Bookshelf File Card LK 21 -The Large Bookshelf, 2009Illustrator Drawing on Paper, 3" x 5"At times Cliff Eyland thinks of himself as a "librarian painter." A longtime bibliophile, Eyland has been painting on 3" x 5" index cards for 30 years.In his latest exhibition Bookshelf File Cards, at the Leo Kamen Gallery in Toronto, Cliff Eyland "reengages his lifelong obsession with books and art by painting abstract images of books on shelves.""Since his art school days Eyland has not only remained consistent in the size of his work but he has also come to believe that the library is the...
The Book Shooter : Emily Jacir’s "Material for a Film"
Courtesy of the artist and Alexander and BoninIn 1972, in response to the Munich massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes, Israeli Mossad agents assassinated the Palestinian intellectual Wael Zuaiter in Rome. They fired 13 shots. 12 hit Zuaiter and 1 hit a copy of "A Thousand and One Nights" that was in Zuaiter's pocket. Zuaiter was in the midst of translating the book from Arabic into Italian.To commemorate the event Jacir has created an ongoing documentary, "Material for a Film," One element of the piece has Jacir shooting 1000 white books successively, "each with one bullet using the same gun the...
A Few by Aubrey Beardsley
Aubrey Beardsley was one of the leading illustrators of his time. His work is a high-spot of the Art Nouveau movement. He was the art editor for the first 4 editions of the Yellow Book and was a friend of Oscar Wilde's. He illustrated the first English edition of Wilde's play Salome.He died at age 25.The images below were included in the seminal 1966 exhibition of Beardsley's work at the Victoria & Albert Museum.Frontispiece to The Wonderful History of Vergilius the Sorcerer, 1893Debris d'un PoeteBookplate designed for Herbert J. Pollitt. This image is currently featured on Book Patrol's sidebarIncipit Vita...
Nuns Reading
Group of nuns sailing aboard the SS Manhattan in 1940. Photograph by Thomas D. McavoyThe 5th installment in Book Patrol's new series Life of Google, featuring images from the vast archives of Life magazine that now appear on Google.Nun using card catalogue in the New York Public Library, 1944. Photograph by Alfred EisenstaedtNuns waiting in line in polling station in Milan, Italy. 1948. Photograph by Yale JoelA nun reading the diary of Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton. Emmitsburg, MD. 1959. Photograph by Hank WalkerNuns reading about Pope Pius XII's death in Rome. 1958. Photograph by Mark Kauffman
Letter Chaos
Falling LettersBrazilian artist Marina Camargo has a way with letters. Her photographs and installations often feature letter forms in various states of disarray. Her photograph Falling Letters is a perfect visual metaphor for the current state of many aspects of the book world.Letters in Perspective, 2002Page 93 (The Sheltering Sky), 2008Camille Utterback is another artist who loves playing with letters.Text Rain. Camille Utterback & Romy Achituv, 1999Text Rain is "an interactive installation in which participants use the familiar instrument of their bodies, to do what seems magical—to lift and play with falling letters that do not really exist...Like rain or...