The concept was simple enough. To publish a illustrated children's book that was well-made and affordable for the American family. At the time the average price of a children's book was $2-$3.George Duplaix, the then president of the Artists and Writers Guild, Inc., pitched the idea to Simon & Schuster and the Little Golden Books were born.The first 12 titles were published in October, 1942 for 25¢ a piece. The distinctive illustrated gold-foil spine over the stiff pictorial boards set the Little Golden Book apart from the field and ushered in a new era of children's books. Now, 65+ years...
48 Dante Variations. Caroline Bergvall Reads The Inferno
As of May, 2000 the British Library housed 48 different translations of Dante's Inferno into English.Poet and sound artist Caroline Bergvall gathers the opening lines of each translation in her sound piece VIA (48 Dante Variations).Bergvall reads the opening of each translation then names the translator and the date of the publication. The result is powerful. The overarching monotony sprinkled with the subtlety of each translation and the hypnotic drone of Bergvall's voice leaves the listener transfixed as they await the next rendering of Dante's lines. The piece conveys the inherent complexity of the art of translation and illuminates the...
Picturing the London Book Trade
Bernard Shapero"Bookdealing must be amongst the most wonderfully eccentricprofessions on Earth" - Mike TsangPhotographer Mike Tsang had recently returned to London from a demanding project in the Sudan when he popped in to visit his friend who was then manager of the Biblion bookshop in London. By the time he left the seeds for "The London Book Trade" project were planted. Tsang would go around town photographing booksellers in their domain with the end result being an exhibition at Biblion. When all was said and done Tsang had photographed most of the booksellers of note in London and the result...
Gerda Yourselves For Pleasure: Wegener Bared at NYC Rare Book Shop-Gallery
Scène de Carnaval. ca. 1920s. [11" x 16 7/8"] A fine selection of works by famed Art Deco book illustrator and painter Gerda Wegener is on exhibition at Leonard Fox Ltd, in the rare book dealer’s shop-gallery on Madison Avenue in New York City October 29 through November 25, 2009.A small section of the exhibition.Where to begin about Gerda Gottlieb Wegener Porta (1886-1940)? Many, this author included, were first introduced to the Danish artist through her spirited and playfully exquisite erotic imagery. But her initial success was as a fashion and contemporary scene illustrator for Vogue, La Vie Parisienne, Fantasio,...
Bear Love: A Collector Opens His Den
Jon Henri McCracken is not your ordinary arctophile. He has been collecting bear memorabilia for most of his life and in his new book, The Bears in My Life, McCracken takes us on a captivating visual tour of his amazing collection.From the dust jacket:Bears have captured human imagination for tens of thousands of years, simply by being bears. Mysterious, powerful and nurturing of their young, the natural characteristics of bears -- and the many, colorful, human beliefs associated with them -- have inspired creation of bear images in wood, stone, ink, glass, bronze and more. 'The Bears in My Life'...