On Saturday, November 10, The San Diego Museum of Art will open its new exhibition Charles Reiffel: An American Post-Impressionist. Charles Reiffel led the California plein-air school of landscape painting in the late 1920s. SDMA’s exhibition explores Reiffel’s relationship with nature and form and examines the influence of American Post-Impressionism and Expressionism on his work.
Reiffel moved from Silvermine, Connecticut, to San Diego in 1925. The Pacific shores and desert hills of Southern California renewed his imagination and art, but he did not experience the same kind of financial success there as he had back East. Though critics embraced Reiffel, collectors dismissed his paintings as “too modern.” Reiffel’s bold colors and rhythmic lines, interrupted by angular brush strokes, challenged the conservative style of local plein-air paintings. These quintessentially modern works, however, reveal the artist’s unique vision and “absolute command of the monumental landscape.”*
The exhibition catalogue, produced by Marquand Books and designed by Annabelle Gould, features an essay by San Diego–area curator Bram Dijkstra that considers the writers and artists who inspired Reiffel’s approach to art—from American transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, to painters such as Carl Marr. The 190-page book includes more than 70 full-color images and an exhibition timeline for Reiffel’s work.
To learn more about the exhibition and purchase tickets, visit SDMA.
*Ariel Plotek, Charles Reiffel: An American Post-Impressionist. (San Diego: The San Diego Art Museum), 15.
photography by Jeremy Linden
The New York Times recently featured an article on the new exhibition at the Denver Art Museum, Becoming van Gogh. The exhibition explores the unorthodox journey that Vincent van Gogh took to becoming an artist. Focusing on key periods in his life—his work in London and Paris for an art dealer, his attempted career in the church, and the spiritual crisis that influenced his decision to become an artist—Becoming van Gogh investigates the influences and beliefs that made up van Gogh’s approach to art.
Becoming van Gogh represents nearly a decade of DAM’s collaborative work with more than sixty institutions to bring together works that reveal van Gogh’s artistic progression. The exhibition features more than seventy paintings and drawings by van Gogh and includes works by the artists who influenced him, such as Camille Pissarro and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec.
Accompanying the exhibition is the publication Becoming van Gogh. The catalogue, produced by Marquand Books and designed by John Hubbard, illuminates van Gogh’s evolution through essays and a timeline of his artistic career. With more than 150 full-color illustrations, this 288-page book is an insightful consideration of one of the most significant and beloved artists of the modern era.
To learn more about Becoming van Gogh, visit DAM. To purchase your copy of the book, visit Yale University Press.
photography by Jeremy Linden
In the 1970s, Seattle art patron Virginia Wright joined with local art institutions to organize the Washington Art Consortium (WAC), an educational cooperative dedicated to bringing world-class art to Washington State. The consortium—the first of its kind in the United States—began with five founding members. WAC is now composed of seven institutions: the Henry Art Gallery, Washington State University’s Museum of Art, the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, the Seattle Art Museum, the Tacoma Art Museum, Western Washington University’s Western Gallery, and the Whatcom Museum.
In 1976, with funds from Wright and the National Endowment for the Arts, WAC assembled its first collection, Works on Paper 1945–1975. The collection, which focuses on works on paper by a range of artists—including Willem de Kooning, Andy Warhol, Agnes Martin, and Josef Albers, represents a defining era in American art—one that pushed boundaries and challenged notions of what art is and can be.
In the last few years, the works have undergone condition analysis, conservation, and reframing. To celebrate the completion of this process, the Museum of Art presents the exhibition The Artist’s Hand: Works on Paper 1945–1975. The show opens today and runs through December 15. It is accompanied by a 136-page catalogue, produced by Marquand Books and designed by John Hubbard. The book includes more than sixty color illustrations of selected works and an essay by Wright that details the creation of the consortium.
To learn more about The Artist’s Hand: Works on Paper 1945–1975, visit the Museum of Art.
The Prints of Ellsworth Kelly: A Catalogue Raisonné is now available at Amazon.com. Marquand Books produced the stunning two-volume catalogue, working directly with the Ellsworth Kelly studio and Richard Axsom, the raisonné’s author. Published by the Jordan D. Schnitzer Family Foundation and distributed by Marquand Books, the catalogue features more than 400 color illustrations accompanied with detailed entries.
Letters to Ellsworth, a companion publication, is also available on Amazon. This book gathers the reflections of men and women who have been close to Kelly and his art over the years. In many cases, the proximity has been to the artist’s prints. Curators, art historians, publishers, printers, dealers, and collectors contribute personal essays on Kelly’s work. Unlike any other book on Kelly—one of the most important artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries—Letters to Ellsworth offers an intimate look at the bond between friend and artist.
