One of the things that happens after a couple of decades the same archive is that you notice very quickly when something doesn’t fit into the usual patterns. Here we have one such thing, the cover of the program for the 1964 Rondelet:
That is instantly recognizable as being both far too sophisticated and entirely too good for its purpose. The artwork for things like this typically can best be described as “adequate.” I didn’t at first see the artist’s signature inside the drawing but the inside of the program, under “Rondelet Committee,” credits “Mister Bill Condon.” Condon, who graduated from Rice in 1949, was a practicing architect but had a second life as a successful painter and printmaker:
As I looked more intently at the drawing I had a sense that I’d seen other work by the same artist before, so I went and asked a colleague about it. Indeed, back in the vault he turned up this small multi-media piece which Condon made for George and Alice Brown. It found its way to the Woodson via Ralph O’Connor:
Now, go back to the inside of the program and see if you can spot the other, even more startling anomaly.