Sybille Pantazzi
Sybille Pantazzi | |
---|---|
Born | Sybille Oltea Yvonne Pantazzi April 2, 1914 Galați, Romania |
Died | July 23, 1983 Toronto, Ontario, Canada | (aged 69)
Nationality | Roumanian-born Canadian |
Education | University of Toronto |
Occupation(s) | librarian, bibliophile, writer |
Sybille Pantazzi (April 2, 1914 – July 23, 1983) was a Canadian librarian, bibliophile and writer. She was librarian of The Edward P. Taylor Library & Archives of the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto for 32 years, where she was responsible for its collection of books and periodicals.[1] Besides being a notable book collector, she was a scholar with wide-ranging interests.[2][3] She and her work influenced researchers and gallery staff, a number of whom went on to become curators or directors of galleries and museums across Canada.[4][5]
Early life
Pantazzi was born in Galați, Romania, on April 2, 1914, to Commander, later Admiral Vasile "Basil" Pantazzi (1871–1945), a Romanian naval officer and occasional diplomat; and Canadian Ethel Sharp Greening (1880–1963), an author and a committed feminist.[5][6]
In her early years, Pantazzi accompanied her family in their trans-continental peregrinations. She spent the period of 1916–1917 in
Career
She gained experience in cataloguing books from her father and mother who both collected, as well as from cataloguing libraries of a country neighbour and of a library in a foundation. On the outbreak of World War II, Pantazzi joined the Romanian Red Cross as an ambulance driver near the front lines.[5] After the Paris Peace Treaties were signed in 1947, she became librarian of the British Council Library in Bucharest.
In spring 1946, Pantazzi and her mother Ethel were granted an exit visa for a visit to Canada, by the new Communist government. In Toronto, after a period as librarian of the Board of Trade, she was hired in 1948 as librarian at the Art Gallery of Toronto (now the Art Gallery of Ontario), where she remained for the rest of her working life.[5] Under her direction the library grew from a collection of several hundred books to one of over 25,000.[3] She retired as Chief Librarian in 1980.[3]
While working, she obtained a B.A. and a M.A. in Romance languages at the University of Toronto.[5]
Work and interests
Pantazzi was interested was in almost every aspect of the physical appearance of books which gathered together in an imaginative way would illustrate the manufacture, selling or distribution of books in any period.
Typically, Pantazzi pinned down a subject, but let others continue the investigation. She is known foremost as a collector of books.[1][10] Her collection of examples of 19th century bookbinding was, at least in part, the source material necessary for her articles on the subject. Parts of her collection of Victorian and Edwardian bindings, her research base for her pioneering articles on that subject, were donated by her family, respectively, to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library and to Massey College at the University of Toronto. To the Fisher Library also, the family donated her collection of books by Vernon Lee with her research on the subject.[11]
Her collecting instinct was entirely focused on the Art Gallery of Ontario. The collection of book jackets along with her index cards is in the Edward P. Taylor Library & Archives Special Collections at the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto, where the library's current online catalogue was named "Sibyl" in her honour.
Curator
Pantazzi served as a unofficial research curator from 1956 on, at the then Art Gallery of Toronto and other institutions. She was particularly interested in Old Master paintings, drawings and prints.[5] Along with organizing an exhibition of Alan Garrow's collection of British 19th century illustrated books and bindings which had been given to the Gallery, she supported many exhibitions with articles, bibliography or catalogue entries, as well as writing scholarly articles for magazines such as Connoisseur.[12][8] She continued this role when Nancy Dillow, who had formerly worked at the Art Gallery of Toronto, became director of the Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery in Regina (now the MacKenzie Art Gallery) (1967–1978), supporting many scholarly exhibitions for her, as well as continuing to support exhibitions at the Art Gallery of Ontario, often those organized by Katharine Lochnan, Curator of Prints and Drawings.[8]
In the Canadian area of the collection, she wrote in depth about the foreign art shown at the Canadian National Exhibition, 1905–1938.[12][13] She also was the first to write about book illustration and design by Canadian artists.[9]
During her lifetime, she gave the children's books she collected to the Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books at the Toronto Public Library, where an annual Sybille Pantazzi Memorial Lecture is held.[12]
Her nearly twenty-year correspondence and the library on art in fiction she formed with the American art-historian Ulrich Alexander Middledorf (1925–1981) is in special collections at the Getty Research Institute, Research Library.[a][14]
Selected works
- Four Designers of English Publishers' Bindings, 1850–1880, and Their Signatures (1961)
- The Donna Laura Minghetti Leonardo: An International Mystification (1965)
- An Album of 18th Century Venetian Operatic Caricatures Formerly in the Collection of Count Algarotti, Biographical note on Algarotti (1980)
Gallery
Four Designers of English Publishers' Bindings, 1850–1880, and Their Signatures[15]
Notes
- ^ Accession no. 950004
References
- ^ a b Suddon 1983, p. 3.
