Sarah Plimpton Artists’ Books

Center for Books Arts: This exhibition presents a selection of artist’s books by Sarah Plimpton. Drawn in large part from Center for Book Arts Fine Arts Collection, the exhibition marks the first time this substantial body of work will be presented together in New York.

Born in New York City and living between New York and France for much of her career, Plimpton has developed a practice that moves fluidly between drawing, printmaking, painting, poetry, and the book form. Her artists’ books—many of which incorporate or originate in her own poetry—foreground mark-making, repetition, and the spatial sequencing of the page as structures for both narrative and abstraction. Working across handmade and printed formats, her work reflects—and quietly shapes—the development of artists’ publishing as an independent field since the 1960s. Although her books are held in major public collections, including the Morgan Library, The New York Public Library, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, her sustained contribution to the field has not received institutional attention commensurate with its scope.