Course Description
This course considers the codex book as a work of deliberate, self-conscious art production from the very beginning of the nineteenth century to the present. Taking William Blake as the point of departure, the course asks what makes a book modern and what distinguishes a work of art from other forms of publication. The course will look at illustrated books in the nineteenth century, the Arts and Crafts movement and notions of the “Ideal Book,” and continue with focused discussion of works that reflect the private press movement, art nouveau, the avant-garde, fine press, documentary impulses, livres d’artistes, and artists’ books. Attention will be paid to the development of successive innovations in the technologies of production, publication models, readerships, markets, and distribution methods. But a major focus of the course is on the aesthetic impulses that drive book production from the point of view of principles—from romanticism through postmodern and contemporary work. The course touches on collection development in this area, with the goal of providing sufficient knowledge of the developments in book arts to contribute to good judgment in assessing works for collection. Some emphasis will be put on understanding what makes a good collection, examples of development collection policy, and development of resources to support assessment. Class discussion will engage questions of collection policies, resources for research and teaching, and the role of online materials in showcasing and engaging with surrogates of the codex form. Book lists for all works looked at in the course will be supplied in advance.Faculty
Johanna Drucker
Johanna Drucker is the Bernard and Martin Breslauer Professor in the Department of Information Studies at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. She became Robertson Professor …
Advance Reading List
Required Reading
Drucker, Johanna. The Century of Artists’ Books. New York: Granary Books, 1995 or 2004. Either edition.
Cave, Roderick. The Private Press. New York: Bowker, 1983. Read chapters 11–13.
Harthan, John. The History of the Illustrated Book. London: Thames and Hudson, 1981. Read Chapter 6, “Romanticism and the Mass Market” (pp. 171–208).
Rota, Anthony. Apart from the Text. New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll, 1998. Read Chapter 5, “Book Bindings from Boards to Linson” (pp. 98–123).
Peterson, William S. The Kelmscott Press. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991.
Castleman, Riva. A Century of Artists Books. New York: MoMA, 1994. Read the introduction (pp. 11–80).
Gurianova, Nina. The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910–34. New York: MoMA, 2002. Read “A Game in Hell” (pp. 24–32).
Hubert, Renée Riese and Judd Hubert. Surrealism and the Book. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. Read Chapter 2, “Surrealist Collaboration,” (pp. 54–83).
Hart, James. Fine Printing: The San Francisco Tradition . Washington: Library of Congress, 1985.
Sweetman, Alex. “Photobooks.” In Artists’ Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook, edited by Joan Lyons, 187–205. Rochester, NY: VSW Press, and Layton, UT: Peregrine Press, 1985.
Supplementary Reading
Wakeman, Geoffrey. Victorian Book Illustration: The Technical Revolution. Detroit: Gale Research, 1973.
Goldman, Paul. Victorian Illustration: The Pre-Raphaelites, the Idyllic School and the High Victorians. Hants, UK: Lund Humphries, 1996. Read “PreRaphaelites, the Inner Circle,” (pp. 1–50).
Thompson, Susan. American Book Design and William Morris. New York: R.R. Bowker, 1977. Read pp. 1–16.
Franklin, Colin. Printing and the Mind of Morris. Cambridge: Rampant Lions Press, 1986.
Strachan, William. The Artist and the Book in France. New York: George Wittenborn, 1968.
Taylor, John Russell. The Art Nouveau Book in Britain. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1966. Read “Art Nouveau in the Nineties,” (pp. 71–120 + notes).
Franklin, Colin Franklin. The Private Presses. Hants, UK: Scolar Press, 1991 (or other edition). Read “Vale, Eragny, and a Link with the Aesthetic Movement,” (pp. 81–105).
Castleberry, May. “Publishing’s Pleasures and Terrors.” In Splendid Pages, edited by Julie Melby. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 2003 (or other edition).
Compton, Susan. The World Backwards: Russian Futurist Books 1912–16. London: British Museum Publications, 1978.
Compton, Susan. Russian Avant-Garde Books 1917–34. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1993. Read “The 1920s and 30s, an Introduction,” (pp. 9–35).
Bright, Betty. No Longer Innocent: Book Art In America 1960–1980. New York: Granary Books, 2005. Read ” The Fine Press Book,” (pp. 19–28).
Lippard, Lucy. “Conspicuous New Consumption.” In Artists’ Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook, edited by Joan Lyons, 49–57. Rochester, NY: VSW Press, and Layton, UT: Peregrine Press, 1985.
Phillpot, Clive. “Some Contemporary Artists and Their Books.” In Artists’ Books: A Critical Anthology and Sourcebook, edited by Joan Lyons, 97–132. Rochester, NY: VSW Press, and Layton, UT: Peregrine Press, 1985.
Celant, Germano. “Book as Artwork, 1960–72.” In Books by Artists, edited by Tim Guest. Toronto: Art Metropole, 1982. Published separately as Book as Artwork 1960–1972. Brooklyn, NY: 6 Decades Books, 2011.
Online Resources
Allingham, Philip V. “The Technologies of Nineteenth-Century Illustration: Woodblock Engraving, Steel Engraving, and Other Processes.” The Victorian Web.
Publisher’ Bindings Online, 1815–1930: The Art of Books.
Randle, John. “Morris and Cobden-Sanderson.” The Journal of the William Morris Society III, no. 1 (Spring 1974): 22–26.
Morris, William. “The Ideal Book.” Marxist Internet Archive.
Cody, David. “Morris and the Kelmscott Press.” The Victorian Web.
Arts & Crafts Museum Virtual Library.
“The Russian Avant-Garde Book, 1910–1934.” MoMa online exhibit.
Perloff, Marjorie. “Cubist Collaboration/Abstract Assemlage: The Avant-Garde Artist’s Book.”
WillBradley.com: Being a Biography of the Printer, Illustrator, Designer, Art Director, Writer, Filmmaker, and Dean of American Typographers, William H. Bradley (1868–1962). Also see the Will H. Bradley page at Wikipedia.
“Goudy– In All His Glory.” Pointless Art.
“Font Designer – Frederic W. Goudy.” Linotype.com.
Hricik, David. “Professor Hricik’s Chronology of Things Roycroftie.”
Roth Time: A Dieter Roth Retrospective. MoMa online exhibit.
Otis College of Art and Design Artists’ Books Collection Online.
Artists’ Books Online: An online repository of facsimiles, metadata, and criticism.
Course Evaluations
Course History
- 2015–2016
Johanna Drucker teaches this course.
- 1991
Eleanor M. Garvey teaches a precursor course, “Books and Artists: Developments in the 19th and 20th Centuries.”