- ^ Mason 2013a, p. 137.
- ^ a b c McNeil 2006, p. n.p..
- ^ Bradshaw 1984, p. 34.
- ^ a b c d e f g Pfaff 1983, p. 1.
- ^ a b c Cornea, Vasile; Mihailescu, Alexandru Stefan (2020). "Vasile Pantazzi". www.cesianu-racovitza.ro. Familia Cesianu Racovitza. Retrieved May 4, 2020.
- ^ Mason 2013b, pp. 164–186.
- ^ a b c d Speller & Pfaff 1983, pp. 4–6.
- ^ a b Grove 2015, p. 121.
- ^ Kelly 2000, p. 190.
- ^ "Gifts to the Collection" (PDF). fisher.library.utoronto.ca. Fisher Library, 2008. Retrieved April 16, 2023.
- ^ a b c Pfaff 1983, p. 2.
- ^ Pantazzi, Sybille. "Foreign Art at the Canadian National Exhibition 1905–1938". Bulletin 22, 1973. National Gallery of Canada. Retrieved May 3, 2020.
- ^ Cicone 2005, pp. 44–47.
- S2CID 184039323.
Bibliography
- Bradshaw, Marion Hahn (1984). "Obituary". Canadian Antiques Collector. 19 (1): 34.
- Cicone, Amy Navratil (2005). "Ulrich Middeldorf and Art in Fiction: A Collector Ahead of His Time". Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America. 24 (2): 44–47. S2CID 192637886.
- Grove, Jaleen (2015). "Drawing Out Illustration History in Canada" (PDF). RACAR: Revue d'art canadienne / Canadian Art Review. 40 (2): 121.
- Kelly, Bernard (2000). "Open Saturdays". Hugh Anson-Cartwright, Bookseller: A Celebration. Toronto: St. Thomas Poetry Series. pp. 189–190. ISBN 0-9685339-6-5. Retrieved May 4, 2020.
- Mason, David (2013a). The Pope's Book Binder. A Memoir. Windsor: Biblioasis. p. 137. ISBN 978-1-927428-17-7.
- Mason, David (2013b). "Sybille and Ed: A Love Story". Descant Magazine. 44 (161): 164–186. Retrieved May 19, 2020.
- McNeil, Stephen C. (2006). "Who Was Who: Biographies of Canadian Art Librarians". arlis: Essays in The History of Art Librarianship in Canada (PDF). Ottawa. pp. n.p.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Pfaff, Larry (1983). "Sybille Pantazzi". Victorian & Edwardian Illustrated Books and Decorative Bindings from the Collection of Sybille Pantazzi (PDF). Toronto: Anson-Cartwright Books. pp. 1–3.
- Suddon, Alan (1983). "S.P.: A memoir". Victorian & Edwardian Illustrative Books and Decorative Bindings from the Collection of Sybille Pantazzi. Toronto: Anson-Cartwright Books. p. 3. OCLC 231845914.
- Speller, Randall; Pfaff, Larry (1983). "Sybille Pantazzi: A bibliography of her writings". Victorian & Edwardian Illustrated Books and Decorative Bindings from the Collection of Sybille Pantazzi (PDF). Toronto: Anson-Cartwright Books. pp. 4–6.
Further reading
- ISBN 1-55002-238-5.