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Contact information: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/gmd.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/2014593001
Collection material in English
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the LC Catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically.
In 1985, the H.M. Gousha Company, a subsidiary of the Times Mirror Publishing Company, donated 29 plates painted by Hal Shelton.
The Shelton collection has grown to some 33 plates and other materials.
The Hal Shelton manuscript map collection was arranged and described in 2014 by Ryan Moore.
The status of copyright of the Hal Shelton manuscript map collection is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).
In 1996, Rand McNally & Company acquired the assets of H.M. Gousha, thereby inheriting copyright ownership of Shelton’s plates housed at Library of Congress
The Hal Shelton manuscript map collection is open to research. Researchers are advised to contact the Geography and Map Reading Room prior to visiting. Many collections are stored off-site and advance notice is needed to retrieve these items for research use.
Geography and Map Reading Room should be contacted in advance to determine availability of the collection's audio materials.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container number, Hal Shelton manuscript map collection, Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Hal Shelton (1916-2004) was artist-cartographer. He is known for painting natural-color maps with the apparent detail and realism of satellite images—years before the launching of the first satellites.
Shelton worked for the U.S.G.S. from 1938 to 1949.
Shelton began his natural-color map career with a U.S.G.S. colleague by making freelance recreational maps of Colorado.
The maps attracted the attention of Elrey Borge Jeppesen, a United Airlines pilot who had started a company that published aeronautical charts and other navigational information for pilots. He also wanted to publish general maps that catered to the increasing numbers of air travelers. Jeppesen believed that Shelton’s natural-color maps would provide airline passengers with more relevant information than conventional maps.
Jeppesen and Shelton teamed up in the early 1950s, and their business association spanned two decades, yielded more than 30 titles in what was to become The Jeppesen Natural-Color Map Series.
In 1961, Elrey Jeppesen sold his firm to the Times Mirror Publishing Company of Los Angeles but remained on as president. Hal Shelton also continued working for the new owners until the late 1960s.
Shelton died in 2004.
Consists of 33 manuscript maps. Also included in the collection is a framed flyer for an exhibit and an interview with Shelton on two audio tapes.
The Collection is organized in two series based upon the Geography and Map Division exhibition of the materials.
Acrilic on zinc
Lambert Azimuthal Equal
Acrilic on zinc
Lambert Conformal Conic
Acrilic on paper-covered zinc
Lambert Conformal Conic
Acrilic on paper-covered zinc
Lambert Conformal Conic
Acrilic on zinc
Lambert Azimuthal Equal
Acrilic on zinc
Lambert Azimuthal Equal
Acrilic on zinc
Lambert Conformal Polyconic
Acrilic on illustration board
Global projection
Acrilic on illustration board
Global projection
Acrilic on zinc
Lambert Conformal Conic
Acrilic on zinc
Lambert Conformal Conic
Acrilic on zinc
Parabolic Equal Area Interrupted
Acrilic on zinc
Parabolic Equal Area interrupted projection
Acrilic on zinc
Parabolic Equal Area non-conformal
Casein on paper-covered zinc
Lambert Conformal Conic
Acrilic on zinc
Lambert Conformal Conic
Acrilic on paper-covered zinc
Mercator
Acrilic on zinc
Lambert Azimuthal Equal
Acrilic on zinc
Polar Orthogrpahic
Acrilic on zinc
Lambert Conformal Conic
Acrilic on zinc
Polar Stereographic
Acrilic on paper-covered zinc
Lambert Conformal Conic
Acrilic on zinc
Lambert Conformal Conic
Acrilic on zinc
Lambert Conformal Conic
Acrilic on paper-covered zinc
Lambert Conformal Conic
Acrilic on paper-covered zinc
Lambert Conformal Conic
Acrilic on zinc
Parabolic Equal Area
Acrilic on zinc
Polar Orthographic
Acrilic on zinc
Polar Stereographic
Acrilic on paper-covered zinc
Lambert Conformal Conic
Acrilic on zinc
Lambert Conformal Conic
Acrilic on paper-covered zinc
Lambert Conformal Conic
From the exhibit flyer:
"Despite the widespread years of maps, the art of mapmaking remains obscure to most people, as do the mapmakers, or cartographers, themselves. Thus, the recent gift to the Library by the H.M. Gousha Co. (a subsidiary of the Times Mirror Company of Los Angeles), including twenty-nine zinc-plate maps painted by the noted artist-cartographer Hal Shelton, allows a rare glimpse into a little-known, yet most essential discipline."
"Painted over a period of almost twenty years for the Jeppesen Co. Denver, Colorado, Shelton’s maps are startlingly realistic, and beautiful, in their natural color and their representation of three-dimensional relief. Shelton arrived at his singular technique through years of experimentation with several elements: an oscillating airbrush, casein and acrylic paints, and offset-press zinc plates on which he had contour maps etched. Rejecting traditional approaches in which colors were employed arbitrarily to define landforms or altitude, Shelton sought instead to represent nature as accurate as possible by using colors closely associated with natural appearance, including some colors long sanctioned by convention—such as blue for water. While retaining an orthographically accurate position and scale for each feature, Shelton depicted landforms by shaping them distinctly through tonal changes—that is through grading from dark to light. By further employing a strict economy and harmony of design and content, Shelton succeeded in creating maps that simultaneously serve their primary role as 'instruments of communication' –as he calls them—and as aesthetically pleasing objects thus meeting the demands of both science and art."
"Originally, and consciously, designed for use by airline passengers, generally uninitiated in the complexities of technical map-reading, Shelton’s maps were soon widely adopted by pilots and schools and colleges, and were used by NASA to index photographs of the earth taken on early space missions. Indeed, Shelton’s achievement places him in the ranks of the foremost cartographers of our century who have made essays in relief representation—one of the major problems in the history of mapmaking—such as Richard Harrison, Eduard Imhof, Erwin Raisz, and Kitiro Tanaka."
"Since the Shelton maps were conceived as tools for duplication, those exhibited here still have adhered to them tape, labels, and registration markers, all essential in guiding printers in the reproduction of the maps. The same needs explain the fragmented representation of North America, in which the Aleutian Islands and sections of the contiguous continents are depicted in otherwise wasted space on the zinc plate. The published map of Nevada, moreover, shows how the original zinc-plate maps were overlaid at later stages in the printing process with geographical and cultural symbols."