Research Guides: Artists' Books, Altered Books, & Book Art (Tri-Co): Special Collections

Swarthmore College

Swarthmore has an extensive collection of artist's books and book art in their Rare Book Room. Their Book Arts and Private Press Collection contains more than 6,000 items from nearly 1,000 different presses, and "strives to represent all aspects of the physical book including bookbinding, typography, letterpress and offset printing, hand papermaking, illustration, and book design." Click here To learn more about Swarthmore's Book Arts and Private Press Collection. The Rare Book Room is accessible by appointment. Contact Swarthmore's McCabe library at librarian@swarthmore.edu, or by phone at 610-328-8493.

Exploring Swarthmore's Collection

To begin exploring Swarthmore's enormous collection of artist's books, altered books, and book art, check out the following subject searches:

"Artists' Books" [limited to books in Swarthmore's Special Collections]

"Altered Books" [limited to books in Swarthmore's Special Collections]

"Books in Art" [limited to books in Swarthmore's Special Collections]

Haverford College

Haverford's Special Collections has a very small collection of original artist's books, chiefly composed of nine works by Belgian artist Christine Kermaire, along with a handful of works by Yasao Yamamoto, Emily Martin, Heather Weston, and Clarissa Sligh. While currently small, the collection offers students a convenient opportunity to physical explore original artist's books. To use the collection, visit Special Collections on the 2nd tier of Magill Library anytime from 9am-5pm Monday through Friday.

Selections from Haverford's Collection

Haverford has 9 works by Christine Kermaire

Euthanasia in Kit Form
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Author: Christine Kermaire (2011)
Paper folder containing a foam-padded compartment with a plastic window, through which is visible an enlarged colored map of Charleroi, Belgium that shows the "atmospheric concentration of nanoparticles" and a clear plastic breathing tube with instructions for use. Equates Belgium's pollution with its lenient pollution laws.
Future of Al-Mutanabbi Street
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Author: Christine Kermaire (2012)
Created for the "Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street" project to commemorate the 2007 bombing of the street's book market. Contains nine mounted miniature printed books with marbled paper covers, each containing the same English language text of a poetic passage by Al-Mutanabbi, conveys "the exponential power of books." Final book of three-part series
Slices
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Author: Emily Martin (2004)
This accordion-folded sheet unfolds to create a pop-up birthday cake, presenting an aphorism on top of each "slice" to celebrate Martin's 50th birthday. Issued with a doily lined pink cardboard cake box.
Nakazora
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Author: Masao Yamamoto (2001)
Presents Yamamoto's photographs on a scroll measuring over eighteen feet long, printed in process color on uncoated Japanese stock to create a striking marriage of traditional and hi-tech materials and production techniques.
Ōmizuao
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Masao Yamamoto (2003)
An accordion-bound "pillow book"--a collection of landscapes, flowers and female nudes. The artist has used the accordion-bound format to create an installation which measures some 14 feet when fully opened, but which can also be viewed as 45 individual spreads.
Wrongly bodied two
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Author: Clarissa Sligh (2004)
Combining drawings, photographs, and text, Wrongly Bodied Two relates the stories of Jake, a contemporary white male imprisoned in a woman’s body as he transitions from female to male and Ellen Craft, a 19th century black woman who escapes slavery by passing as a white man.
Shedding Light
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Author: Heather Weston (2005)
Weston presents the book as a tactile object while exploring the importance of light and touch to the reading process.

Bryn Mawr College

While Bryn Mawr's Special Collections specializes in collections of fine printing, it also has a small but varied collection of original artist's books. Easily accessible to Haverford students, the collection presents a good opportunity to further explore original artist's books. To use the collection, visit Special Collections on the 2nd floor of Canaday Library, Monday through Friday from 9:00am-4:30pm (open until 8:00 pm on Wednesdays).

Selections from Bryn Mawr's Collection

The Book of Plagues
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Author: Margot Lovejoy (1994)
Constructed to open outward, the page structure creates a montage of juxtaposed historical images which frame the contemporary as they unfold in the second half of the book. At its very center is a smaller book containing essays by Margot Lovejoy, Dorothy Levenson, and Paula A. Treichler.
Codex espangliensis: from Columbus to the border patrol
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Authors: Guillermo Gómez-Peña, et al (1998)
Inspired by the pre-Hispanic codices that escaped immolation during colonial invasions, this artists' book opens out in accordion folds expanding to a length of over 21 feet. Presents a series of beautiful and jarring montages in which the mixture of languages, slang, poetry, and prose are woven through and around collages filled with pre-Hispanic drawings, colonial-era representations of New World natives, and comic book superheroes.
A woman of a certain age
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Author: Carol Leotta Moore Schulman (2002)
Bound in accordion fold format and shaped into a circular fan when opened, fastened with brass hinges at bottom; lines of verse excerpts from Shining Eyes, Cruel Fortune: The lives and loves of Italian Renaissance women poets printed on each fold of fan; issued in burgundy silk covered case (26 x 4 x 4 cm.)
Alphabeta concertina
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Author: Ronald King (1983)
Consists of one sheet, between red and white paper boards, folded and accordian-pleated, with a "pop-up" letter of the alphabet at each fold, in later case.
Hours
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Author: Patricia Smith (2003)
Inspired by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, consists of three signatures, each with four folios; one folio is folded accordion style; purple silk cover with black silk spine. Limited ed. of 150 signed and numbered copies.
Desertstones: excerpts from The book of questions: Yaël, Elya, Aely
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Authors: Edmond Jabes et al. (2008)
Collaborative artists' book, issued as loose sheets in a printed white folder with cut-out showing a stone fragment from the Negev desert; in a clamshell case.
Day recalls: a memory collaboration
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Authors: Judith Osborne and Jena Osman(2005)
Designed to stimulate its viewers to explore their own memory. Each book is a portfolio consisting of ten individual sheets (9x10-1/2”) of artwork and text printed on translucent vellum.