The publication of the catalogue raisonné coincides with a traveling exhibition, Ellsworth Kelly Prints. The show, organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (where it first opened as part of Ellsworth Kelly: Prints and Paintings in January 2012) recently closed at Portland Art Museum and moves in January to the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.
Visit our post “Color, Shape, and Nature: Ellsworth Kelly’s Prints” to learn more about the exhibitions and catalogue. To purchase The Prints of Ellsworth Kelly and Letters to Ellsworth, visit Amazon.com.
“Hold fast to dreams / For when they let go / Life is a barren field /
Frozen in snow”—Frank Moore
Fields littered with oversized pill bottles, buffalo grazing on cotton bedsheets, clouds in the shape of chemical compounds: these are the landscapes and images depicted by the late New York City artist Frank Moore (1953–2002). In his life and work, Moore fervently confronted issues of the day, from genetically modified food and pollution to the AIDS pandemic and human sexuality—his paintings, surreal and highly detailed, reveal the chaos and beauty inherent in each.
In early September, Grey Art Gallery opened the most comprehensive exhibition to date of Moore’s work. Toxic Beauty: The Art of Frank Moore chronicles the artist’s career and reveals his eloquent and inquisitive approach to life and art. The exhibition features more than thirty-five major paintings and fifty drawings, sketches, and gouches as well as Moore’s personal notebooks, source materials, and ephemera.
Marquand Books produced the exhibition catalogue, designed by Laura Lindgren. Essays by Gregg Bordowitz, Susan Harris, and Klaus Kertess study the connections between environmental, social, and personal health that Moore examined in his work. Excerpts from artist statements, essays, and interviews with Frank Moore are also included in the book, which features more than one hundred color illustrations.
To learn more about the exhibition Toxic Beauty: The Art of Frank Moore or to purchase a copy of the catalogue, visit the Grey Art Gallery.
Photography by Jeremy Linden
In 2007, the Smithsonian announced plans to build the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). This February, the museum broke ground to begin construction on what will be most likely be the final building on the National Mall. The museum, designed by Ghanaian-born architect David Adjaye, is scheduled to open in 2015.
The exhibition Let Your Motto Be Resistance, which first opened in February 2008 at the National Portrait Gallery (NPG), was the NMAAHC’s first traveling exhibition. The exhibition toured fifteen cities and was created in collaboration with the International Center of Photography in New York. Let Your Motto Be Resistance featured a selection of portraits from the Gallery’s collection, ranging from Sojourner Truth to James Baldwin. The exhibition focuses on the power portraits have to resist cultural stereotypes and communicate the self-worth and dignity of the photographed individual.
The photographs highlighted in the exhibition are of people whose lives and portraits resound with the famous abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet’s words:
Let your motto be Resistance! Resistance! RESISTANCE! No oppressed people have ever secured their liberty without resistance. What kind of resistance you…make you must decide by the circumstances that surround you.… *
Accompanying the exhibition was the catalogue Let Your Motto Be Resistance. The catalogue includes essays by Cheryl Finley and Sarah Elizabeth Lewis and biographies of the writers, statesmen, artists, scientists, abolitionists, and entertainers whose portraits are featured in the publication. The National Portrait Gallery created an online museum venue for the exhibition, where visitors to the website can see portraits of Frederick Douglass, Asa Phillip Randolph, Lorraine Hansberry, and others whose lives manifested the resistance, creativity, and hope that early African American abolitionists championed.
Marquand Books produced the exhibition’s 184-page catalogue, designed by Jeff Wincapaw. We are pleased to note that we are working on a reprint of this stunning publication.To see portraits from Let Your Motto Be Resistance or to purchase a copy of the catalogue, visit the virtual exhibition at the NPG. Visit the NMAAHC online for more information about the museum’s construction and current events.
*Deborah Willis, Let Your Motto Be Resistance. (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2007), 11.
photography by Ryan Polich
In the 1960s, John Powers resigned from his position as president of a major publishing company and pursued his passion for collecting contemporary American art and antique Japanese art. His enthusiasm for Japanese art prompted him, along with his wife, Kimiko, to travel extensively throughout Japan and meet with art dealers and scholars to learn more about the works they wanted to collect.
The ’60s proved an ideal time for the Powerses to begin collecting. Japanese art was not widely known, and its obscurity allowed them to build a collection focused on exquisite pieces without the stress of competing collectors. Today, the Powers Collection is recognized as the premier collection of Japanese art in the United States and as one of the largest collections outside of Japan. Throughout their years of collecting, John and Kimiko Powers gathered together more than 300 paintings, scrolls, Buddhist sculptures, calligraphy, and illuminated documents that reveal the stories and innovation of Japan’s artistic evolutions.
