Artists' Books: Books & Other Resources

MassArt Library Artists' Books Gallery

Make an appointment to view the collection

Faculty: schedule a presentation of the collection for your class

Or Browse Subject Headings: Artists' books; Bookbinding; Paper folding; Papermaking

Didn't find it in FLO? Search for items in WorldCat. Many can be requested through Interlibrary Loan.

Know a book or DVD that MassArt should own? Make a Purchase Request.

• Art Metropole is an internationally renowned artist-run centre that promotes the appreciation and importance of conceptually based art. Art Metropole specializes in the contextualization and dissemination of artist’s books, multiples, and related materials with an emphasis on innovative formats and emergent technologies.
• Artists' Books Online is designed to promote critical engagement with artists books and to provide access to a digital repository of metadata, scans, and commentary. The project serves several different communities: artists, scholars and critics, librarians and curators, and interested readers.
• Book Arts Web links to a large selection of book arts related sites on the web, including educational opportunities, professional organizations, tutorials, reference materials, and galleries with images. Plus a listserv with 1500+ members.
• Booklyn is an artist-run, nonprofit organization headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. Our mission is to promote artist books as an art form and educational resource; to provide educational institutions and the public with programming involving contemporary artist books; and to assist artists in exhibiting, distributing, and publishing innovative bookwork.
• The Center for Book Arts is dedicated to preserving the traditional crafts of book-making, as well as exploring and encouraging contemporary interpretations of the book as an art object.  CBA exhibits, publishes, and offers educational programming related to book arts. 
• The Friends of Dard Hunter  is an international organization of hand papermakers: a educational and informational forum about the art, craft, history, science and technology of papermaking, the book arts, and other diverse interests which captured the interest of Dard Hunter, a collector of book art.
• Minnesota Center for Books Arts touts studio spaces where you find masters and novices working at letterpress printing, hand bookbinding and papermaking. In addition to the studios, there is an exhibition space, a studio shop, an archive and reference library, and offices. Visitors are welcome to observe the book art activity close-up. MCBA serves artists, students, teachers, designers, writers, families, youth, and book lovers through a variety of participatory programs. More than 20 years after opening its doors, MCBA is the most comprehensive independent book arts center in the nation. 
• Printed Matter, Inc. is the world's largest non-profit organization dedicated to publications made by artists. To promote public awareness of and access to artists’ books, Printed Matter maintains a public reading room where over 15,000 titles by 5,000 international artists are available for viewing and purchase. In addition to being a wholesale and retail distribution hub for artists’ books, Printed Matter offers a free consulting service to libraries, art institutions, and art professionals involved with artists’ books throughout the world. Printed Matter presents a range of educational programs for the public from talks to student groups by staff members to in-store lectures and readings by artists, critics, and curators. These educational initiatives are complemented by our internationally recognized exhibitions program and publishing program. 
• Women's Studio Workshop is a visual arts organization with specialized studios in printmaking, hand papermaking, ceramics, letterpress printing, photography, and book arts. Artists are invited to work at WSW as a part of our Fellowship Program, Artists' Books Grants, Residencies, Internships, or to learn new skills in our Summer Arts Institute and community workshop series. 

Museum/Library Collections

What is an artist's book and why? 

Educational Institutions 

• Center for the Book  University of Iowa’s MFA degree program.
• College Book Art Association  An organization that supports and promotes academic book arts education by fostering the development of its practice, teaching, scholarship and criticism.
• Corcoran College of Art + Design The Master of Arts in the Art and the Book Program offers a comprehensive approach to studying the history and theory of book culture, as well as contemporary methods of artist book production.
• Mills College Book Arts Program In the fall of 2009 Mills inaugurated a new MFA in book art and creative writing. The degree, the first of its kind in the country, allows graduate students to combine artists' bookmaking and creative writing.
• University of Alabama The Master of Fine Arts in the Book Arts Program began in 1985, and emphasizes the art and craft of making books by hand.
• University of the Arts The MFA Book Arts/Printmaking Program offers advanced study in studio arts, focusing on the book as a vehicle of artistic expression and printmaking in the context of the narrative.

Inspiration

• This American Life A weekly public radio program broadcast on more than 500 stations, featuring “true stories of everyday people.”
• TED A free source for “riveting talks by remarkable people” on technology, entertainment, design, business, science, and global issues: over 700 thinkers from around the world.
• One Cool Thing a Day A public blog that invites and posts interesting visual imagery submitted by viewers.  See "Vivian Maier: Street Photographer" and “Forced perspective Forces You to Perceive Awesomeness.”
• William Kentridge: Anything is Possible (A PBS Art21 film)
• Artist a Day

General Art and Visual Culture

• A Journey Round my Skull A blog that presents relatively obscure imagery and information about historic illustration.
• BibliOdyssey A blog about books, illustration, science, history, visual material obscura and eclectic bookarts.
• Open Culture  A portal for free access to cultural & educational media, including audio books, eBooks, textbooks, videos, films, online courses.
• Art Cyclopedia  A large, well-organized database of visual art.
• The Web Gallery of Art  A visual database of European painting and sculpture from 11th to mid-19th centuries.
• A World History of Art  An extensive database of visual art, including all forms, from pre-history to contemporary, world-wide.
• Today’s Inspiration  A public blog, focused on 1940’s and 1950’s illustration to share.
  

Ask at the Library Front Desk 
Email library@massart.edu
Call 617-879-7150

Sculpture: Richard Artschwager,
Question Mark, 1994 
Photo: Stefan Baudy, CC-BY License

Print Journals are located on the 13th floor of the library.

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