Through September 10, The Center for Book Arts in New York City has an exhibition titled Multiple, Limited, Unique: Selections from the Permanent Collection of the Center for Book Arts. It showcases the work of book artists, who, over the past forty years, have exhibited, trained, or worked at CBA.  

The exhibition, which opened earlier this month, is the culmination of a three-year Collections Initiative headed by executive director Alexander Campos. The goal of the Collections Initiative was to organize, rehouse, catalogue, and digitize what has accumulated over the past four decades -- e.g., art, books, exhibition catalogues. Campos, collections specialist Jen Larson, and several artists will have a public discussion in concert with the exhibition this Wednesday, July 20.

"We've been collecting unofficially," Campos told me last week, and the result was "piles and random boxes without any order or rhyme or reason." The boxes were often referred to as the center's "archives," but much of what was there was art donated by past students, teachers, supporters, or exhibitors. "In order to safeguard and care for them," Campos decided, "we really needed to call it a collection and change our mentality."

So the CBA solicited funds from government agencies and private foundations to complete a three-year plan to document and digitize the collection, which was catalogued into three separate sections: fine arts collection, containing "objects -- from fine press to offset;" a reference collection, containing a library of how-to books on paper, typography, printing, and binding technique; and the institutional archives, containing exhibition catalogues and institutional ephemera.

The resulting exhibition--which will travel to Savannah College of Arts and Design (Fall 2011), Minnesota Center for Book Arts (Winter 2012), Museum of Printing History (Spring/Summer 2012), Lafayette College (Fall 2012), and the Book Club of California (Winter 2013)--and the web portal: http://www.centerforbookarts.dreamhosters.com/ are the products of this impressive initiative. As Campos told me, the project was about making these items accessible and following through with the Center's goal as a teaching agency.

Click through to the fuller listing here.

Catalogue Review: Charles B. Wood, Bookseller, No. 150

Charles B. Wood III is an antiquarian bookseller in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who stocks an eclectic selection -- from architecture to book about books to trade and commercial ephemera. In this catalogue #150: Rare Books and Manuscripts, the browser will be consistently surprised. I was. Every page I flipped offered something new, different, "intrinsically interesting," and illustrated with full-page colorful, glossy images too.

I run the risk of filling this review with item after item that caught my eye. I'll try to contain myself. Let's start with one of the many pieces of trade/commercial art. A huge Victorian scrapbook containing forty-nine mounted chromolithographs created as advertisements or shop displays for various companies in the U.K. ($6,500). The compiler was surely "on the inside of the color lithography business." Other interesting commercial items include a restored folio broadside featuring Waltham copper weather vanes, circa 1875-1885 ($2,500) and a Victorian house furnishing catalogue for the Simmons Hardware Co. of St. Louis, Missouri ($1,000). 

There are several sample and pattern books from various trades. The Lowell Textile School pattern book from 1895 is a unique manuscript work book kept by a student ($950). It contains notes, fabric samples, dyed cotton threads, and is lovely. An 1874 printed type specimen book for Farmer, Little & Co. is complete and rare (not in OCLC, notes the catalogue) for $2,250. A large sample book containing 257 mounted and identified samples of dyed wool, swatches of felt, and woven fabrics with penciled notes by its creator, a New Hampshire dyer, is very cool ($1,750). That's something you just don't see often or ever.

In the 'books about books' or printing arts category, Wood has several rarities. A first edition of the first printer's manual, printed in 1818 by C.S. Van Winkle is so neat ($13,5000) as is a first edition of Edward Walker's The art of book-binding, its rise and progress; including a descriptive account of the New York Book-Bindery ($1,750). I'd love to peruse that one.

Two other superlatives that need to be mentioned -- the publisher's dummy of Henry Whittemore and Edward Bierstadt's Homes of the representative men of America, with the title partly in manuscript ($13,500); and a set of ten original blueprints for the lighting scheme of Lincoln Center ($4,000).   

Thank you Charles B. Wood for making this catalogue review so exciting! A treasure on every page.

It is one of the most important texts of the Middle Ages. It has incalculable value. It's the Codex Calixtinus. It's been taken from a Spanish cathedral.

