The Hollow-Tile House: A Book Wherein the Reader is Introduced to Hollow-Tile in the Making, is Told How it is Wrought into Houses and is Shown How These Houses Look and from What Foreign Ancestry Their Appearance is an Heritage. Its Key-Note is Tuned to the Concert-Pitch of Progress. [First Book Appearance of Rockwell Kent]

Squires, Frederick

Published by The William T. Comstock Co., 1913

First edition. Corners lightly rubbed, a few tiny spots on front board illustration and two faintly discolored areas on rear board, binding square and tight, text clean and unmarked. 1913 Hard Cover. 208 pp. 8vo. Color frontispiece, black-and-white photographs throughout, illustrated half-title page and illustrated dedication page by Rockwell Kent (unattributed - see below for further details regarding attribution). An account of hollow tiles used for building construction, which Squires herein describes as 'the big brother of brick.' The Moorish Alhambra and Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House, and a number of other notable buildings used hollow tile construction, which was part of a movement to create fireproof homes. Squires's work is the authoritative text on the subject, and is also notable as the first appearance in book form of Rockwell Kent's illustrations. This honor was previously thought to belong to another book by Squires, Architec-tonics, which appeared in 1914. Speaking with art curator and historian Jake Milgram Wien (who has published several books on Kent's work), we confirmed that the two illustrations included in this volume are indeed by Rockwell Kent, and that one was repurposed for inclusion in Architec-tonics. Wien also provided visual evidence of this, in the form of images taken from an original drawing in his own collection. He states in a letter to us, "It shows that with pasted overlays Kent has covered over the two ends of the flowing scroll (the words 'THE' and 'HOUSE'). And he has removed the original words that appeared in the center of the scroll ('HOLLOW-TILE'), as faint traces of those words can be detected." (see attached images). Kent and Squires both attended Columbia University to study architecture, so it is not surprising that Kent would have provided illustrations for Squires's work. Wien explains why this work has not, until now, been acknowledged as including Kent's artwork: "Your discovery revises the longstanding history of Kent's known work as a published book illustrator so that it begins in 1913 with The Hollow-Tile House and not in 1914 with Architec-tonics. By Rockwell Kent's own account, he established Architec-tonics as 'the beginning of that style which, if anything did, distinguished the later work of Hogarth, Jr.' (See Rockwell Kent, 'Alias Kent by Hogarth, Jr.', in The Colophon, Part Thirteen, 1933, p.5 of this unpaginated article). Relying on Kent's account, Dan Burne Jones listed Architec-tonics as the first item in the bibliography of books illustrated by Rockwell Kent that was prepared for the 'Special Rockwell Kent Number' of American Book Collector XIV, No. 10 (Summer 1964). It is not surprising that Kent omitted reference to The Hollow-Tile House. He probably did so unintentionally, given that only two of his drawings were published in it and that the larger and more important of them was repurposed for Architec-tonics. Seller Inventory # 2207086

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Hollow-Tile House: A Book Wherein the ...
Publisher: The William T. Comstock Co.
Publication Date: 1913
Binding: Hard Cover
Condition: Near Fine
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
Edition: First Edition.