Artists' Books
This professional artist's books collection is housed in the Fleet Library Special Collections department. Special Collections includes nearly 18,000 important and rare printed books and periodicals that date from as early as the 16th century to present. Historical as well as contemporary materials cover the fine arts, architecture, photography, decorative arts, and design and provide supplemental and inspirational resources for students, faculty, and outside researchers.
The physical Artists’ Books Collection includes nearly 2,000 multiples, hand-made book objects, limited edition books, and zines dating from the mid-1960’s to present. The collection also includes numerous related book arts references and artists’ ephemera files. Featured collections include bookmaking process archives of internationally known book artists Carol Barton, Ruth Laxson and Angela Lorenz. This digital collection presents an abridged preview of each book. Visit 2nd Floor, Rm. 201 of the Fleet Library or contact risdspecial@risd.edu to view the collection in its entirety.
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Bologna Sample
Angela Lorenz, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
. "The 179 colors were all painted by hand in watercolor and glued individually onto acid-free paper produced by Cartiere Fedrigoni. The text was lithographed at Stamperia Valdonega in Verona, Italy in Univers." Edition of 50 signed by the author, Bologna 1992. The cover is four-fold, the text pages have twelve-folds.
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Abby Rogers to Her Grand-daughter
Joan Lyons, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
saddle stitch with soft cover; cover; title page; interior spreads and pages. Stories about childhood memories, stitched into a family quilt that is passed down to a grand daughter.
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Abecé
Joan Lyons, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
hand sewn signatures with cloth spine and paper covered boards. Enclosed in cardboard wrapper with thread tie. Cover; interior pages and spreads. Colorful images of letters of the alphabet, as found in grafitti on various public surfaces in Mexico City.
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My Mother's Book
Joan Lyons, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
saddle stitch with soft cover and two overlapping "French Door" spines; cover; interior spreads and pages. Stories of the artist's mother's family who immigrated in the early 20th century from the Ukraine.
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The Gynecologist
Joan Lyons, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
saddle stitch with soft cover; cover; title page; interior pages and spreads. Conversation between a woman and her male gynecologist. The physician is trying to convince the woman her reproductive organs are "totally unnecessary when child bearing is not a desired end."
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Twenty-five Years Ago
Joan Lyons, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
saddle stitch with soft cover; cover; interior spread and pages; back cover. The artist's wallet is recovered in an old air vent in her child's former school 25 years after she had visited his 4th grade classroom. The contents reveal life in the early 1970's.
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Leaf
Peter Lyssiotis, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
2 volumes. "Leaf was completed in 2017. The paper is Magnani Pescia 160 gsm. and the pre press work is by Chris Boone. The offset printing is by Redwood Prints. The book has been bound by Pohlmann Binders.. in an edition of 10 with 3 artist's proofs."--colophon. Illustrated endpapers. Signed by the author. At the edge of a forest, a man sees a mysterious woman working at a table, sewing words on a collection of leaves. By asking a series of questions, the man ultimately discovers the true meaning of her work.
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Do Not Enter
Marlene MacCallum, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
tunnel book variation, enclosed in a paper 4 sided wrapper with a thread closure; outer folio, closed; front view, closed. Although the text warns the reader not to enter, the haunting images of curious empty spaces and the unfolding of the tunnel book structure draw the reader in.
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The Twin Plays : Port-au-Prince & Adams County Illinois
Jackson Mac Low, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
14 pages. A Great Bear Pamphlet ; no. 10. Cover title. CONTENTS: Port-au-Prince -- Adams County, Illinois. Staple binding. Gift of Estera Milman, RISD Class of 1970. Estera Milman (RISD BFA Painting/Printmaking and Film, 1970) scholar of post-World War II avant-garde art. Founded Alternative Traditions in Contemporary Art (ATCA) at the University of Iowa, 1982, and served as its director until 2000. She is the author of many books, articles, interviews, and exhibition catalogs on Fluxus and No!art. In December 2018 she donated a selection books from her library to the Fleet Library at RISD. Curated title for Fleet Library Special Collections exhibition By Hand: Women & Books Exhibit fall, 2021.
