CONTACT:
phyllis.hegner@cincinnatilibrary.org
513.369.4571
lisa.mauch@cincinnatilibrary.org
513.369.6959
PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Visit our press room at:
http://www.cincinnatilibrary.org/press/
October 26, 2012
Artists David & Barbara Day to Lead Discussion About Their Life Works
Vanishing Cincinnati Book Launch at Main Library
Sunday, December 2 – 2:00 p.m.
A book launch debuting, Vanishing Cincinnati, a compilation of the life works of local artists David and
Barbara Day, will take place at the Main Library of the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton
County on Sunday, December 2.
As part of the launch, a panel discussion featuring the Days (as well as local historian and former
Cincinnati Enquirer columnist Owen Findsen, who wrote the forward for the book), will begin at 2:00
p.m. The discussion, to be moderated by reference librarian Chris Smith, will be held in the third floor
study area across from the Genealogy & Local History Department.
David and Barbara Day’s book, Vanishing Cincinnati, will be available for purchase and to be signed
by the artists after the discussion courtesy of the Friends of the Public Library.
David and Barbara Day, the husband and wife partners of David Day, Designer & Associates, have
been professional designers in Cincinnati for nearly 50 years during which they have directed
restoration of some of Cincinnati’s landmark buildings, including the former Cincinnati Enquirer
Building at 617 Vine Street. Today, their practice and studio is in the Pendleton Art Center in Overthe-Rhine.
The Days’ freehand working drawings done for clients and contractors over decades have become
collectors’ items in their own right. Now many of these renderings, along with some of their original
drawings which were completed independently of commissioned projects, have been collected in
Vanishing Cincinnati.
Vanishing Cincinnati – Page 2
Imbued with history and intricate background, the Days’ finely detailed pen and ink illustrations bring
life and color to Cincinnati’s sepia past. Among illustrations found in the book are depictions of
Sawyer Point and Mt. Adams as they were seen in the late 1800s, trolley cars rattling through Eden
Park, and the Cincinnati Reds battling the Tigers at Crosley Field for the 1940 World Series title. It is
through the vision of these artists that elements of the past long since removed from everyday life can
once again be preserved through illustrations, such as a locomotive moving down Eggleston Street
80 years ago. The book doesn’t leave out the city’s most iconic landmarks. Drawings of Fountain
Square, Music Hall, and Union Terminal provide glimpses of previous glory as well as one of the “Old”
Main Library, which once stood on Vine Street, just a block and a half away from the current location
(where much of the research for Vanishing Cincinnati was conducted).
While Vanishing Cincinnati illustrates some of what has been lost to the city, its spirit is in the
preservation and the continuity of the city’s architectural past. Within its pages, the authors hope to
convey the idea that care for these venerable neighborhoods and structures brings longevity and
cultural richness to the community and the understanding that the old and the new can function, even
thrive together.
MORE ABOUT THE ARTISTS: David is a fifth-generation Cincinnatian, born in Over-the-Rhine and
Barbara, whose family goes back four generations, was born in Clifton. Both attended the University
of Cincinnati and earned Bachelor of Science degrees in industrial design and interior design.
Upon graduation the two classmates, worked for and learned from R. Buckminster Fuller in a
graduate program at Southern Illinois University. Fuller was a visionary architect, designer,
philosopher, and author who devoted his life to learning and teaching ways good design could
improve the human condition. The Days started their design practice in the 1960s within earshot of
the splashing waters of the Tyler Davidson Fountain, and continue to this day on the edge of “the
Northern Liberties” (just south of Liberty Street Hill) where they can hear the bells ringing in the Overthe-Rhine bell tower, which they designed.
For information, call the Main Library at (513) 369-6905 or visit www.CincinnatiLibrary.org or log
onto http://ddaydesigner.com/vanishing_cincinnati_book.htm.
PHOTO CAPTIONS: (first page, top) cover of Vanishing Cincinnati, (first page, bottom) David and Barbara Day in
front of the Over-the-Rhine bell tower which they designed; (second page, top) Cincinnati’s Music Hall, late
1800s; (second page, middle) the “Old” Main Library, which once stood on Vine Street; (second page, bottom)
Pendleton Art Center in Over-the-Rhine.