Book Arts / Artist's Books: Home

Artist's Books in the BBAC -- this link allows you to browse all of the artist's books in the Baylor Libraries collection.

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The Baylor Book Arts Collection began in 2007, with the acquisition of a collection of works by artist Maddy Rosenberg. Since that time, the collection has grown to nearly 1400 hundred items representing many artists and presses. The collection includes works in nearly every genre of artist's book from single page construction to elaborate and complex structures. Fine press examples include partnerships between artists, poets, and presses, resulting in exquisite examples of the physical book. 

What, exactly, is an artist’s book? You may not be able to tell just from looking at the object itself! The simple answer to someone not familiar with artists’ books might be: art in book form. But they are not quite so simple…

An artist’s book is a medium of artistic expression that uses the form or function of “book” as inspiration. It is the artistic initiative seen in the illustration, choice of materials, creation process, layout and design that makes it an art object. . . .What truly makes an artist’s book is the artist’s intent, and artists have used the book as inspiration in a myriad of ways and techniques, from traditional to the experimental. The book could be made through fine press printing or hand-crafted, the pages illustrated with computer-generated images or cheap photocopies; books became sculptures, tiny and gargantuan; books were sliced up and reconfigured, made from all kinds of materials with unconventional objects incorporated, in unique or limited editions, or produced in multiple copies. With all sorts of ideas behind them, artists continue to challenge the idea, content and structure of the traditional book.

                -Anne Evenhaugen, The Smithsonian Libraries Unbound blog