Unrivalled Splendor: The Kimiko and John Powers Collection of Japanese Art is currently featured at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. The exhibition, which runs through September 23, presents eighty-five selections from the collection and highlights elaborate screens, narrative scroll paintings, and some of the earliest known examples of Buddhist art in Japan.
Marquand Books produced the 246-page catalogue that accompanies the exhibition. Designed by Zach Hooker, the catalogue presents more than eighty color illustrations of the selected works and includes an essay by Miyeko Murase that examines the importance of the objects presented in the exhibition.
To learn more about Unrivalled Splendor, visit the MFAH. To purchase a copy of the exhibition catalogue, visit Yale University Press.
photography by Jeremy Linden
On Monday, The New York Times featured an article on the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, their current exhibition, and their book A Glorious Enterprise.
The book’s true fascination comes in its color photographs and illustrations, scores of them. We see naturalists in the field, the tools they used and the specimens they returned—legions of stuffed birds, minerals, mushrooms and insects … the story of the Academy of Natural Sciences engrosses. Its collections, sampled here, are valuable, and the attitude of its founders—that satisfying one’s curiosity about the natural world is celebratory activity—is refreshing.
The book chronicles the museum’s 200-year history of collection and research. It was produced by Marquand Books and designed by Jeff Wincapaw. To purchase A Glorious Enterprise, visit the University of Pennsylvania Press.
Last Friday, the L.A. Times featured an article on the Norton Simon Museum’s current exhibition, Proof: The Rise of Printmaking in California. Highlighting works from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, the exhibition chronicles the revival of printmaking in the United States.
Marquand Books produced the 256-page exhibition catalogue that was edited by the show’s curator, Leah Lehmbeck. Proof illuminates the history of California’s postwar printmaking boom through essays, illustrations, and a chronology that identifies key people and events of the movement.
Proof: The Rise of Printmaking in Southern California opened October 1, 2011 and runs through April 2, 2012. To learn more about the exhibition, visit the Norton Simon Museum online.
photography by Jeremy Linden
The Bellevue Art Museum’s current exhibition Knitted, Knotted, Twisted & Twined highlights more than ninety pieces of jewelry by local artist Mary Lee Hu. The show chronicles Hu’s work from the 1960s to the present and focuses on the original techniques she brought to the worlds of jewelry and metalwork.
Employing fiber techniques like twining and weaving, Hu manipulates metal as if it were textile. Her methods cause light to reflect off her jewelry in deliberate, mesmerizing ways. By wrapping wire and folding metals, she constructs textured neckpieces, earrings, bracelets, and brooches, as well as several small animals—a lizard, turtle, and squid are a few of the creatures displayed.
The 128-page exhibition catalogue, designed by Jeff Wincapaw, was produced by Marquand Books and features more than eighty color illustrations. Essays by Janet Koplos and Jeannine Falino illuminate Hu’s journey in metalwork and jewelry design.
To learn more about the Knitted, Knotted, Twisted & Twined exhibition and catalogue, visit the Bellevue Arts Museum online.
[Traylor] was beautiful to see—so right with himself and at peace—as the rich imagery of his long life welled up into his drawings and paintings.
—Charles Shannon, 1985*
The High Museum of Art is currently showing the exhibit Bill Traylor: Drawings from the Collections of the High Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibit, a collaboration of the two museums, showcases over sixty works by the self-taught, Alabama artist Bill Traylor.
Born into slavery around 1854, Traylor grew up in rural Alabama. In 1928 he moved to Montgomery where he survived on the streets of Monroe Avenue, working and living in meager conditions. When he was eighty years old and physically unable to work, he started to draw. On the sidewalks of Montgomery, he used crayons, graphite pencils, and poster paint on pieces of old cardboard to create pictures of rural and urban life.
Charles Shannon, a Montgomery artist, befriended Traylor in 1939. He soon championed his work, buying and preserving most of Traylor’s drawings. For nearly forty years, Shannon protected Traylor’s art, convinced the drawings deserved to be in museums alongside works by mainstream artists. Finally, in the late 1970’s, the drawings were introduced to the public and are now regarded as important examples of American art.
The exhibition catalogue, produced by Marquand Books, allows the reader a close view of the textural, temporal qualities of Traylor’s work. Essays by Susan Mitchell Crawley and Leslie H. Paisely explore both the history of the artist’s life, as well as the history of preserving his works. The 111-page catalogue includes portraits of the artist and selected works from the collections of the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts and the High Museum of Art.
To learn more about the exhibition or to purchase the catalogue, visit the High Museum of Art online.