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The Twin Plays : Port-au-Prince & Adams County Illinois
Jackson Mac Low, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
14 pages. A Great bear pamphlet Great bear pamphlet ; no. 10. Cover title. Port-au-Prince -- Adams County, Illinois. Staple binding. Gift of Estera Milman, RISD Class of 1970. Estera Milman (RISD BFA Painting/Printmaking and Film, 1970) scholar of post-World War II avant-garde art. Founded Alternative Traditions in Contemporary Art (ATCA) at the University of Iowa, 1982, and served as its director until 2000. She is the author of many books, articles, interviews, and exhibition catalogs on Fluxus and No!art. In December 2018 she donated a selection books from her library to the Fleet Library at RISD.
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Flying Letters
John Maeda, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
1 volume (unpaged) : chiefly illus.. Digitalogue reactive book series, no. 2. Accordion fold text. System requirements for accompanying disk: Macintosh/Power Macintosh System 7.1 or above, True type/ATN outline font and floppy disk drive. Text in English and Japanese. Gift of Janice Woo, California College of the Arts.
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After Reasonable Research
Miranda Maher, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
1 folded sheet. Edition of 150."Years with no acts of 'open and declared hostile conflict' are indicated with a perpendicular line. Perhaps they were periods of peace"--cover. Issued in cardboard sleeve with velco fasteners. Accordion folded, printed on cream colored paper with a fleur-des-lis pattern.
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Shimmer
Jule Claudia Mahn, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
1 volume, slipcase, 48 pages . Author, editor, translator and imprint from colophon. Short story by Jule Claudia Mahn accompanied by the author's photographs. "Set in Pollen Regular, Pigment print on Awagami Inbe, Thin white Washi paper ... in an edition of 13 copies in German and XVI copies in English ... 14th book in the series 'Verwandte Objekte,' Leipzig 2018"--Colophon. Exposed thread binding in Hollytex non-woven fabric. Housed in a paper-covered case. Enclosed in same fabric slipcase. All housed in two-piece grey board binder, held closed with two orange rubber bands (31 x 18 cm).
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Funny ha ha, Funny Peculiar
Emily Martin, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
1 volume in slipcase, 19 pages. "Printed in an edition of 25 with several artist's proofs. Housed in a clamshell box covered in Japanese linen cloth."--colophon. "This book(s) is the result of my extended study of Shakespeare's comedies. I find the comedies individually to be enjoyable but there is a sameness to many of the plots that allows me to mix them up in my head. So much mistaken identity, gender confusion and various other contrivances while romping their way to a fifth act wedding or two. Even more problematic are the decidedly unfunny themes that are common in many of these same comedies such as hypocrisy, sexual harassment, intolerance, sexism, misogyny, and anti-Semitism. I struggled for a long time to integrate all these ideas. I finally realized that what I needed to do was to address each aspect separately, thus a dos a do book. Each side has its own focus and treatment. The characters are the same in both books. They are printed using the P22 Blox which are a set of modular shapes that can be interchanged to change the body's posture and gestures. The P22 Blox allows the presentation of the characters as interchangeable as well. Funny Peculiar is a drum leaf book and presents selected lines from five plays delivered by characters on a stage set. Funny Ha Ha is a slice book allowing the viewer to mix and match the costumes and gender of the characters in a variety of postures. Funny Peculiar is letterpress printed on an SP15 Vandercook proof press using hand set type and P22 Blox combined with rubbings, ink washes, and collagraphs to make the images. Printed on Domestic Etch paper with gray Pescia end sheets. Funny Ha Ha is printed on an SP15 Vandercook proof press using hand set type combined with relief printing using P22 Blox, collagraphs, and polymer plates from Boxcar Press to make the images. Printed on white Pescia paper with gray Pescia end sheets. Bound in a modified dos a do binding to hold the sewn text block slice book on one side and the drum leaf text block on the other side. The hard covers are covered with Arrestox book cloth and three vivid colored cotton papers color matched and custom made by Katie MacGregor."--emilymartin.com.
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Mutually Exclusive
Emily Martin, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
5 magic wallets (Jacob's ladder module), enclosed in an Asian-style cloth covered portfolio with bone clasps; portfolio cover; magic wallets open and closed. Each booklet features conflicting text from media reports following the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks. Opinions and beliefs, formed from the same information, are often opposing.
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So On And So On
Emily Martin, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
dos à dos coptic stitch binding; first cover; interior spreads; next cover; interior spreads; end of second narrative and beginning again of first. The dos à dos structure conveys the cyclical nature of alcoholism. No matter which direction the story is told, the resulting disruption of family life is portrayed.
