Nura, The Buttermilk Tree, 1934

Nura, The Buttermilk Tree, 1934

Nura, The Buttermilk Tree, 1934

Nura, The Buttermilk Tree, 1934

Nura, The Buttermilk Tree, 1934

I feature here five of the sixteen illustrations from The Buttermilk Tree, a 1934 privately-published semi-rarity written and illustrated by the mysteriously-named Nura.

Time reviewed the book at the time. (I wish more magazines had such an online archive.) From the review:

Assiduous U. S. gallery snoopers and the Paris Salon d'Autonne have known about Nura since 1925. She studied in Kansas City's Art Institute, at the Art Students League in New York and in Chicago where she met her Painter-Husband Eduard Buk Ulreich. Buk Ulreich nicknamed her Nura because he "never calls people by their right names." Her right name is Norah Woodson Ulreich. When she and her husband do murals together they sign them Bukannura. Living in a Manhattan studio, they have no children because Nura feels a real one might engross her to the point that she could not paint imaginary ones.

Open Library lists six books by her, including The Buttermilk Tree.

colophon signed by Nura

The colophon lists the papers used, which I would have chosen for their names alone: Strathmore's Saxon Wedding and Hurlbut's Shadowmould.

One of the best features of the book is the amazing photogravure printing -- print junkies might want to track it down just for that.

Suitable listening for this post: "Evolution" by The Hollies.