* Margaret Lynne Ausfeld, Susan Mitchell Crawley. Bill Traylor: Drawings from the Collections of the High Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. (New York: Prestel, 2012), 13.
photography by Jeremy Linden
The history of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia is as interesting as its collections. Established in 1812, the Academy was the nation’s center for scientific thought and discovery. It funded expeditions into the western wilderness and its members classified and categorized the variety of specimens they found. Today, the Academy’s collections are important libraries of the biodiversity in flora and fauna.
The book A Glorious Enterprise chronicles events that have shaped the Academy’s history over the last 200 years, from its early beginnings as an epicenter for science to its present-day status as the United States’ oldest natural history museum.
Produced by Marquand Books and designed by Jeff Wincapaw, this 464-page book details the collections of the museum in more than 250 color illustrations. Essays by Robert McCracken Peck and Patricia Tyson Stroud and photographs by Rosamond Purcell illuminate the stories of past discoveries.
To purchase A Glorious Enterprise, visit the University of Pennsylvania Press.
photography by Jeremy Linden
A lot of thought and creativity goes into the design of each book we create: What colors and typefaces best suit the art each book holds? What materials and textures complement the artwork on the pages? At its best, this design process creates books that have compelling object quality—the thing about a book that makes you take it off the shelf and look through every page. Books with object quality are as intriguing on the outside as they are on the inside.
The catalogue New Image Sculpture, which we produced for the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas, is one example of object quality. The 2011 exhibition featured works by artists who re-created and reinterpreted items of everyday life using unusual materials: a wheelbarrow was sculpted from clay, a boom box was made out of cardboard.
To create the exhibition’s catalogue, we also used uncommon materials. The cover of the catalogue, made with gray board, was inspired by New York artist Tom Burkhardt’s installation Full Stop (2004-2005) and printed to look like Peg-Board, giving the book a “do-it-yourself” feel that reflected the style of the exhibition. Wood-free uncoated paper was used for the essay, while smooth art paper was used for the plate section. The variety of textures in the book echoed the diverse materials of the exhibition works.
Pulp Fashion is another example of a book whose object quality was inspired by its content. The book, published by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and DelMonico Books/Prestel, features the intricate and textural paper gowns created by Belgian artist and sculptor Isabelle de Borchgrave.
De Borchgrave’s attention to pattern and print influenced our design of Pulp Fashion. We embossed the cover and end sheets with a motif from her piece Worth evening gown and shoe (1994), and the raised surfaces give the reader a taste of what her gowns might feel like. Incorporating the tactile with the visual enhances the reader’s experience: both of the art within the book and of the book as an object itself.
To get your hands on a copy of Pulp Fashion, visit the online bookstore at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
photography by Jeremy Linden
Ed Marquand
Three Fragments of a Lost Tale: Sculpture and Story by John Frame reminds us that an exhibition book can be mysterious, enigmatic, and haunting—and satisfy all on its own.
John Frame creates figurative wooden sculptures, each with individual character, motivations, and behaviors. He then constructs elaborate sets and uses his sculptures as actors in stop-action films inspired by classic Czech animators.
Frame is currently working on his final film, The Tale of the Crippled Boy. The project had its beginnings in a dream: Frame was jolted awake by what seemed like an unfolding story complete with cast and scenes. The film is now his next body of work and, he says, may carry him through the remainder of his lifetime.
Marquand Books produced this small book for the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, which showed the exhibition last spring. The book is edited by Kevin M. Murphy and Jessica Todd Smith, features an essay by David Pagel, and presents John Frame’s photography of his sets and sculptures.
Visit John Frame’s website for a rich preview of his astonishing work and be sure to attend the upcoming exhibition at the Portland Art Museum in Portland, OR, opening February 18.
Photograph by Jeremy Linden
Ed Marquand
Few art forms are as universally popular as Japanese samurai armor. Graphic, bold, refined, and theatrical, this exquisitely crafted material has inspired designers and artists for centuries. From Yoshitoshi, the father of modern Japanese manga style, to George Lucas’s iconic Star Wars costuming, its influence is thoroughly integrated into our cultural aesthetic.
Marquand Books produced English and French editions of Art of Armor: Samurai Armor from the Ann and Gabriel Barbier-Mueller Collection. Published in association with Yale University Press, this 320-page book showcases more than 300 images. These illustrations allow readers to see the intricacies of samurai armor, and captions include the weight and measurements for each piece. Jeff Wincapaw of Marquand Books designed the book, and Brad Flowers photographed the work. Essays were written by John Anderson, Ian Bottomley, Sachiko Hori, Gregory Irvine, Eric Meulien, Morihiro Ogawa, John Stevenson, and Stephen Turnbull; Bernard Fournier-Bourdier authored the catalogue entries.
