Washington DC: Abstract Orange, 2022. One of 45 copies. Corita Rules! is inspired by the work and rules of Corita Kent. Corita Kent (1918–1986) was an artist, educator, and advocate for social justice. She created many pieces using bright colors and typography. One of her works entitled “Power up” was a multi-section serigraph featuring the words “Power Up”. This book, that pays homage to Kent's use of color and typography, is an accordion using different color papers bound together to repeat her message of “Power up” — a call to action. The other words in this piece come from the “Ten Rules”, which was a collections of rules she used in her classroom. The book is letterpress printed using handcut wooden type. In Sister Corita’s practice, she did not number her pieces. This was a choice she made so that no one piece would be more valuable than the others. Following her tradition for this piece, the books are not numbered. In fine condition. Measures 5 x 7 inches. Unpaginated. PRI/041223. Fine. More

City of Morelia, Michoacan, Mexico: ALTERnativa Ediciones, 2021. Paperback. Number 3 of 4 copies. A powerful and personal piece about the war in Ukraine. This artist's book juxtaposes a personal interpretation of the artist Ioulia Akhmadeeva's family history including her grandfather's involvement in WWII with the current war in Ukraine. Central to the book is a red velvet dress which was constructed from a bundle of velvet taken from Czechoslovakia as a war trophy by the artist's grandfather, a major in the Russian army during WWII. The velvet was passed down in her family and was eventually made into a dress by the artist's mother - and was worn by all three of the artist's daughters. While not directly involved, the artist continues to feel guilt for her grandfather's actions in WWII, which are represented in this book by the red velvet dress. The artist is of Russian and Ukrainian descent with much of her family still residing in Russia, so the war and political turmoil of the region are particularly poignant for her. In this work she compares the actions of her grandfather in WWII to the actions of Russian soldiers looting and bombing Ukraine. She shows this through images of her family, the symbolic dress, and fragments of images from WWII alongside with current photographic images of the war in Ukraine. On different pages she has blacked out the face of her grandfather, written a story about a Czech girl that could have received a velvet dress (rather than her own daughters), and has drawn bombs flying near her grandfather's Russian star of honor. Now a resident of Mexico, where she has lived for over thirty years, most of the text is in Spanish. The artist created this book as a work of resilience, penance, and protest. She states: "On February 24, 2022 at 6 in the morning my home country Russia started this massacre without announcing it, just like Adolf Hitler, who invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 at 4 in the morning. Women and children are killed, sister cities are under constant bombardment and utterly destroyed. Putin's propaganda of the last 20 years transforms and controls the minds of 70% of the people inside Russia, who support his war and geopolitical plans. The protests against the war of the other 30% who think, reason and are not afraid are punished, censorship does not allow publishing or sharing the truth... The responsibility is not individual. And the change will not come alone." The book is a collection of 12 unbound postcard pages, a colophon, and a small velvet dress hand sewn by Diana Jaime at Alternativa editions based on a design by the book artist. All of the items are housed in a blue cloth covered clamshell box with yellow title to front board, bound in yellow ribbon, and magnetic closure. The dress can be affixed to the interior of the front panel of the box with a removable magnet. The postcards are inkjet printed on cotton paper, reproduced from color lithography prints by the artist and reproductions of photographic images of war taken from public domain social media sites. The verso of each postcard is printed with a title, imagery sources, and (like a typical postcard) lines to write an address with a box to affix a stamp. The pages are formatted as postcards to encourage the viewer to mail them - in order to create awareness of the war in the Ukraine and to become an anti-war activist. Text in Spanish with English translation available upon request. This project was  a result of the art residency of the  ìace Foundation for Contemporary Art during March 2022, Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was supported by a grant from the Mexican National System of Creators (SNCA) 2019 - 2022. This book is held in the Special Collections of Stanford University Library. ARTB/030923. Fine. More

