Art Treasures in DeLaMare Library

The DeLaMare Library is fortunate to display paintings, historic printed works, and artifacts of significance to the fields of mining, geology and engineering.

Main Floor

Gerald & Mabel Hartley Alcove

Three oil paintings hang in Gerald & Mabel Hartley Alcove on the Main Floor.

The largest painting in the alcove is a highly detailed work of Gold Hill by Cyrinus B. McClellan, Nevada's most prolific artist of the 1870's, who died in Reno in 1883. This painting is a panoramic view 36 x 56 inches and ornately framed. In 1876 it was announced as the fourth in a series of works on the Comstock, and the fifth commissioned by the Virginia City's fraternal Washoe Club, according to the Territorial Enterprise of 19 October 1877. It was probably among the works McClellan resorted to auctioning off in order to sustain himself during the hard times of the early 1880's. Dr. Jim McCormick, Professor of Art Emeritus and Director of Nevada Art Research Project, described the painting as "a gem."

A second and smaller painting is of Virginia City by Kate Mansfield, a schoolteacher and artist who lived and worked on the Comstock at the turn of the century. Her studio was on the corner of B and Taylor Streets in the Mallon building in Virginia City, and she advised that she was prepared to give lessons in all kinds of art work, offering a special class in drawing for children. She also took on "all kinds of decorative work done reasonable," as well as portraits in oil, watercolor and crayon. This painting of Virginia City was probably completed in 1895 although there is no date on it. Dr. McCormick describes Kate Mansfield as an artist who is "important to the visual arts in turn-of-the-century Nevada."

A third painting hanging in the alcove entitled 'The Old Prospector' was painted by Evelyn Kirsch Brandon of Sparks, Nevada and presented to the University by her aunt, Mrs. J. S. Milne of Fresno, California.

The display case (gift of the Keck Museum also located in this building) in the Alcove:

• Pictures and artifacts of the life of G. W. DeLaMare, 1938 graduate of the Mackay School of Mines, on loan from his family.
• De Re Metallica by Georgias Agricola., 1561. This edition, printed three years after the first edition, is the first systematic treatise on mining and metallurgy and one of the first technological books of modern times. The book contains 273 large woodcut illustrations, which show numerous mining processes and detail the many important advances in mining and metallurgy which were developed in the late Middle Ages. These illustrations are now famous in their own right as representative of life in the Middle Ages of Europe.
• The work of the book's German author, Agricola - Latinized from Georg Bauer - earned him the title of 'Father of Mineralogy.' He supplied a new scientific classification of minerals based on their physical properties, and described 80 different minerals and metallalic ores. Literally translated, De Re Metallica means 'On the nature of Metals' but the word metal had a wider meaning at the time and meant any mineral.
• De Re Metallica, 1912. The first successful translation of De Re Metallica into English was performed by American Mining Engineering and subsequent President of the U.S., Herbert Clark Hoover, and is wife Lou Henry Hoover. The translation was originally published in The Mining Magazine, London, in 1912, and in book form the same year.
• This edition of Hoover's translation is inscribed to the Mackay School of Mines by Herbert Hoover.
• Letter from Nevada suffragette Anne Martin regarding her "involvement" with the translation of De Re Metallica.
• The First Book of the Art of Mettals, 1674. Alvaro Alonso Barba, a Spanish priest, was sent to Peru by the Church in 1588, where he traveled widely studying mining deposits and local mining techniques. His sole book, originally published as El Arte de los metales (1640), was the first significant treatise to be written in Spanish, and the only seventeenth century treatise on its subject which was largely original. The Earl of Sandwich, England's ambassador extraordinary to Spain, from 1666-1668, obtained a copy and made an English translation. Published in London 1674.
• Classic works on engineering and accompanying tools.

Reference Room

The painting of Grover Whitby "Dee" DeLaMare, for whom the library was named, was painted by Lilli Brant and commissioned by  John S. Livermore specifically for this library.  

Chrysie P. Winn Reading Room

The Winn Reading Room of the DeLaMare Library was named in grateful appreciation for the Chrysie P. Winn Endowment, established in 1991 by Howard Winn for the enhancement of the mining and geology collection of the library. The table located in the Chrysie P. Winn Reading Room was hand-made by Mr. Winn for the new DeLaMare Library
 

Second Floor, Ansari Map Library

The tables on the second floor originated in the Clark Library, the second library building on this campus, now called the Clark Administration Building. The Clark Library dated from 1926 until the Getchell Library opened in 1962. The tables were study tables accompanied by four original chairs which had been in the Mines Library, located in Getchell Library for 18 years. The tables were refinished and accompanied the library's move back to the renovated Mackay Mines building in 1997.
 

Third/Top Floor

Lilli Brant Reading Room

The paintings in the Lilli Brant Reading Room were done by Lilli herself and are gifts for the room which bears her name and which she and her husband, Dr. Arthur A. Brant furnished. A painter of some statue since the 1930's, Lilli's work hangs in the Douglas Museum in Jerome, Arizona, Columbia University, University of Toronto, the University of Nevada, and in private collections worldwide.
 

• The canyon painting was painted while on a trip to Japan and inspired by scenery near the Takao Shrine.
• The paintings of the two African Herrero women were painted during our stay in Southwest Africa.
• The Bird Mine is an oil painting of a landscape in Colorado.
• Esperance Bay is a watercolor painted while on a hike in western Australia.
• A self portrait of Lilli Brant
• A portrait of Lilli's husband, Arthur A. Brant
• Other items in the room from the Brant's travels: Moroccan rugs, ebony busts and a carved panel plaque from Africa, and a large carved mask from New Guinea.
• A display case holds a selection of ore samples and historic mining equipment provided by the Keck Museum.