Marty Miller, LSU Libraries Art and Design Librarian, has been awarded the John Brubaker Award for her article “Sacred vs. Profane in The Great War: A Neutral’s Indictment" published in the September 2018 issue of Catholic Library World (CLW), the official journal of the Catholic Library Association (CLA).

The John Brubaker Award was established in 1978 and recognizes "an outstanding work of literary merit, considered on the basis of its significant interest to the library profession." The award is named after former CLW advertising representative who served the association for over 20 years.

Miller's article discusses the use of visual imagery drawn from medieval and Renaissance Roman Catholic art in the political cartoons created by Louis Raemaekers (1869-1956) during the First World War. Although a citizen of the Netherlands, Raemaekers disregarded his country's neutrality in the war to publish many aggressively anti-German cartoons. Miller's article focuses on two of these drawings, which she found in LSU Libraries Special Collections (see here and here), one portraying the leaders of the Central Powers offending the Holy Family by offering instruments of war at Jesus's nativity and the other forming a triptych decrying the devastation of the city of Antwerp, Belgium, which centers on Our Lady as the Mother of Sorrows.

Miller also discusses Louis Raemaekers's illustrations in her essay “Modern Book, Ancient Forms: Artists and Book Design,” which will be part of an upcoming exhibition in Special Collections called “Exploding the Codex: Book Arts in Special Collections,” opening on August 19, 2019.