From a piece in Time Magazine...

On Thursday, July 7, church authorities in the Spanish town of Santiago de Compostela publicly confirmed that the priceless 12th century manuscript had been stolen from a safe in the cathedral vault. According to the local press, when the theft was discovered, the keys to the safe were still hanging in the lock.

The illuminated Codex was apparently removed from the cathedral archives on July 5 and reported missing to police the following day. At a press conference on Thursday, the cathedral deacon, José María Díaz, said that only he and two other archivists had access to the manuscript and that one of them had last seen the document on June 30 or July 1. Although the Codex was taken without signs of forced entry, Díaz said, "We have been victims of a terrible attack."

Written in the mid-1100s under the auspices of Pope Calixtus II, the Codex is about the apostle St. James, whose remains are believed to have miraculously washed up on the coast of northwestern Spain. The town that houses his tomb, which became known as Santiago de Compostela (Santiago means "St. James" in Spanish), was transformed in the Middle Ages into a major pilgrimage site -- the third most important, after Jerusalem and Rome -- for Christians from all over Europe.

Have you heard about or seen the new little flipback books? If you're in the U.S., chances are your answer is no. I read about these iphone-sized flipbacks on Jeremy Dibbell's blog late last month and went directly to Amazon UK to order one for myself. Here is Jeremy's description of the book's format: "The construction of the flipbacks (sewn binding, with the front board and spine unattached to the backstrip) permits them to open fully (handy, I've found, for reading while eating), and the light weight makes it very easy to hold the book with with one hand. They're printed on very thin Indoprint 'Bible paper' (which certainly helps keep the weight down), and typeset in what seems to be a Karmina Sans font. That took a bit of getting used to, but after about twenty pages or so I barely noticed. Flipping the pages upward instead of sideways also was a little disorienting at first, but again I didn't even notice after a few minutes."

Hodder & Stoughton has twelve to choose from (a nice little collection...); I went for the Jaspar Fforde title, Shades of Grey. I'm looking forward to reading this mini-book, if only because while reading in bed, my hands tend to fall asleep before I do!

You can read more about flipbacks in the Guardian or the LibraryThing newsletter, where Jeremy has a Q&A with flipback publisher Kate Parkin. 

The small town of Cowan, Tennessee, hosts a book fair that is quickly becoming a big attraction for bibliophiles. The 2011 fair--coming up this weekend--features more than fifty booksellers (some listed here), and our own Nick Basbanes will give the keynote speech. According to the press release, "Dealers specializing in children's literature, art, religion, fine bindings, and books about books will also be exhibiting at the fair. Book prices will range from $10 to $20,000, so there are sure to be interesting books for the leisure reader as well as the most avid collector."

Take a tour of last year's fair, and see what awaits...

 

There was news last week that a "lost" Leonardo has been identified in an American collection and will go on exhibit this November at the National Gallery in London. One of only fifteen surviving oil paintings by Da Vinci, the re-discovered Salvator Mundi is a half-length figure of Christ that was painted around 1500. The painting was presumed destroyed, until a buyer with a great eye acquired it from an estate in 2005. It was then brought to New York art historian and dealer Robert Simon, and after a lengthy conservation treatment, several scholars concluded that it is indeed the lost Salvator Mundi.

I found this bit of news wonderfully coincidental, as I have just finished reading The Art Detective: Adventures of an Antiques Roadshow Appraiser by Philip Mould (the paperback came out this past spring). Mould has a thoroughly enjoyable voice, and he wins over his readers time and again with tales of a forged Norman Rockwell, a Rembrandt in disguise, and a long-lost Gainsborough that he found misidentified at a Los Angeles auction. The zeal of collector Earle Newton--who hoarded an immense collection of masters in a Vermont church that Mould was called in to catalogue--is something we all recognize.

I learned much from this book about the process of "overpainting"--in which a later artist actually paints over the piece at hand to hide wear and tear, to remove offensive items, or merely to freshen it up--and how important and effective conservation treatments can be in finding the masterpiece underneath. Not to mention superb research skills, such as those employed by Mould and his colleague Bendor Grosvenor as they pieced together the amazing provenance of a Queen Elizabeth I portrait.

