The Center is a great resource — they have a decent-sized Letterpress studio with several proof presses, an equally well-resourced Bindery area, an exhibition space (illustrated here in a photo from their website), and enough space left over for a small shop selling hand-bound chapbooks, broadsides, and exhibition catalogues.

But the main purpose of my visit was to see The Collaged Accordion — an exhibition of Star Black’s large-scale accordion books that merge found texts & photographs and ephemera.

Star’s  collaged accordion books are intricately layered with a fine sense of texture and the individual properties of the found images and materials. They combine echoes of Joseph Cornell’s boxes with a sensibility for the subtler textures and possibilities of paper.

I wish I could have spent a lot longer at the Center, but unfortunately I had to fly back to the UK that same day and had far too much to do.

If you get the chance to go to New York then the Center is definitely worth visiting.

Center for Book Arts: main website | Blog | Facebook Page | Twitter | Flickr | YouTube

Related Journal Entries

• Sunday November 8th, 2009 — Research in London
• Wednesday June 3rd, 2009 — Romilly Saumarez Smith
• Sunday May 3rd, 2009 — Research in New York
• Sunday January 17th, 2010 — Lino prints and woodcuts
• Monday December 21st, 2009 — Research on the Broadside or Broadsheet

As well as being appropriate to the whole atmosphere of the artwork, I’m also drawn to the often scurrilous history of Broadsides, from the 16^th century to the mid-19^th century. Their ephemeral nature—and the fact that they have been marginalised by some as “low” culture—means that we know far less about them than we should.

Anyway, I thought some of you might also be interested in what I’ve managed to discover:

Broadsides—sometimes called Broadsheets—are large sheets of paper printed on one side only, designed to be pasted onto public house walls or sold by street-vendors (traditionally for one penny).  They ranged from 13″ × 16″ (“foolscap” size) to over 5 feet in length.

They were the medium of choice for street literature from the 16^th century to the 19^th century, and were probably the very first “mass-media”. They fell out of use when Newspapers dropped in price enough to be affordable by common people.

According to the National Library of Scotland:

For almost 300 years until the mid-19^th century, broadsides filled the place occupied today by the tabloid press.

Originally they were single sheets of paper, printed on one side only, designed to be read unfolded and posted up in public places.

At first they were used for the printing of royal proclamations, acts, and official notices. Later they became a vehicle for political agitation and what is now known as ‘popular culture’, such as ballads and scaffold speeches.

Ballads were a popular subject for broadsides (and seem to be the most documented subject), but they covered a wider variety of material including:

• political comment & satire
• advertisements for merchandise
• news (frequently macabre) and recent history
• almanacs (annually-published tables of information about particular dates in the year)
• elegies
• poems

…often crudely illustrated with woodcuts (and later with engravings).

In her book A Culture of Fact: England, 1550–1720, Barbara J. Shapiro confirms the appetite for the macabre and sensational in the Broadsides:

…broadsides tended to report the unusual, the “monstrous,” and the sensational.  Strange animals, unusual weather, “monstrous” human or animal births, criminal behavior, or accounts of witchcraft were among the most common items of broadside “news” hawked on the streets of London.  Like the modern tabloid, these broadsides emphasized crime, violence, and wonderful cures. The sensational or “strange but true” were staples of broadside news and newsbooks.

In Printing and Parenting in Early Modern England, Douglas A. Brooks states:

For a penny, customers could purchase a religious primer, an account of the King of Scotland’s murder, a prayer for Queen Elizabeth, a description of a town-leveling fire, an epitaph of a London alderman, the complaint of a sinner, the ‘fantasies of a troubled man’s head’, or a political ‘flyting’ of a disgraced courtier—all inscribed in ballad verse and printed on a single sheet of paper.

The use of broadsides for advertising merchandise seems to have started with publishers printing broadsides listing their books.

I haven’t managed to find much information about advertising broadsides until the mid 19^th century. There exist quite a few collections of American advertising broadsides from the 1840s onwards — the Duke University collection (link below) is a good example.

I am presuming that this apparent lack of advertising broadsides until the mid 19^th century is actually because these items have not been preserved.

While Ballad Broadsides have long been collected—diarist Samuel Pepys collected over 1800 of them!—I suspect that advertising broadsides were considered as disposable as the many cheaply-printed flyers for double-glazing or takeaway food that are posted through my letterbox every day.

However if anyone does have any scans of, or information about, advertising broadsides from the 17^th or 18^th centuries then do please let me know.