San Diego: Bay Park Press, 2006. Hardcover. Number 10 of 10 copies. This is a charming and beautifully produced book by Carolyn LaFrance, a San Diego architect who is affiliated with the gallery at the Bay Park Press. Maxine is Carolyn’s beloved feline friend and companion, and the book describes a day in Maxine’s life through text and illustrations. Maxine begins her story: “Sun’s up, I get to go out. Yes, yes, I know, ‘Be careful,’ the howling creatures may still be about. What, you think I don’t know that? What I need to know is, who has been in my yard? Mr. Smushy-face? Walter? Or that grey and white bruiser? ...” Each page includes a hand-colored intaglio print of Maxine at various moments in her day (11 prints altogether). The text is Bernhard Modern type on lovely Fabriano Rosapina Bianco paper. Oblong folio bound in grey linen with black spine. Paw prints decorate the front cover and endpapers. Housed in a black portfolio with a grey cloth square label illustrated with paw prints affixed to front and cream ribbon closure. In fine condition. Unpaginated. PRI/072012. Fine. More

Brooklyn, NY: Anne Beck, 2000. Hardcover. Anne Beck is an interdisciplinary artist working collaboratively & independently in a wide variety of media from paper, print & book making to painting & textiles to social practice. Through her work, Anne explores the roles of amateur naturalist and lay surveyor of the current landscape – collecting specimens & recording data, cataloguing that which seems useful, and investigating further that which seems impermeable. This is all in the context of envisioning a sustainable path forward for herself and the planet, which is often a playful exercise in the face of absurd & complex circumstance. Anne lives & works in Northern California. She also a core member of The Printmakers Left, an international collective working together for over 20 years now on artist books, printed matter & installations. She is also half of the collaborative team behind The Rhinoceros Project exploring the communal & revolutionary power of sewing circles & hand papermaking. This provocative work is a unique manuscript. It begins with whimsical pictures and apocalyptic visions of a high-tech synthetic mechanized culture and evolves into a loose social history and critique. The pages were originally painted in a studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn as individual paintings but then coalesced into this evocative book. The images are varied in design and image, and sometimes mysterious as there is no text. They were hand painted and drawn with casein, acrylic, gouache, watercolor, ink, graphite, and collaged intaglio on heavy watercolor paper. The endpapers are hand-made cotton rag paper. It is handsewn and casebound in found gray suede printed with a black outlined map of the American West. In fine condition. Measures 12.375 x 8,75 inches closed. 56 pages. ARTSB/040623. Fine. More

New York: Béatrice Coron, 2016. Paperback. Number 3 of 3 copies. This intricate work created by Béatrice Coron beautiful displays her skill and artistry in papercutting. It was created after a trip there in order to preserve a record of the diverse animals and geography she saw. A sea blue book case opens to reveal the mystery, diversity, and wonder of the Galapagos through Coron's hand cut creation, made from a single sheet of black Arches paper. The individual pages unfold to show a scene 44 inches long. The viewer sees silhouettes of water, land, birds, sea creatures, and more. Coron describes her book work: "For the last 20 years, I have been exploring visual storytelling in artist books, paper cutting and public art. Collecting memories from individuals and communities, I stage narrative allegories in silhouette to create a dialogue with the viewer in playful fantasies. These visual chronicles record archetypal stories that transcend time and space. I have been fascinated by the relation of people to their space and the sense of belonging. Using papercutting where everything is cut from a single piece of Tyvek, the profusion of individual stories makes a coherent whole world." [From her website] Cristina Favretto, Head of Special Collections at the University of Miami describes Coron's work in Coron's "artfragments" portfolio: "There is a palpable joy in the work of Béatrice Coron, the kind of joy we felt as children in unwrapping a particularly enticing holiday gift. But...for Béatrice the gift is a sheet of Tyvek...or paper, and the stories to be unearthed and unleashed within and through the medium." Size: 8 x 44 inches when unfolded. 5.5 x 8 inches when folded. In fine condition. ARTB/081921. Fine. More

Maureen Cummins, 2018. Number 17 of 35 copies signed and numbered by the book artist, Maureen Cummins. Secretary deconstructs the life and death-by-suicide of the artist's mother, Dolores Cummins, a brilliant woman, aspiring artist, and housewife for twenty-five years. It is this story that inspired Cummins's later book Crazy Quilt, as well as all the subsequent work that she created around marginalized populations. This book is the first of several around this common theme that Maureen has become well-known for. Secretary is made even more powerful by the structure and composition. It was letterpress printed on sheets of Asian lined paper resembling a steno pad, with titling redacted by hand in graphite. The type used appears to have been typed on an old typewriter. Each section of the book is preceded by a ghostly photographic image of Cummins's mother from that period of her life, reprinted from originals in the artist's possession. The text pages are bound in the style of a stenographer's notepad. It is housed in a stiff grey paper folder. Maureen Cummins is a noted creator of artists' books. Her work is held in over one hundred permanent public collections internationally and has been included in exhibitions at the American Craft Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Rotunda Gallery (amongst others). She has received over a dozen grants and awards and has been an artist-in-residence at numerous venues, including the American Antiquarian Society and the Irish Museum of Modern Art. In fine condition. Measures 8.75 x 14.5 inches. ARTB/100119. More

