Artists and Their Books / Books and Their Artists

This book is a stunner! The paper is heavyweight and matte, the photos are bright and clear, the typography is beautiful and easy to read. I would be proud to display this book anywhere. This book contains a great collection of artist's books. I found it extremely interesting and inspirational. I imagine that photographing and cataloging artist's books is a difficult task. Taking something that is meant to be opened and "paged" through and explored and reducing it to a 2D image takes a bit away from the actual artwork. I am grateful that the creators of this book took on the challenge! My constructive criticism is that I would have preferred more attention to the creative process that the artist used to create the book. There is an appendix of sorts in the back giving some information (dimensions, some materials, some general processes, etc.). It was annoying to have to flip back and forth between the image and the appendix. And there wasn't enough information about the creative process anywhere. I am more interested in HOW the artist created the book and less interested in WHY the artist created book or WHY the book is important to the art world. Also, I felt that the writing was unnecessarily pretentious. I got tired of the name dropping like I was somehow not "in the know" enough to understand this art. I can get past all that - but just wanted to mention it. This is still a treasure that I will look through again and again!

Book delivered within specified timeframe; matched the description as a used book. I didn't really need to add another book on books to my library. I did so because I could afford the used copy over a new and since it is a reference book, it didn't have to be as "pretty."

Beautiful book with amazing photographs of artists original, one-of-a-kind books. It also includes some information about the artists and their intent for each piece.

This is a beautiful and interesting book. The colorful dust cover makes it look like the pages are all different sizes shapes and colors, but that is not the case. That is simply the picture on the dust cover. The book itself measures 10.25” x 10.25” x 1”. It is printed in China. There are 212 pages. It’s a combination of information about artist and their books, portfolios, scrolls, etc. Each page introduces you to a different artist.

This work examines artists loosely using the structure of a book as a canvas to express their creativity. Usually viewed from a writer’s or illustrator’s perspective this book shows how artists are pushing the boundaries and in some cases basically throwing away the rules and redefining the expected constraints of a book. Beautifully constructed, this hardback has a dust jacket and the pages are made with heavy paper. Quality reproductions of the art are displayed but this is not simply a coffee table book, there is informative text throughout but the photographs are the compelling feature. The artist’s creations are presented in a skillful manner that adds dimension and displays each from a thoughtful and often unexpected perspective. My only quibble is the text size which I estimate to be 8 points—small enough to be difficult for even those people with good vision to read. Wonderful book--a viewpoint expanding visual treat.

I found this publication to be a complete waste of time. One book maker after another is featured and they all are beyond boring. We live at a time when creative people are doing fabulously interesting things by repurposing used books. The author seems to have missed them all.

"Artists and Their Books / Books and Their Artists" is not a coffee table book and, if you use it only for that purpose, you are missing out. Marcia Reed and Glenn Phillips obviously love their subject, have researched it thoroughly, and provide the reader with an extraordinary volume that is partially a brief history of books and their art - the first twenty-three pages - and partially a sampling of different artists and of each individual's style creating a book. This 10" X 10" volume is printed on heavy, matte-finished stock. The colorful dust jacket protects the ivory boards and can be opened so that it protects the bottom edges of the boards. Photographs of the various artists' work look more like actual art than photos. If you are interested in art, artists or art history, this book is one you will treasure.

This mostly a coffee table book with plenty of photos of artist books but not a lot of description or explanation on how they created them.