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The Anxiety Alphabet
Emily Martin, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
coptic stitch binding, paper covered boards with common pins and needles inserted; cover; interior pages; back cover. The subject of anxiety is conveyed with humorous alphabetic verse.
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The House Detective (abridged)
Emily Martin, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
Japanese folding screen, dos à dos accordion variation, with paper hinges mounted over foam core house-shaped boards; title page; interior foldouts; back cover. Phrases commonly found in detective novels are illustrated in a cartoon-like caper.
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The Vicious Circle Series
Emily Martin, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
3 dimensional hexa-flexagon; hexa-flexagons, detail; five hexa-flexagons; two hexa-flexagons (of five). Turning the ring of connected pyramids reveals a text that repeats over and over, just like many life situations.
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Blue Yodo Waltz
Kyoko Matsunaga, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
1 scroll. "Rivers are the source of all development, and civilizations are made up of individuals. The original of this scroll was a collage on a QRS player piano roll of Blue Danube Waltz (Strauss) which I happened to find at an antique shop. When I lived in Osaka, I took pictures of ordinary local people while walking along the city's iconic Yodo river all the way to the bay as a collection of slice-of-life scenes of people in the limited area and time that I could experience at first hand, and laid them on the stream of the elegant waltz. Even though Japanese society is highly homogeneous and (she) tends to avoid making outstanding individuals, Osakans steadily carry down its unique culture just as modern European culture had been passed down in the people around Danube river"--Artist's statement, 23 Sandy Gallery website. Issued in a box of ajio washi, persimmon dyed Kurotani washi, and Skivertex Nuba over boards. Scroll is wrapped in a silk cloth and laid into an inner drawer, which slides into the outer box
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Curio
Melanie Mauro, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
1 volume. "Curio was designed and printed by Melanie Mauro at The University of the Arts and Heirloom Press. The text is adapted from the 1868 collection of articles, Modern Women and What Is, and Kate Chopin's novel, The Awakening". This book is printed using letterpress, screenprint and lithography on paper handmade by the artist" --Colophon. Includes inkblot imagery; some screen printed using black thermo-chromic ink that turns white when heated. Edition of 5, signed and numbered by the artist. Sewn on seven raised cords and bound in full white (alum-tawed) leather. Curio is a collection of "quotidian objects" that speaks to the idea of woman as domestic curator and as weaker vessel. The bisected halves of vases, a candlestick, a chandelier, a soup tureen, and fancy glassware are rendered in mismatched pairings interspersed with inkblots that evoke, in the manner of a Rorschach Test, the trappings of middle-class existence. "My prints and artist books explore the feminine sphere. Drawing from historical texts about and by women, my works are investigations of the female body and mind, and of women's traditional domestic and societal roles. As I seek to understand the legacy of suppression, surrender, and expectation, I overlap, juxtapose and intersect images and symbols. Quotidian objects struggle against the boundaries of symmetry in an examination of the enduring concerns of women.I use handmade materials and labor-intensive processes, such as handmade paper, alternative process photography, letterpress and lithography. These materials and processes imbue my images of bone, inkblot, vessels and text with the weight of the past, illuminating the parallel between historical and contemporary womanhood"--Artist's Statement, 2018 Thesis Exhibition, University of the Arts.
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Alphabook 3
Scott McCarney, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
2 accordion fold books with pop-up elements, enclosed in vellum wrapper; cover; interior views, pop-up. Cut outs unfold to reveal in one accordion book the letters A-M and in the other N-Z.
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Far Horizons
Scott McCarney, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
maze book, folded and enclosed in a printed wrapper; cover; interior; interior, folded out. An accordion variation made by folding a piece of paper printed on one side into 12ths and cutting it so that the resulting accordion flow turns in multiple directions. Once unfolded, the resulting poster resembles a tradional quilt pattern called "Far Horizons".
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In Case of Emergency
Scott McCarney, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
pamphlet stitch variation with shaped pages and fold outs, enclosed in a triangular wrapper; cover; first opening; flat view; folded out; detail . When folded, the book wrapper represents a nuclear hazard warning. Inside the pages unfold in a dizzying confusion as images of planes and bombs are revealed.