Moscow: Emil Goozairow, 2016. Emile Goozairow is a Russian artist who paints and draws, produces movies, and creates exceptional miniature handmade books that are printed on rare types of paper and published in limited editions. His techniques create unique designs that often are made with natural materials alone or in combination with relief decorations made from metal or polymeric clay. He creates books that he describes as "pop up," “kinetic carousel," “liporello” or “3D origami.” He also writes fairy tales, stories and mystical scenes. "A carousel is spinning, and golden sand like snow slowly falls. I saw a strange mysterious alphabet and all the characters fly into the sky ...." When each page is turned the revealed pages pop open with Emil's beautiful illustrations and text describing a fantastical dream. The covers are brown velvet with a relief polymer clay artistic design on the front cover. A wonderful and imaginative book. In fine condition. Measures about 2.25 x 3 inches. ARTB/102021. Fine. More

Moscow: Emil Goozairow, (2020). Small unnumbered limited edition. Goozairow is a Russian artist who paints and draws, produces movies, and creates exceptional handmade books that are printed on rare types of paper and published in limited editions. His techniques create unique designs that often are made with natural materials alone or in combination with relief decorations made from metal or polymeric clay. He creates books that he describes as "pop up," “kinetic carousel," “liporello” or “3D origami.” He also writes fairy tales, stories and mystical scenes. A playful alphabet book with something embedded in both covers, causing it to rattle when read. Delightful illustrations with alliterative phrases (many comical) for each letter such as: Angel's Acorns for A, Creeping Cats, Delightful Desire for D, and Ugly Unicorn for U. The book has a special folding design that seems to unravel as you open each page. The book must be turned and flipped as you read in order to see all of the letters in order. Both boards are pyramid shaped relief designs in colored polymer clay. The book is held closed with braided brown cord straps that fasten with a metal clasp. In fine condition. Each side of this triangular shaped book measure about 2.25 inches. The depth of the book is about 3 inches. The book is painted white and blue. ARTB/021921. Fine. More

Moscow: Emil Goozairow, 2022. Hardcover. Not technically a miniature, but still a small book. Both covers are 3-D printed and hand painted to resemble metal. This is an accordion book featuring black and white illustrations of a jagged, rocky landscape - which incorporates letterforms in both the rocks and negative spaces. Double-sided. An imaginative design. [36 pages.] Size: about 4 x 2.5 inches. Emile Goozairow is a Russian artist who paints and draws, produces movies, and creates exceptional miniature handmade books that are printed on rare types of paper and published in limited editions. His techniques create unique designs that often are made with natural materials alone or in combination with relief decorations made from metal or polymeric clay. He creates books that he describes as "pop up," “kinetic carousel," “liporello” or “3D origami.” He also writes fairy tales, stories and mystical scenes. ARTB/052323. Fine. More

Philadelphia: Heirloom Press, 2017. Hardcover. Number 4 of 5 copies. Signed by the artist. Folio. "Curio is a collection of quotidian objects that speaks to the idea of woman as domestic curator and as weaker vessel. Images of household vases, cups and bowls are paired with inkblots that evoke the trappings of middle-class existence" (artist's statement). Includes text adapted from the 1868 collection of articles, "Modern Women and What Is Said of Them" and the Kate Chopin novel "The Awakening." Many of the excerpts that the artist has chosen to include objectify women, likening them to jewelry, tables, and other precious possessions. For example: After scolding his wife for sun bathing, Mr. Pontellier looks "at his wife as one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage." Also "The mind ought to be developed a little, and in such a way as to make the body more piquant and attractive. Like the candle inside a Chinese lantern, it may serve to lighten up and show to advantage the pretty devices outside. But the outside is the important thing, and the inside only incidental" (from "Modern Women ...). Others comment on how wives should be controlled or "managed" and the power dynamics within the home. A powerful book about the subjugation of women. Bound in full white alum-tawed leather with seven raised bands to the spine. Printed using letterpress, screenprint, and lithography on paper handmade by the artist. Size: 22 (wide) x 14.5 (tall) inches when open. ARTB/060920. Fine. More

