Collecting Livres d’Artiste
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An artist’s name on a book is a starting point. To understand the publication, ask how the artist’s work appears on the page, how it relates to the text, and which edition is offered.
Look at the collaboration
The Metropolitan Museum of Art describes Bonnard’s Parallèlement as a book combining printed text with a painter’s imagery. That relationship between writing, image and the physical page is useful when comparing livres d’artiste. A publisher’s monograph with reproductions and a publication containing an artist’s original prints can both interest a collector, but their contents require different descriptions.
Compare the actual printing
In our catalog, Matisse’s Cinquante Dessins, copy 628 contains one original etching and fifty reproduced drawings. Picasso de 1916 à 1961 is described with 24 original lithographs. La Chèvre-Feuille, copy 400 contains six zincographs after Picasso compositions. These are specific publications with different processes, rather than interchangeable examples of “Picasso prints” or “Matisse drawings.”
Read the edition statement
Check the paper, limitation, signatures, extra suites and housing described for the issue. An artist may sign a justification, individual plates, both, or neither. Ask which leaves bear signatures and compare the photographs with the description. Finally, consider the condition of the text, prints, binding and case separately.
Browse Livres d’Artiste and Artists & Authors.
Further reading: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Parallèlement.
Questions about a particular copy? Email breethingbooks@gmail.com with the title and the detail you would like to see.