Art Nouveau and Art Deco Bookbinding. French Masterpieces 1880-1940

Year: 1988
Place: New York
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
Edition: 1st
Language: EN
Pages: 200
Condition: FN
Cover condition: VG
Binding: HC
Illustrated: 252 illustrations, including 202 plates in full color.

- This is the first major study of the sudden flowering of the art of bookbinding in France at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century-one of the richest and most exciting periods in the history of the decorative arts. The sixty years between 1880 and 1940 produced bookbinding's greatest modern masters and many of its most original and accomplished craftsmen and craftswomen. Spanning both Art Nouveau and Art Deco-the first organic and sinuous, the second bright, angular, and selfconsciously modern-it was a stellar period for ornamentation and design of all types.
Alastair Duncon and Georges de Bartha trace the development of the craft from its beginnings and then look into the influence on bookbinding of the period's finest binders: Marius-Michel, inventive and radical, whose work was a precursor of Art Nouveaui Pierre Legrain, one of Art Deco's most dazzling exponentsi and the daring and innovative Paul Bonet.
A detailed biography and bibliography on every binder of note is included: Rose Adler, Georges Cretté, Geneviève de Léotard, Henri Creuzevault, René Wiener, and a host of others. Here too are illustrious figures in the decorative arts who turned their talents to binding, from François-Louis Schmied, the illustrator and engraver, who produced some of the most lavish and dramatic bindings of the period, to Jean Dunand, the dinondier, pointer, and designer whose ski lis as a lacquerist lent a vibrant exoticism to many books.
These custom-made bindings-more than 200 of which are reproduced here in glorious color illustrations-were created as precious works of art for the private libraries of wealthy bibliophiles. The earl ier examples were tooled and embossed, but from 1914 onward bindings were, though primarily of moroccan leather, decorated with on entirely new range of materia Is: nickel and aluminum alloys, lacquer panels including those with crushed eggshell, photo montages, snakeskin, sharkskin, parchment, and ivory. Art Nouveau and Art Deco Bookbinding will fascinate enthusiasts of the period, provide collectors with much previously unavailable information, and delight all who take pleasure in artistry and fine craftsmanship.