In Paris, the early twentieth century was a time when artists of all disciplines frequented the same cafes and salons. Artists and poets had a strong affinity—eager to collaborate, they found the book to be an opportune medium. The extent of these creative partnerships, particularly in France but common also in Russia, may have been unprecedented. Work preserved in the Logan Collection captures the spirit and momentum of successive cultural movements created by artists and writers.
+In Paris, the early twentieth century was a time when artists of all disciplines frequented the same cafes and salons. Artists and poets had a strong affinity—eager to collaborate, they found the book to be an opportune medium. The extent of these creative partnerships, particularly in France but common also in Russia, may have been unprecedented. Work preserved in the Logan Collection captures the spirit and momentum of successive cultural movements created by artists and writers.
-Founded in 1916 in Zürich, Switzerland, by poets and artists who gathered at Cabaret Voltaire, the Dada movement quickly spread throughout Europe and to New York, only to be ultimately eclipsed by the advent of Surrealism. This lithographed poster advertising a series of Dada soirées in the Netherlands, visually captures the anarchic spirit of Dada.
+Founded in 1916 in Zürich, Switzerland, by poets and artists who gathered at Cabaret Voltaire, the Dada movement quickly spread throughout Europe and to New York, only to be ultimately eclipsed by the advent of Surrealism. This lithographed poster advertising a series of Dada soirées in the Netherlands, visually captures the anarchic spirit of Dada.
-Twelve years after the death of Apollinaire, who had coined the term “surrealism” and whose verse frequently made reference to the sun and stars, his friend Giorgio de Chirico paid him homage with an illustrated edition of one of Apollinaire’s most adventurous books. The artist’s vision connects the sources of heavenly light with the modern phenomenal world. It was a highly original interpretation of the work of a poet who had an immeasurable impact on the artists of his time, yet who did not live to see his vision of Surrealism take root as perhaps the most far-ranging, pervasive art movement of the century.
+Picasso’s illustrations for Max Jacob’s poetic texts Saint Matorel and Le siège de Jérusalem are considered to be among his most important Cubist prints, created early in the history of the movement. One of Picasso’s first friends in Paris, the resolutely avant-garde Jacob, who was also a serious visual artist, was considered a “Cubist writer,” seeing his subject from multiple angles and in multiple states, much as the Cubists did visually.
-By revealing the artist’s relationship to a literary work or art movement, an artist’s book can provide a deeper understanding of the artist than we otherwise might have.
-Artists’ books present a unique vantage point from which to gain insight into a succession of revolutionary movements, from Abstraction to Cubism to Futurism to Dadaism to Surrealism and beyond, and the positions of artists within those movements. Virtually every art movement from the beginning of the twentieth century up to now has produced its testaments in book art, a phenomenon that has escaped the notice of many art historians. The deeply hybrid nature of an artist’s book affords a wider context for understanding and appreciating the spirit of a particular time.
+By revealing the artist’s relationship to a literary work or art movement, an artist’s book can provide a deeper understanding of the artist than we otherwise might have.
Twelve years after the death of Apollinaire, who had coined the term “surrealism” and whose verse frequently made reference to the sun and stars, his friend Giorgio de Chirico paid him homage with an illustrated edition of one of Apollinaire’s most adventurous books. The artist’s vision connects the sources of heavenly light with the modern phenomenal world. It was a highly original interpretation of the work of a poet who had an immeasurable impact on the artists of his time, yet who did not live to see his vision of Surrealism take root as perhaps the most far-ranging, pervasive art movement of the century.
-With Klänge, Wassily Kandinsky was engaged in a quest to merge image and text in synergistic expression, here evoking sound (klänge) to effect a deeper resonance. The horse and rider image appearing throughout the book is Kandinsky’s symbol for the pathfinder, in this case finding a way beyond representation in art. The boldly experimental nature of this work, in both text and image, inspired the Dadaists and Futurists. Kandinsky was an “artist’s artist,” and Klänge, though commercially unsuccessful, was perhaps the most influential artist’s book of its time.