The Barbier-Mueller collection is currently on display at the Musée du quai Branly in Paris until the end of this month. The show then opens in April at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Quebec and will be on view until January 2013. In Dallas, the Barbier-Muellers renovated a former Catholic school into a handsome museum, where the collection will be permanently housed.
Continue reading: “Project Highlights: Samurai Armor”
The New York Times named our book Expressions of Innocence and Eloquence: Selections from the Jane Katcher Collection of Americana, Volume II a recommended art gift book this year. The hearty and handsome collection is a great gift idea for folk art fans and history buffs. Both volumes I and II are available on the Yale University Press website.
(Brew Books)
The particular pleasure of holding a bound book is a timeless gift. And choosing to buy titles for the holidays from local booksellers tangibly strengthens communities, creating more local jobs and re-investing taxes in the community. According to Indiebound, $68 of each $100 spent at a local level stays in your city. To contrast, only $43 spent at national chains and big box stores remains in your area. Buying from local and independent stores promotes diverse shopping and robust commerce, and can even help reduce carbon footprint by decreasing the need for packaging and shipping.
In Seattle, shop for a wide range of titles at Elliott Bay Books in Capitol Hill. To discover rare and hard-to-find books, visit Pioneer Square’s Wessel and Lieberman. Peter Miller Books, near Pike Place Market, offers a well-curated selection of architecture and design books that are smartly displayed. And Book Larder, a new culinary-themed shop in Fremont, houses hand-picked cookbooks as well as readings, tastings, and cooking demonstrations.
If you choose to buy books online this holiday season, consider one of the hundreds of niche online booksellers. The New York Public Library recommends:
Continue reading: “Reading Season”
Two important Claude-Joseph Vernet works are on view at the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) now through December 11. The French painter’s work, A Mountain Landscape with an Approaching Storm, and its complimentary landscape, A Grand View of the Seashore, are on display on the second floor of the museum’s European galleries.
Both paintings were commissioned by well-known English collector Lord Lansdowne and were hung side-by-side at Lansdowne House in London until the owner’s death. The paintings were sold at auction in 1806 to different private collectors and are being reunited at the DMA for the first time in more than 200 years. One of the large-scale works portrays a peaceful seaport at sunset, the other a wild, rocky landscape with villagers fleeing from an imminent storm.
Continue reading: “Stormy Skies, Calm Waters”
About nine months ago, Paper Hammer opened on the corner of Second and Union in downtown Seattle. Since its inception, the little shop connected to the Marquand Books Studio and design office has generated a lot of buzz, including profiles in local publications like Seattle Metropolitan, Seattle Magazine, and City Arts. This month, our simple wood type doorknob hangers are spotlighted in Seattle Magazine’s “Best Local Fashion Finds” issue.
Many products for sale at Paper Hammer are Tieton-made: designed, then produced by hand at Mighty Tieton in Central Washington. Each item’s concept, from the simplest to most ambitious, bring together well-considered design, creative uses of technology, and a hearty nod to printing traditions.
In addition to curated gifts from boutique producers Ladies & Gentlemen, Field Notes, Pigeon Toe Ceramics, and Dorothy Cheng Jewelry, Paper Hammer offers hand-picked salvaged and vintage curiosities.
A few months back, the Paper Hammer team launched an online Web store to compliment our brick-and-mortar locations in Seattle and Tieton. The sale of each Tieton-made product benefits the economy of the small orchard town-turned-arts-incubator. In addition to handmade letterpress coasters, paper goods, and ephemera featured on the Paper Hammer Web site, a new line of products is currently being produced for autumn and will be launched in the coming weeks.
A few favorite picks, available at paper-hammer.com:
Continue reading: “Tieton-Made”
Photo courtesy of LACMA
Continuing to build a spirit of collaboration between creative disciplines, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) recently hosted the acclaimed Jamal Dance Art Theatre in an original performance called “Mourners Are Dancing Too.” Choreography for the dance was inspired by the traveling exhibition, The Mourners: Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy, closing at LACMA this weekend.
Marquand Books produced the 128-page catalogue for the French Regional American Museum Exchange (FRAME). Consisting of multiple views of the mourner statuettes set against simple, stark backgrounds, the book was designed by Zach Hooker and is distributed by Yale University Press.
Continue reading: “The Mourners Are Dancing”
Long days and clear nights have finally rolled into the Pacific Northwest—perfect summer reading weather. Our staff of voracious readers has compiled a list of suggestions fitting for the season. Here’s a sampling.
