About
The Artists' Books Showcase is a digital exhibition meant to highlight pieces in the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library's extensive collection of artists' books. These books, often made in small, limited editions or as one-of-a-kind works of art, are works that purposefully make use of, question, or explore the format of the book as an artistic medium.
Art historians trace the history of this form back to the limited editions of William Blake and William Morris, or to the livres d'artistes made by Surrealists and Dadaists, with the genre emerging as its own distinct art form in the 1960s. The works included here, dating from 1995 to the present, are meant to show what directions this unique art form is taking. The Stuart A. Rose Library also possesses copies of "classic" artists' books, such as Ed Ruscha's Twentysix Gasoline Stations and Gilbert and George's Pink Elephants and The Limericks.
The Stuart A. Rose has a large number of artists' books produced by Nexus Press, Granary Books, and Coracle Press, and a number of artists' books are also part of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library. Users of this website can choose to look at individual artists' books by going to the "Browse Items" tab. On individual item pages, users can click on the thumbnail photographs of the books to look at larger images. Website visitors can also use the "Browse Exhibits" tab to find our "From Trauma to Cosmeceuticals: Using Artists' Books in the Classroom" exhibit which showcases original research and writing about artists' books contained in the Stuart A. Rose Library archives. Additional exhibits are forthcoming in January 2020. Through this showcase, the Stuart A. Rose Library wishes to bring attention to this substantial and growing collection and to encourage educators and researchers to use these exquisite books.
With minor exception, the images in The Artists' Books Showcase were provided with the help of the artists themselves or their representatives. Emory Libraries decided to ask the artists to provide images of their own work, rather than take photographs at the library, in order to give the artists more input into the presentation of their books. Emory Libraries has been generously granted written permission by these artists. In the few cases that artists were unable to provide images of their work, Emory Libraries' in-house photography team took high-quality photographs of the items in Emory's collection, also with permission from the book artists. We ask that visitors to the website do not download, modify, or sell any of the images displayed as part of the Showcase.
Showcase originally created and developed by Catherine E. Doubler, Ph.D and Christina M. Colvin, Ph.D. Currently maintained by Rebecca McGlynn, Woodruff Research & Engagement Fellow 2019-20.