Bibliography & Links

Related Books:

• Preston, Cathy L., and Preston, Michael J. (Editors). The Other Print Tradition: Essays on Chapbooks, Broadsides, and Related Ephemera. London: Routledge, 1995. Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk
• Shepard, Leslie. History of Street Literature: The Story of Broadside Ballads, Chapbooks, Proclamations, News-sheets, Election Bills, Tracts, Pamphlets, Cocks, Catchpennies and Other Ephemera.  Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1973.  Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Websites:

• The history of the broadside. From The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes, Volume 7 — Cavalier and Puritan, XVI. The Advent of Modern Thought in Popular Literature.
• The Word on the Street — Broadsides at the National Library of Scotland
• Broadsides (Special Collections, University of Glasgow)
• An American Time Capsule: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera (Rare Book and Special Collections Division, US Library of Congress)
• American Advertising Broadsides — from Duke University’s Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library
• Broadsides from the Colonial Era to the Present at the South Caroliniana Library, University of South Carolina Thomas Cooper Library’s Digital Collections

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• Saturday November 28th, 2009 — Letterpress video
• Sunday January 17th, 2010 — Lino prints and woodcuts
• Friday December 11th, 2009 — Letterpress progress
• Wednesday October 28th, 2009 — Letterpress Update
• Saturday August 8th, 2009 — Title and Half-Title Page Proofs (part two)

Bookbinding at the V&A

First stop was the V&A in South Kensington to see a small display of Fine Bindings for the Man Booker Prize 2009 designed by the Society of Designer Bookbinders.

It’s only a small display (6 books) but it’s well worth seeing these bindings “in the flesh” as they’re great. The display can be found in Room 74 (20^th Century section) of the V&A until 21^st March 2010, and admission is free.

The binding illustrated here is by Rachel Ward-Sale. More information about all six bindings, their binders, and the techniques & materials used can be found on the Society of Designer Bookbinders website.

Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption

After the V&A I headed up to Soho to see Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption at the Lazarides Gallery in Greek Street — an exhibition of political comic book and graphic novel work by artists and writers including Dave McKean, Pat Mills, Peter Kuper, Janek Koza, Dan Goldman, and pop culture figures Lightspeed Champion and V V Brown.

I’m particularly fond of Dave McKean’s artwork—especially the magnificent Sandman covers—so it was great to see some of his larger-scale collages close-up.  His artwork on display was about the widespread corruption surrounding AIDS relief to villages in China.

Ctrl.Alt.Shift Unmasks Corruption is on until 28^th November 2009 at the Lazarides Gallery, Greek Street, London.  Admission is free.

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• Saturday September 20th, 2008 — Book Bindings and Vine Leaves

Rather than reproducing these in wood, the Victorians (presumably for reasons of cost and mass production) recreated this style with  Plaster of Paris and a filler (possibly papier-mâché and antimony?), which was then formed in a rigid frame usually made of metal. Another source suggests they were made from “fibrous plaster and paper pulp reinforced with metal”.  I suspect some more research is needed on my part!

The technique was  patented by the British firm J. Jackson & Son.  Print runs of over 1000 were needed to offset the expense of producing the complex molds, according to bookbinding historian Bernard Middleton.

From what I can find out, the technique seems to be especially associated with the British illustrator and illuminator Henry Noel Humphreys (1810–1879).  Humphreys was influenced by his study of medieval manuscripts during a stay in Italy as a young man.

The finished results have been described as resembling “nothing so much as cast iron” (Bookbinding in the British Isles: sixteenth to the twentieth century, Part 2. London: Maggs Bros. Ltd., 1996)

Some Examples of “Papier Mâché” Bindings

English Bible, 1849

Black papier mâché of a Victorian Gothic Revival design in imitation of carved wood, featuring arches entwined with flowering vines in the central panel of each cover; covers bevelled. Spine with “Holy Bible” at top and surface of same also encrusted with vinework. Gilt roll on board edges and gilt dentelles on turn-ins; all edges gilt and gauffered in a diamond and dot design. Brass clasp, part missing. Binding attributed to D. O. Smith of London, as per McLean who illustrates an identical binding on an 1851 Bible from the same publishers.

More details at The Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts Company

Parables of Our Lord, edited by Henry Noel Humphreys, 1847.