FICTION
That Old Ace in the Hole by Annie Proulx (Jeff)
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski (Jeff)
The Wild Things by Dave Eggers (Ryan)
A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin (Dorothy)
The Choiring of Trees by Donald Herrington (Sylvia)
Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll (Sylvia)
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño (Donna)
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (Heather)
The 13 Clocks by James Thurber (Heather)
A Death in the Family by James Agee (Adrian)
NON-FICTION
The Elements of Typographic Style by David Bringhurst (Ryan)
In the Company of Crows and Ravens by John M. Marzluff and Tony Angell (Ryan)
All About Love: New Visions by Bell Hooks (Sylvia)
Becoming a Man by Paul Monett (Evan)
Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us by Ralph Nader (Evan)
Go the F**k to Sleep by Adam Mansbach (Donna)
Lincoln at Gettysberg by Garry Wills (Heather)
COOKBOOKS
Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero (Evan)
Kansha: Celebrating Japan’s Vegan and Vegetarian Traditions by Elizabeth Andoh (Donna)
ART
Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton (Ed)
Blinky Palermo Retrospective 1964-1977 by DIA Foundation (Donna)
Picasso & Lump: A Dachshund’s Odyssey by David Douglas Duncan (Heather)
Spiral Jetta: A Road Trip through the Land Art of the American West by Erin Hogan (Adrian)
The Lives of the Artists by Calvin Tomkins (Adrian)
The highly anticipated exhibition Pissarro’s People opened last Sunday at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Mass.
Marquand Books produced the exhibition catalogue, designed by Jeff Wincapaw and distributed by Prestel Publishing. Curated by scholar Richard Brettell, Pissarro’s People includes about 50 works on paper and 40 oil paintings by the impressionist master.
Runs through Oct. 2. Special lectures and programs are scheduled throughout the summer and fall. For more info click here.
In a move that must have cleaned out every Value Village book bin in New York City, Tokyo-based design firm Super Potato bundled and stacked more than 20,000 salvaged paperbacks, turned them page end out, and formed a grid that hugs the bar and lounge of Brushstroke. Gothamist photographer Katie Sokoler documented the scene at the new Japanese restaurant in Tribeca, with more photos on view here.
The Marquand Books title Max Gordon: Architect for Art is now available through DAP. Gordon, who died in 1990 at age 59, designed numerous ambitious projects including New Scotland Yard in London:
Whether creating enormous exhibition spaces or designing living quarters for collectors and homes and studio facilities for artists, the acclaimed architect Max Gordon shaped the physical settings of art in the world’s major metropolises during his influential career. This first monograph offers a detailed overview of Gordon’s projects for the art world, from the 100,000-square-foot exhibition space he designed for the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid to the SoHo home he remodeled for Richard Serra, demonstrating throughout his elegant use of light, space and minimal decoration, and displaying his gift for always highlighting the art.
The publication has generated buzz, including posts on the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog and Judith H. Dobrzynski’s Real Clear Arts blog.
Congrats to former Marquand Editions | Tieton studio manager Amy Rabas. She’s the April featured artist on the excellent Chicago Publishes blog. Amy moved to the Windy City in 2009 and is working on her MFA in Interdisciplinary Book & Paper Arts at Columbia College in Chicago. Read the conversation, touching on everything from binding techniques to vintage animal fur, here.
Congratulations to our partners at iocolor. They handled the pre-press, engineering, and production for this astonishing and important book. The six-volume encyclopedia on the art and science of modern cooking is the subject of a spirited review in the New York Times:
In the end, I can only smile, shake my head and bow to him and his crew for their work of unprecedented scope and ambition.
A good overview of the project and interview with co-author Nathan Myhrvold was featured on Weekend Edition last Saturday.
The color and resolution standards involved in printing the book are discussed here.
I started Marquand Books in Seattle over thirty years ago, originally as a graphic design and photography firm specializing in work for artists and art galleries. By the mid-1980s, we had become a small art book publisher. Today, we produce collection books, monographs, and exhibition catalogues for museums throughout the United States and abroad. We have a great staff and clientele.
In 2005, a small group of friends, artists, architects, designers, and I started buying several unused buildings in Tieton, a small orchard town in central Washington. This group became Mighty Tieton. We have created an incubator for artisan businesses in order to provide entrepreneurial opportunities for creative professionals and to improve the economy of this appealing, but struggling, town.
My artisan business there is Marquand Editions | Tieton (ME|T). Our studio, letterpress shop, and bindery creates handmade, limited-edition books for individuals, artists, galleries, collectors, and museums. Our clients are looking for books that are tactile, personal, memorable; they want books that are objects. Some clients visit our studio to help design the books we create for them.
ME|T also produces a line of stationery and gifts that are sold in museums and in our online shop. This past fall, we opened our downtown Seattle shop, Paper Hammer, in our new design office next to the Seattle Art Museum.