++There was no art form that [Kandinsky] had tried without taking completely new paths, undeterred by derision and scorn. In him, word, color, and sound worked in rare harmony.+Hugo Ball, Die Flucht aus der Zeit (Flight Out of Time), 1927
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Picasso’s illustrations for Max Jacob’s poetic texts Saint Matorel and Le siège de Jérusalem are considered to be among his most important Cubist prints, created early in the history of the movement. One of Picasso’s first friends in Paris, the resolutely avant-garde Jacob, who was also a serious visual artist, was considered a “Cubist writer,” seeing his subject from multiple angles and in multiple states, much as the Cubists did visually.
+With Klänge, Wassily Kandinsky was engaged in a quest to merge image and text in synergistic expression, here evoking sound (klänge) to effect a deeper resonance. The horse and rider image appearing throughout the book is Kandinsky’s symbol for the pathfinder, in this case finding a way beyond representation in art. The boldly experimental nature of this work, in both text and image, inspired the Dadaists and Futurists. Kandinsky was an “artist’s artist,” and Klänge, though commercially unsuccessful, was perhaps the most influential artist’s book of its time.
--There was no art form that [Kandinsky] had tried without taking completely new paths, undeterred by derision and scorn. In him, word, color, and sound worked in rare harmony.-Hugo Ball, Die Flucht aus der Zeit (Flight Out of Time), 1927
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A Collage Narrative
A Collage Narrative
A Collage Narrative
A Collage Narrative
A Collage Narrative
-- -Leave everything. Leave Dada. Leave your wife. Leave your mistress. Leave your hopes and fears. Leave your children in the woods. Leave the substance for the shadow. Leave your easy life, leave what you were given for the future. Set off on the roads.-André Breton, Les pas perdus, 1924 (Translation by Mark Polizzotti)
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Published the same year as his Surrealist Manifesto, in Les pas perdus Breton captured the insurgent, high-energy spirit of Surrealism in its earliest stages. “Those seeking a kind of cult pilgrimage to nowhere but the opposite of where one is,” writes critic and historian Mary Ann Caws, “would have found the ‘leave everything’ model alluring, even before—perhaps especially before—what one was leaving everything for had been clearly defined.”
-A Collage Narrative
A Collage Narrative
++ +Leave everything. Leave Dada. Leave your wife. Leave your mistress. Leave your hopes and fears. Leave your children in the woods. Leave the substance for the shadow. Leave your easy life, leave what you were given for the future. Set off on the roads.+André Breton, Les pas perdus, 1924 (Translation by Mark Polizzotti)
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Published the same year as his Surrealist Manifesto, in Les pas perdus Breton captured the insurgent, high-energy spirit of Surrealism in its earliest stages. “Those seeking a kind of cult pilgrimage to nowhere but the opposite of where one is,” writes critic and historian Mary Ann Caws, “would have found the ‘leave everything’ model alluring, even before—perhaps especially before—what one was leaving everything for had been clearly defined.”
+Paging through a great artist’s book is an art-viewing experience like no other. Each opening is a revelation of form, sequence, and meaning.
+The experience of an artist’s book is intimate, tactile, and sequential. A gallery display can offer only a hint of that experience, but digital media can provide a partial solution by offering multiple page spreads, contextualizing material, and even representations of the entire contents of books online. Here is a sampling of pages from a few books in the Logan Collection.
-Paging through a great artist’s book is an art-viewing experience like no other. Each opening is a revelation of form, sequence, and meaning.
Dlia Golosa is one of the great marriages of radical design and poetry. Designer El Lissitzky transformed Mayakovsky’s popular poems of revolution into typographic images, then created a book structure with tabbed icons so that any poem could be accessed directly.
-Dlia Golosa is one of the great marriages of radical design and poetry. Designer El Lissitzky transformed Mayakovsky’s popular poems of revolution into typographic images, then created a book structure with tabbed icons so that any poem could be accessed directly.
+Natalia Goncharova and her lifelong partner Mikhail Larionov were prominent in early avant-garde movements in Russia. Goncharova was a painter, writer, and illustrator. With Larionov, she emigrated to Paris in 1921, where she designed costumes and sets for the Ballet Russe and continued her fine art career.
