Designer Bookbinders has announced the winners of its International Bookbinding Competition 2009.Binders from around the world were invited to enter the event, which was organized in conjunction with the Bodleian Library. An exhibition of selected competition entries is being shown alongside the Bodleian’s own exhibition An Artful Craft - Fine and Historic Bookbindings from the Broxbourne Library and Other Collections.Designer Bookbinders International Bookbinding Competition 2009 featured two prizes awarded in honor of Sir Paul Getty KBE (1932-2003). Sir Paul Getty was one of the greatest book collectors of his era and was a passionate advocate for the art and craft...
Banned Books Week Illustrated
Sometimes a picture can save more than a thousand words. As we mark Banned Books Week, an image serves as a reminder of the importance of protecting our freedom to read. In this case a photograph of the parking garage of the Kansas City Public Library in Missouri.The books featured on this facade were chosen by citizens, who voted for their favorite titles. Interesting, most of the winners have something else in common: they were challenged by would-be censors, who requested that the books be removed from school and/or public libraries. For example Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird remains...
ABC’s of Book Collecting: As Issued & As Usual
AS ISSUEDA term used to emphasise the original condition, as issued, of the book described, especially when some individual feature contradicts normal expectation; e.g. ‘edges trimmed, as issued’,‘stitched, without wrappers, as issued’, ‘half roan, as issued’. See advance copy.AS USUALA favourite qualification, among booksellers’ cataloguers, to the admission of some defect or imperfection which is, or can be maintained to be, so prevalent as to be almost normal among copies of the book described; e.g. ‘foxed as usual’, ‘lacks half-title as usual’, ‘Q4is a cancel as usual’, ‘spine faded as usual’.Previous ABC's of Book Collecting postsCarter, John & Nicolas BarkerABC's...
The Great Omar: The Zenith of Bookbinding Art
In 1912, bookbinder Francis Sangorski decided to produce the most elaborate binding of all time, a jeweled edition of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám with illustrations by Elihu Vedder. The magnificent binding was a masterwork and contained almost 1,200 jewels. But the book and its binder were doomed.The Harry Ransom Center recently held a stunning exhibition based upon the book and this masterpiece of bookbinding art, The Persian Sensation: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám in the West.The Ransom Center has also produced a video telling the tragic story of what happened to the greatest binding ever created:
New York Art Book Fair Opens October 2d
Printed Matter, the world’s largest nonprofit organization dedicated to publications made by artists, presents the fourth annual NY Art Book Fair, October 2-4 at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, Queens. The Fair previews on the evening of Thursday, October 1, followed by a Benefit. Admission to the fair is FREE.The Fair hosts over 200 international presses, booksellers, antiquarian dealers, and independent artist/publishers presenting a diverse range of the best in contemporary art publications.Philip Aarons, Chairman of the Board at Printed Matter, said: “Printed Matter's NY Art Book Fair re-establishes New York City as the heart of art publishing....