After all--as I myself have learned with my own minor (but thrilling) art "discovery" last year--art collectors aren't so different from book collectors. We're all in it for the chase, and we all love making a discovery. 

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts, always has exciting events, exhibits, classes, and family programs going on. Over the next few days, however, there are a few certain to interest bibliophiles, whether you collect children's lit or not. One happens this Sunday the 10th, when world-renowned illustrator and printmaker Barry Moser drops by to 'talk about words and pictures.' A book signing will follow.

Then, on Friday the 15th, Eric Carle himself will host a special presentation and reception in honor of Leo Lionni. Carle will unveil the late author-illustrator's bronze sculpture, Imaginary Garden. The following day, Carle will be at the museum for his annual book-signing visit. (I attended this event four years ago. Yes, you will wait in a long line, but yes, you will also meet the legendary Mr. Carle and get your books signed!)

For more information, check out the events page at the Carle.

Late last year I posted a brief warning that infamous book thief John Gilkey was again active. ABAA Security Chair John Waite just circulated this update on Gilkey:

Please be aware that convicted fraudster and thief John Gilkey is operating once again, likely out of northern California.  A comic book dealer in New York state is his latest victim.  Besides defrauding book dealers, Gilkey has also left his dubious mark in the print, stamp, and comics trades.  He was arrested late last year in San Francisco following a parole violation, but was released after he (or someone) posted $75,000.00 bail.  He then disappeared, but is active once again. He is a serious criminal who continually looks for new opportunities and deceptions.  An investigation by the SFPD is ongoing; there is an outstanding warrant for his arrest.

A comment left for the post linked above by Peter of First Used Books in Vancouver suggests Gilkey may also be working in consort with a couple of other men in Canada. 

Jerry Morris, a collector with the Florida Bibliophile Society and longtime blogger at My Sentimental Library, launched today a new blog called Biblio-Connecting. As he writes in the first entry: "that's what this piece is all about: how a bibliophile connects with other people in the book world, corresponds with them, and even meets some of them. It is also about how one person evolves from being an avid reader to becoming an enthusiastic book collector and then to becoming a raving bibliomaniac." Follow along with Morris as he travels to Hay-on Wye, collects Samuel Johnson, corresponds with Anne Fadiman, and writes an essay for the Caxton Club's recent book, Other People's Books. Enjoy!

A fairly quiet month for auctions, July, but here's what's due to come up on the block:

- Sotheby's London will sell Western Manuscripts and Miniatures on 5 July, in 129 lots. The top-estimated lot is an eleventh-century missal from Tours, which could fetch £80,000-100,000.

- The third selection of the Arcana Collection will be sold at Christie's London on 6 July, in 29 lots. Fully half the lots have estimates of £100,000 or more, with the top lot being the Imhof Prayerbook, a truly spectacular illuminated manuscript from 1511 (estimated at £1.5-2 million). An impressive array of books of hours will also be on offer.

- Bloomsbury London holds a Bibliophile Sale on 7 July, in 408 lots. A good number of Lewis Carroll items will start off the sale.

- On 14 July Sotheby's London will sell a selection of English Literature, History, Children's Books and Illustration, in 159 lots. An archive of documents from the Sheffield Football Club(considered the originator of modern soccer rules) is estimated at £800,000-1,200,000, while an autograph draft manuscript of Jane Austen's unfinished novel The Watsons could fetch £200,000-300,000. A first edition of Wuthering Heights rates a £90,000-130,000 estimate. James Joyce's family passport from WWI could sell for £50,000-70,000, while a first edition ofGulliver's Travels rates a £40,000-50,000 estimate.

- Also on 14 July, PBA Galleries sells Americana, Travel & Natural History, and Cartographywith material from the Calvin P. Otto Collection, in 358 lots. The top estimate goes to a copy ofThe Latter Day Saints' Selection of Hymns (1861), at $20,000-30,000. An archive of China trade letters and documents is estimated at $12,000-18,000.

- Bloomsbury London has a sale of books, maps, prints and philately relating to Travel, Natural History & Sport on 14 July, in a whopping 707 lots.