Parables is Humphreys’ first printed illuminated book in a papier-mâché binding. The publisher recorded that 2,000 copies of Parables were printed in 1847, of which 1,000 were sold to D. Appleton in New York with a changed title page. Longman’s printed a second edition in the same year. Each of the four corners has a wreath containing the head of an angel, a lion, an eagle or an ox, representing Gospel authors Matthew, Mark, John and Luke. Stylized oak leaves occupy the top and bottom central rectangles. The central figure is a sower within a wreath around which two ribbons are wrapped on a staff. “Scripture Parables” appears on the ribbons in raised Gothic letters.

More information at University of Rochester Libraries Rare and Special Books Collection.

The Coinage of the British Empire, by Henry Noel Humphreys, 1855.

The central design of this papier-mâché binding is the royal coat-of-arms as it appeared on the reverse side of the gold sovereign of Henry VIII. The binding is signed “H R”, for William Harry Rogers.

More information at University of Rochester Libraries Rare and Special Books Collection.

A record of the Black Prince, by Henry Noel Humphries, 1849.

The carved cover is taken from one of the compartments of the Prince’s tomb at Canterbury, slightly altered by the addition of a label where the title was inserted and by the extra adornment of the mouldings. The turn-ins are blocked in gold. The design is identical for both covers. Two decorated raised borders are separated by a border of bosses. The central rectangle is filled with symmetrical medieval decorative motifs. The coat of arms of the Black Prince is on the centre. The title words are within a ribbon, which is above and on each side of the coat of arms.

More information at Memorial University Digital Archives Initiative.

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The Morgan began as the private library of financier Pierpont Morgan housing his collection of illuminated, literary, and historical manuscripts, early printed books, and old master drawings and prints.

The main focus of my visit to this institution was to see—first-hand—a Gutenberg Bible (the Library owns three of them!) printed in 1455 by Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press and movable type.

The visit was a fantastic mine of inspiration, from the wonderful library itself (illustrated here — photo by machbel, found on Flickr, licensed under Creative Commons, used with thanks), to the vast array of old books (including some great Books of Hours), the Gutenberg Bible itself, and a fantastic collection of artwork encompassing personal favourites such as Joseph Cornell, Egon Schiele, and Jim Dine, as well as preparatory sketches and drawings by old masters.

I left the galleries and went to the Library shop feeling very pleasantly overwhelmed, my head overflowing with ideas and inspiration for the Book of the Erinyes.

In the shop, in addition to a couple of postcards, I bought a copy of Miniature Books: 4,000 Years of Tiny Treasures — a wonderful, richly illustrated, book exploring the world of books that are less than 3 inches high.

I don’t actually have a huge interest in miniature books, but the bindings illustrated in this book are wonderful — I think the creators decided that they could have more fun with small books.

They range from traditional leather bindings to bindings made of mother-of-pearl (popular as a deluxe binding in the 19^th century), gold-thread on silk, tortoiseshell, copper, velvet, gold, silver filigree, palekh lacquer (a Russian folk craft), polycarbonate, and enamel. Some are plain, others gilt-tooled, embedded with emeralds, amethysts or pearls, embossed, embroidered, engraved, or decorated with tiny enamel portraits.

The wealth of creativity displayed in this book is amazing, and will certainly prove invaluable as inspiration for binding the Book of the Erinyes.

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• Sunday March 22nd, 2009 — Inspiration for Books As Art Objects
• Wednesday June 3rd, 2009 — Romilly Saumarez Smith
• Wednesday February 10th, 2010 — The Center for Book Arts in New York
• Saturday September 20th, 2008 — Book Bindings and Vine Leaves

Slavko Vorkapić (1894–1976) was a Serbian-American film director and editor, but perhaps better known as a Special Effects Technician.

Filmreference.com has an entry for him which mentions this fantastic sequence:

When working with filmmakers of an adventurous frame of mind, Vorkapich seized the opportunity to introduce expressionist elements into his work, and some of his most imaginative effects occur in the montages he devised, working closely with cinematographer Lee Garmes, for Hecht and MacArthur’s Crime without Passion.

The opening credits show three winged Furies darting through the canyons of New York to seize at random upon their victims; when crooked lawyer Claude Rains shoots the dancer who is blackmailing him, the Furies emerge from a drop of her blood as it falls in slow-motion and wheel vengefully out into the night, feasting their eyes on the violence of the city.

I just love the way the Furies are visualised in this montage.  Spectacular!

Just for the record, the Furies were played by Dorothy Bradshaw, Fraye Gilbert, and Betty Sundmark.

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