new hands. Through an introduction from antiquarian book dealer Ken Karmiole, Last met Zeidberg and Alan Jutzi, Avery Chief Curator of Rare Books at The Huntington, and in discussions that followed he realized that the Library’s facilities and scholarly mission would serve his collection well. The Huntington would also keep his collection intact, a point that mattered greatly to him.
The gift of the Jay T. Last lithography collection to The Huntington provides a significant scholarly resource in the history of commercial advertising and the graphic arts, as well as rich material to be mined in the study of social history. When combined with The Huntington’s other holdings in graphic arts—European and American printmaking, book illustration, and design; photography (particularly of California and the West); cartography; and English and American architecture and landscape design —the vastness of the material promises to make the Library an important center for scholarship in the field. To assure that the collection is managed and cataloged and can be made available to scholars as soon as possible, Last has provided funding for a temporary curator to process the collection. He will also leave a bequest to endow a permanent position for a curator of graphic arts.
A founder of Fairchild Semiconductor Corp., where he directed the group that produced the first diffused silicon integrated circuit chip, Last is considered one of the founders of Silicon Valley. He also established the Archeological Conservancy, which has preserved and protected more than 150 archeological sites throughout the United States. Last’s interest in the history of lithography has led him to spread the word about ephemera in his writings and through exhibitions. He is the author of The Color Explosion: Nineteenth-Century American Lithography, and he has co-authored, with Gordon McClelland, California Orange Box Labels, Fruit Box Labels, The California Style: California Watercolor Artists 1925–1950, and California Watercolors 1850–1970.
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