The studio creates promotional items for Marquand Books as well. Several times a year we produce amusing design pieces for actual and prospective clients. The Decider is a spin game to help you make quick decisions about vexing quandaries. The Speeder-Upper is a hotel desk bell (made out of paper, of course) that you ring during meetings to encourage long-winded colleagues to get to the point.
Continue reading: “Outliving Obsolescence”
Marquand Books recently produced Birthe Piontek: The Idea of North for Portland, OR-based arts non-profit Photolucia. The German photographer’s powerful series of portraits explore life above 60th parallel.
Pointek discusses the series in this interview with Urbansand.
Seattle Times arts writer Michael Upchurch recently picked the Marquand-produced Salvador Dalí: The Late Work as a book worth gifting this holiday season. Designed by Jeff Wincapaw, the exhibition catalog accompanies the lauded Dali show at the High Museum in Atlanta, running through January 9. The exhibit and book focus on more than 40 paintings and media produced by Dalí post-1940, including 1957’s Santiago El Grande and 1951’s Christ of Saint John of the Cross.
The book can be purchased directly from the Yale University Press page here.
We’ve been charmed by Portland, Oregon’s Monograph Bookwerks, a shining example of how an independent bookstore can thrive in the age of the digital reader, especially when its concept fills a niche.
Opened in May 2010 in the Alberta Arts district, the shop sells new and used art books and objects carefully curated by owners John Brodie and Blair Saxon-Hill. Even better, you can browse new arrivals on the shop’s Web site and Facebook page before visiting. Are you a fan?
Ed Marquand has logged some long, inspiring hours in the book arts studio in Tieton this month. Along with our printing and binding crew, he has been designing and refining the merchandise that we will feature in our new downtown Seattle store, Paper Hammer, located in front of the Marquand Books design studio. The shop opens December 2.
The shop and studios are at the corner of Second and Union, across the street from Benaroya Hall and kitty corner to the Seattle Art Museum. Paper Hammer will sell the chap books, notebooks, novelties, coasters, posters, cards, photo albums, limited edition books, and gift items that we produce in Tieton. The store will also carry a selection of books that we make for museums, collectors, and artists across the country. Carefully selected vintage and contemporary goods will round out our products.
Our new space also includes a small gallery, which will allow us to mount modest exhibitions and demonstrations about the work we do in Seattle and Tieton. Look for more to come about events and shows in the gallery space.
Paper Hammer will host an opening party December 2 during First Thursday. Save the date!
The Marquand Books-produced Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man by Martin Clayton and Ron Philo just won a British Book Design and Production Award for best exhibition catalogue. Many congratulations to designer John Hubbard and the Royal Collection Publications team!
For a full list of 2010 winners click here.
Don’t miss the 10 x 10 x 10 x Tieton exhibition, open Wednesday through Sunday from noon-3 p.m. until October 10.
The catalogue, featuring juried works from the show, is hot off the press and for sale at our on-line store.
Lucas Deon Spivey selling 10 x 10 x 10 catalogues at the show.
UK-based on-line bookseller The Book Depository is a good resource for finding publications that are either out of print or not widely available in the US.
Check out the “Watch People Shop” feature. Tracing tabs on a world map as they ping-pong between recent sales in real time in entrancing. Someone in California just bought African Animal Stickers. Then someone in South Africa bought The Last Snake Man. Someone in Canada bought The Stars, and someone in Australia bought Bright Star a few minutes later. It’s like six degrees of book separation.
Seattle’s venerable Elliott Bay Book Company officially opened shop in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood Wednesday. The store, which moved from its beloved Pioneer Square location after 37 years due to financial woes, is reinventing itself in one of Seattle’s most vibrant neighborhoods.
Continue reading: “The Next Chapter”
In major cities worldwide during the pre-burst bubble, many independent, street-level retail businesses were priced out of the cool neighborhoods they helped establish. Corporate conglomerates selling luxury goods drove commercial rent into the tens of thousands of dollars.
Many of these shops are simply environmental installations-as-advertising. While Nike, Chanel, Ralph Lauren, Gucci, and others of their ilk still drive many rental markets, it’s shifted a bit here in NYC, where desirable shopping districts such as Soho and Nolita are full of empty storefronts.
Continue reading: “Pop-up Shops Take Manhattan”
The other night, I attended a reception and dinner for an exhibition
of work by an artist who is no longer living. We produced the
accompanying book—a handsome, substantial effort.
The exhibition is impressive. Many museum members and out-of-town
visitors extolled the work, the selection of the paintings, and the
installation. Smiles and congratulations came from all around.
