The Gallery and Bindery

Welcome to the online gallery.
The real gallery is near Hudson, New York
about 40 minutes southeast of Albany.

We are pleased to present

The Third Exhibition of
American Decorated Publishers' Bindings 1872-1929

This cabinet includes two copies of Sarah Wyman Whitman's 1892 design for Martin Brimmer's Egypt, which was issued by
Houghton in vellum stamped with gold and in suede stamped with brown. Also shown are William James Jordan's 1902 design
for McClure on The Taskmasters, F. R. Kimbroough's design for Stone on Miss Ayr of Virginia, and Frank Hazenplug's 1900 design
on A Valley Muse. The bottom shelf includes The Road to Nowhere, a 1900 design from Harper's that is likely by Thoman Watson Ball.
The cover art to the right of that shelf on I and my True Love is from The Decorative Designers.

Thank you for visiting the online gallery. This is our third exhibition featuring the Golden Age of publishers' bindings. As with the previous two exhibitions on this subject, which showed a total of 800 designs by 115 known designers and many anonymous ones, these books will be on view for as long as it takes to photograph and catalog them. The catalog will become the third volume issued on this subject. Pre-publication discount subscriptions are now available.

The second exhibition, with 300 designs, ended November 20, 2008. That entire collection was acquired by The Lilly Library at Indiana University. The fully illustrated catalog of the second exhibition is in production and is projected for release in January, 2009. It is available in Limited and Deluxe editions and on CD-ROM.

The first exhibition ended in August 2005, and that entire collection was acquired by the University of Alabama. A beautiful and comprehensive illustrated catalog was produced that included high resolution images of all 500 designs in the collection plus many variants, as well as bibliographic information. Essays by Richard Minsky on the aesthetic and historical aspects of this art form provide several methodologies for collecting these works, and demonstrate that artists were doing work on book covers that was prototypical of art movements that arose decades later.

The Deluxe, Limited Edition and CD-ROM versions of the first exhibition catalog may now be ordered online.

Subscriptions to the catalog of the second exhibition are now available.

Click here for information on subscribing to the catalog of the third exhibition.

The Third Exhibition of
American Decorated Publishers' Bindings, 1872-1929

The Strife of the Sea has a DD cover. Reptiles is one of the great typographic designs of the period,
by the unknown designer who used the monogram Cx.
This cabinet includes work by Henry McCarter, DD, Charles Livingston Bull, and more.

The Third Exhibition presents 300 designs that were not in the previous exhibitions. It is notable for the beautiful condition of the examples shown, as well as the presentation of many designs you may not have seen before. Featured artists in this show include Amy Richards, Amy M. Sacker, Rome K. Richardson, William James Jordan and the Cx designer, a prolific artist known only by the monogram.

The list of cover artists has just begun, and so far includes the following (artists not in the previous collection are teal):

Margaret Armstrong
Thomas Watson Ball
Alfred Brennan
Jay Chambers
Evelyn W. Clark
Thomas Maitland Cleland
The Cx Designer
The Decorative Designers
George Wharton Edwards
Charles Buckles Falls
Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue

Alberta Hall
George Hawley Hallowell
Theodore Brown Hapgood
Stuart Hay
Frank Hazenplug
Edward Stratton Holloway
Adrian Iorio
William James Jordan
Rockwell Kent
Frederick Lowenheim
Blanche McManus Mansfield

Alice C. Morse
Florence Pearl Nosworthy
Victor Perard
Amy Richards
Rome K. Richardson
Rachel Robinson
Amy Sacker
Frank Berkeley Smith
Bertha Stuart
Lee Thayer
Sarah Wyman Whitman

Please note: I welcome comments and corrections on any of the captions or catalog information! Click on contact to send me a message.

Right: In the bindery
a Bertrand Frères percussion press is on the left,
next to a lying press and plough.

Left: The Romance of the Rivers features a cover in bright and matte textured gold.
The cover of Aesop, by The Decorative Designers, uses the background color of
the cloth for the wolf in the foreground, creating an unusual visual tension.

The Deluxe, Limited Edition and CD-ROM versions of the 2005 exhibition catalog,
and pre-publication subscriptions to the catalog of the 2008 exhibition, may now be ordered online.

Click here for information on subscribing to the catalog of the third exhibition.

Exhibition Archive:
American Decorated Publishers' Bindings 1872-1929 (ended August 2005)
30 Years of Book Art: 1974-2003 (ended July, 2007)
American Decorated Publishers' Bindings 1872-1929 (ended November 2008)