Athens: Dorothy Simpson Krause, 2021. A unique book with original watercolors. Dorothy Krause is a painter, collage artist and printmaker who incorporates digital mixed media into her art. Her work is exhibited regularly in galleries and museums and featured in numerous current periodicals and books. In her artist's statement she says: "My work includes large scale mixed media pieces, artist books and book-like objects that bridge between these two forms. It embeds archetypal symbols and fragments of image and text in multiple layers of texture and meaning. It combines the humblest of materials, plaster, tar, wax and pigment, with the latest in technology to evoke the past and herald the future. My art-making is an integrated mode of inquiry that links concept and media in an ongoing dialogue – a visible means of exploring meaning. In 2019, when the artist was in Athens, she began a book with watercolors of the landscape and collaged images of Athena. Returning home, she decided to explore her relation to the archetype and wrote a narrative, contrasting her comments with excerpts from Jean Shinoda Bolen’s Goddesses in Everywoman. Because she felt it presumptuous to compare herself to Athena, she printed narrative from Bolen's book on 4 vellum sheets and "hid" them by inserting them between the drum-leaf pages. Channeling Athena has 10 watercolor and collaged pages, and the 4 vellum inserts in a drum-leaf binding with a cover of vintage white leather over board. Affixed to the cover is a cream colored plaster medallion with a raised profile of a Greek head and the letters AOE ("Of the Athenians"). A lovely book in fine condition. Measures 7.5 x 6" inches. Unpaginated. ARTB/051923. More

New York: Russell Maret, 2021. Number 60 of 90 copies of which 87 were numbered and 3 were proofs. Signed and numbered by the book artist. This work comprises three volumes housed in a custom clamshell box. It is a powerful response by one of our most acclaimed contemporary book artists to the alarming state of the country and the fractured state of political discourse in America. Maret writes in his colophon: "This book was designed and printed between November 2020 and February 2021. During that time Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the presidential election by a margin of 74 electoral votes and more than 7 million popular votes. Rather than concede defeat, Trump has continued to promote the baseless claim that the election was rigged by the Democratic party and its "deep-state" operatives. At a rally on January 6, 2021, Trump incited a violent insurrection of the United States Capitol building, an action that is clearly described in the Constitution as treasonous (Article III, Section 3). Despite this, the mob that carried out Trump's failed coup attempt overwhelmingly identified as people willing to die or, more likely, kill to defend the Constitution.....Three Constitutions is my response to these events and the culture that bred them. It is well known that Trump does not read, but the glaring disconnect between basic constitutional principles and the actions of Trump's followers raises the question of whether these self-described patriots have read any part of the constitution besides the second amendment. Three Constitutions is my response to these events and the culture that bred them. The large volume contains the full text of the Constitution and its amendments. It is set in a typeface that, though difficult to read, is legible once one becomes accustomed to its forms. The texts of the two smaller volumes were arrived at via the two most prevalent modes of constitutional interpretation: algorithmic skewing and selective redaction. The text of the volume titled Constitution. United States. was arrived by feeding the text of the Constitution through Google Translate,going from English to Esperanto to Russian to Chinese and back to English. The other small volume was set in metal type and subsequently redacted by physically turning key words and phrases over and printing the underside of the type. The resulting text is not the hopeful re-write I would conceive; it is intended to reflect the cynical, ineffectual state of political discourse in the United States." All of the typefaces were designed by Russell Maret. Printed on Zerkall and Twinrocker Handmade papers. The large volume is 10 x 14.25 inches and held in a clear acrylic box. The two smaller volumes measure 7 x 10 inches and have black cloth covers with white titling to front cover. All three are housed in large clamshell box covered in gray cloth. It measures 16 x 11.25 x 2.75 inches. Accompanied by the prospectus. In fine condition. Fine. More