Category: Literature & Poetry, Text, Printing
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About - Artists' Books at the University of Oregon Libraries Artists' books have been described as the "quintessential 20th century art form" (Drucker, Johanna. The Century of Artists Books. New York: Granary Books, 1994), and indeed, though there were many predecessors to the contemporary artist's book, the form was really born in the late '50s and early '60s. The collection at the Architecture and Allied Arts Library, which is supported and extended by artists' books in Knight Library's Special Collections, spans the history of these works of art in book form from 1957 to books by artists today with special emphasis on artists working in the Pacific Northwest.
About the Collection The UWM Book Arts Collection contains scanned images of selected artists’ books from the UWM Special Collections-Book Arts Collection. The goal of the UWM Special Collections-Book Arts Collection has been to document and demonstrate the use of the book form as an art medium. The collection’s main focus is on examples of artists' books from the late nineteenth century to the present. Largely represented are examples of American book arts, especially those of the Upper Midwest.
This was the background leading to the founding in 1965 of the Vancouver based Alcuin Society. The chief aims of the Society are “to further the interests of book collectors and to promote a wider appreciation of fine books…”. To that end the Society provides a wide range of book oriented activities, including since 1981 an annual Awards for Excellence in Book Design in Canada. The Society continues to flourish. The Society’s From Hand to Hand: A Gathering of the Book Arts in British Columbia… (1986) is a very useful introductory although dated directory of British Columbia fine printing and book arts. The 1970s were important to the British Columbia fine private press/typography scene.
A Tale of Two Manuscripts Reunited The Making of the Manuscripts The University of Chicago’s manuscripts of Le Roman de la Rose and Le Jeu des échecs moralisé were produced ca. 1365, about 100 years before the invention of printing. By the 14th century, there was a well-developed book trade outside of monastic scriptoria, supplying Bibles, Books of Hours, or prayer books for private devotion, and other liturgical books; legal, medical, philosophical, and other texts for students; and manuscripts of secular works. Professional trades had developed for each specialized component of manuscript production, including making ink and pigments; preparing parchment from animal skin; and writing and decorating the text by scribes, illuminators, rubricators, gilders; and binders.