Natalia Goncharova with artist Mikhail Larionov (left) and artist/publisher Ilia Zdanevitch, 1913 - + Toggle CaptionThe great majority of the Russian editions were printed on cheap paper and bound with staples, much like the zines of today—not intended to survive beyond the heat of the moment. Russians took the idea of the book to its limit: an art medium in itself, not merely a container for art.
Gorod: Stikhi, by Aleksandr Rubakin, illustrated by Natalia Goncharova, 1920 - + Toggle CaptionGorod: Stikhi’s cover featured a bold graphic design. Inside, the poems were written out by the poet rather than set in type. Many Russian Futurists felt that the most authentic way to present a poem was in the poet’s own handwriting.
Gorod: Stikhi, cover - + Toggle CaptionBy the late twentieth century, the artist’s book had arrived in the mainstream. In the United States, artist’s book presses such as Gemini G. E. L. in Los Angeles, Universal Limited Art Editions in New York, and Arion Press in San Francisco were carrying forward the livre d’artiste tradition in editions with blue-chip artists. At the same time, community book arts centers emerged in New York, Minneapolis, Washington, and San Francisco to teach craft technique, and colleges and art schools began offering degrees in artist’s-book production.
In a time when, for many people, digital screens are replacing the traditional book for day-to-day reading, the artist’s book has become a kind of apotheosis of the book form, bringing reading into the realm of art—just as Vollard and Kahnweiler had intended back in Paris more than a century ago.
-By the late twentieth century, the artist’s book had arrived in the mainstream. In the United States, artist’s book presses such as Gemini G. E. L. in Los Angeles, Universal Limited Art Editions in New York, and Arion Press in San Francisco were carrying forward the livre d’artiste tradition in editions with blue-chip artists. At the same time, community book arts centers emerged in New York, Minneapolis, Washington, and San Francisco to teach craft technique, and colleges and art schools began offering degrees in artist’s-book production.
In a time when, for many people, digital screens are replacing the traditional book for day-to-day reading, the artist’s book has become a kind of apotheosis of the book form, bringing reading into the realm of art—just as Vollard and Kahnweiler had intended back in Paris more than a century ago.
+As the only works of art that must be handled to be fully experienced, artists’ books present a challenge for an institution charged with their conservation and display. The current project addresses this challenge by making contents of, and related information about, selected books from the collection available online using the capabilities of digital media. The project aims to raise the accessibility of the collection and create greater public understanding and awareness of what critic and historian Johanna Drucker has called “the quintessential twentieth-century art form.” This project intends to make significant works by many of the most important artists of the century available for public access in their entirety for the first time.
Major support for this project comes from:
The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation
The Reva and David Logan Foundation
Over a period of twenty years, the Chicago collectors Reva and David Logan built one of the great private collections of artists’ books, and in 1998 donated that collection to the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, home of works on paper at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
With more than 400 carefully assembled titles, the Logan Collection contains many of the most important works in the genre, with significant artists’ books representing virtually every major art movement dating from the beginnings of the livre d’artiste in the late nineteenth century. Augmented by important works already held by the Achenbach Foundation, the Logan gift established the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco as stewards of one of the most historically significant collections of artists’ books in the United States.
As the only works of art that must be handled to be fully experienced, artists’ books present a challenge for an institution charged with their conservation and display. The current project addresses this challenge by making contents of, and related information about, selected books from the collection available online using the capabilities of digital media. The project aims to raise the accessibility of the collection and create greater public understanding and awareness of what critic and historian Johanna Drucker has called “the quintessential twentieth-century art form.” This project intends to make significant works by many of the most important artists of the century available for public access in their entirety for the first time.
Major support for this project comes from:
The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation
The Reva and David Logan Foundation
Over a period of twenty years, the Chicago collectors Reva and David Logan built one of the great private collections of artists’ books, and in 1998 donated that collection to the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, home of works on paper at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
With more than 400 carefully assembled titles, the Logan Collection contains many of the most important works in the genre, with significant artists’ books representing virtually every major art movement dating from the beginnings of the livre d’artiste in the late nineteenth century. Augmented by important works already held by the Achenbach Foundation, the Logan gift established the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco as stewards of one of the most historically significant collections of artists’ books in the United States.
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