Continue reading: “Intangible Value”
We know not to judge a book by its cover, but even so it’s hard to resist buying every expertly designed publication included in the Book Cover Archive.
Continue reading: “Browse Before you Buy”
Marquand Books’ Seattle office is a stone’s throw from Vancouver, so it’s hard to resist the excitement surrounding the 2010 Winter Olympics, especially since we’ve just finished producing the exhibition catalogue Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man for the Vancouver Art Gallery. The anticipated exhibit, in association with the Royal Collection, features drawings loaned by Queen Elizabeth II for the Winter Games.
Our friends over at Chronicle Books have the perfect reads to help you imagine you’re in the center of Olympics action if, like us, you’re watching from home. Chronicle is offering a trio of Canada-centric titles, including the ever-compelling So you Want to be Canadian and City Walks Vancouver: 50 Adventures on Foot, available here.
We here at Marquand Books like not only to write our own blog; we also enjoy seeing what others are blogging about and have to say.
In the Seattle PI’s Reader Blogs, Jeremy Tolbert keeps us posted on the latest happenings around the city. This month author Katharine Harmon is visiting the Ballard Public Library on January 21st at 6:30pm to talk about her new book, The Map As Art, a gathering of images by artists “whose maps to are used to express their visions.”
On Book Patrol: A Haven for Book Culture, Michael Lieberman speaks to the collector of “the world’s largest private collection of rare books on Haiti,” Robert Corbett.
In case you haven’t heard yet, as of January 11th, the New York Times Books blog, the Book Design Review, will be on indefinite hiatus. You will still be able to follow Joseph Sullivan on Twitter, and he suggests that you follow the Casual Optimist, Faceout Books, and the Book Cover Archive for any book-design-commentary needs he will no longer be filling.
Bookselling has held an uncharacteristically prominent place in Seattle newspapers and Web sites of late. Elliott Bay Book Company, the flagship retailer in the historic Pioneer Square neighborhood, is moving to the Pike and Pine corridor on Capitol Hill. Bailey/Coy Books, the longtime Broadway bookseller, has closed its doors. Everyone agrees that bookselling in Seattle is changing. But there’s plenty of disagreement about what the change means.
Here’s a roundup of relevant stories. This collection represents but a small fraction of the ink spilled and pixels lit about the changes afoot for bookselling in Seattle.
Continue reading: “Seattle Bookselling News Roundup”
It’s been a busy year, but we still managed to squeeze some reading time in, and we are all looking forward to reading a few more in the coming year. Here are a few hand-picked gift recommendations from the Marquand Books and iocolor staff:
Continue reading: “2009 Holiday Gift Book Ideas from Marquand Books & iocolor”
Ed recently transformed a space by the windows inside our Tieton Book Arts studio, home of Marquand Editions, into an arty general store of sorts. Here are a few recent photos from the space, offering Marquand Ephemera, handmade blank books and Spines and Memories chapbooks amongst other keepsakes and curiosities:
If you’re in the area, stop by.
On-line magazine and art network e-flux is opening a reading room in Manhattan’s Lower East Side next week. It will house more than 2,000 art and design publications from around the globe:
The reading room is a rapidly growing collection of several thousand books on contemporary art exhibitions open to the public at 41 Essex Street. The books have been donated by numerous art institutions and individuals from all parts of the world and reflect some of the more interesting developments in art of the past decade.”
Contributors will include the Blanton Museum of Art, PS1, Miami Design District, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, and Weatherspoon Art Museum.
The opening party is Friday, August 28th at 6 p.m. 41 Essex Street. Regular hours will be Tuesday through Saturday, 12-6 p.m.
Jamie Camplin, managing director of Thames & Hudson, wrote an opinion piece for the June 2009 Art Newspaper that should be required reading for all art and museum publishers.
It raises the question: if art book publishing is to remain vital, how do we keep producing fresh, thoughtful publications at a reasonable price point? Read the article here.
Now that the weather is finally starting to warm up in Seattle, the staff at Marquand had some fun cherry-picking books fit for long, lazy days of summer reading. Here’s a handful of our favorites:
Continue reading: “Summer Reading Picks from the Marquand Staff”
A well-written commentary in the Wall Street Journal by voracious reader Luc Sante on why reading and owning bound books is, and will remain, a very good thing:
As far as the decline of reading goes, I am nervous, but also believe that matters of taste and inclination do swing around on long orbits. But I would very much miss books as material objects were they to disappear. The tactility of books assists my memory, for one thing. I can’t remember the quote I’m searching for, or maybe even the title of the work that contains it, but I can remember that the book is green, that the margins are unusually wide, and that the quote lies two-thirds of the way down a right-hand page.
Read the full article here.
