I have discovered a wonderful new video series on rare books. It can be located on Vimeo HERE.
I suggest you bookmark this site and look for upcoming videos. Each video should cover a rare book or rare book type. The videos are well shot and well presented. Enjoy!
Source: BRIAN SKOLOFF, Associated Press – 1 hour ago
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A partial copy of the 500-year-old Nuremberg Chronicle is now on sale for $35,000 at a rare book shop in Utah. The shop is Ken Sanders Rare Books.
It's considered one of the earliest and most lavishly illustrated books of the 15th century and coveted by collectors. Published in Germany in 1493, the book is a world history beginning in biblical times.
Ken Sanders, who appraises items for PBS's Antiques Roadshow, came across the copy in April while volunteering at a fundraiser for the small town Sandy museum, about 15 miles south of Salt Lake City.
The book's owner says it was passed down by his great uncle and had been gathering dust in his attic for decades. He had no idea of its worth or significance until bringing it to Sanders in April.
Printed Matter, Inc. presents the sixth annual NY Art Book Fair, from September 30 to October 2, 2011, at MoMA PS1, Long Island City, Queens. A preview will be held on the evening of Thursday, September 29.
Free and open to the public, the NY Art Book Fair is the world's premier event for artists’ books, catalogs, monographs, periodicals, and zines presented by more than 200 international presses, booksellers, antiquarians, artists, and independent publishers from over twenty countries.
The NY Art Book Fair will also include special projects, screenings, book signings, and performances throughout the weekend. The Classroom—a curated series of artist-led workshops, readings, and discussions—and the fifth annual Contemporary Artists’ Books Conference—a dynamic, two-day symposium on emerging practices and debates within art-book culture—will engage visitors in lively conversation all weekend long.
Over 16,000 artists, book buyers, collectors, dealers, curators, independent publishers, and other enthusiasts attended the NY Art Book Fair in 2010.
“For those of us who reside mostly in a world of pixels and antialiased Web fonts, Printed Matter’s fifth annual New York Art Book Fair was a breath of fresh, ink-and-glue-infused air.” —The New Yorker
Visit www.nyartbookfair.com for further information and to join our mailing list. For exhibitors inquiries, write to nyartbookfair@printedmatter.org. For media inquiries, write to peter@printedmatter.org.
Europe’s leading destination for bibliophiles and collectors
The 54th London International Antiquarian Book Fair at Olympia, organised by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association (ABA) returns to the London Olympia Exhibition Centre from 9-11 June.
At Olympia, visitors will find on sale an almost unparalleled array of books and related material, covering the vast range of collectors’ interests, from the genesis of printing in the 15th century to today: first, rare and fine editions in all areas of literature, the humanities and science; fine bindings, illustrated books, manuscripts, maps, prints, photography and associated ephemera.
Olympia is the leading destination for bibliophiles and collectors in Europe.
The Fair is officially sanctioned by ILAB (International League of Antiquarian Booksellers), the international trade body of the antiquarian book trade.
This year over 160 of the top dealers from the UK, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Finland, Sweden, Israel, Canada, the U.S. and Australia will exhibit at the world’s oldest antiquarian book fair.
New and returning exhibitors in 2011
The Olympia Book Fair will welcome a number of new exhibitors and dealers who have not exhibited for several years: Librairie Auguste Blaizot, Bonnefoi Livres Anciens, Librairie Rodolphe Chamonal, Librairie Historique Clavreuil F. Teissèdre, Librairie Lardanchet, Oriens Librairie Orientaliste and Photo Verdeau from France.
Also: Martayan Lan Rare Books & Maps (U.S.), Antiquariaat Junk BV (NL), Lex Antiqua Studio Bibliografico (It), Antiquariat Dr. Paul Kainbacher (Austria), Douglas Stewart Fine Book (Australia), Kenneth Hince Old & Fine Books (Australia) and the UK dealers Roger Collicott Books, Charles Cox Rare Books, Sanders of Oxford, Henry Sotheran, Bernard Quaritch, Mark Westwood Books, Classic Bindings and Karen Thomson.
Hungary was recently accepted for ILAB membership and for the first time ever there will be two dealers from Hungary: Földvári Antikvárium and Musikantiquariat Adam Bosze.
Robert Frew, Fair Chairman: “We are happy to say that this year the fair was over-subscribed, but we have managed to accommodate all applicants. We are excited about our new charity partner, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, represented by Zoe Wanamaker. We very much look forward to welcoming our traditional mix of home grown and international dealers drawn from all corners of the globe and, most importantly, customers old and new.”
VISITOR INFORMATION
Olympia Exhibition Centre, Olympia Two
Hammersmith Road, London W14 8UX
Dates: 9 -11 June 2011
Advance Tickets free of charge via the website
On the door: £10
Charity Preview Ticket: £25 each
Opening Hours:
Thursday 9 June Charity & Press Preview 2pm - 4pm
Fair opens 4pm - 9pm
Friday 10 June 11am - 7pm
Saturday 11 June 11am - 5.30pm
FAIR HIGHLIGHTS
“Holy Grail” of English Bibliophily
BURY, Richard de (i.e. Richard Aungerville, bishop of Durham. 1281-1345)
Philobiblon... sive De Amore Librorum, et Institutione Bibliothecae, tractatus pulcherrimus. Ex collatione cum variis manuscriptis editio jam secunda; cui Accessit appendix de manuscriptis Oxoniensibus. Omnia haec, Opera & studio T[homas] J[ames]...
Oxford : Joseph Barnes 1599
FIRST ENGLISH EDITION
Small 4to, (180 x 127mm), *4, A-I4 (inc. H4 blank), the printed marginalia shaved in a few places, in one case affecting a few letters, some underlining and occasional ms. annotations in a 17th. century hand, bound in antique-style limp vellum, yapp fore-edges, green silk ties, edges stained red.
This is the first edition to be printed in England of the earliest published work on that theme which is at the very heart of ‘our’ world - the love of books. Written in the early 14th century by the great English book-collector and patron of learning, Richard d’Aungerville (better known as Richard de Bury), it was first printed in 1473 in Cologne, reprinted at Speier in 1483 and Paris in 1500. The eight-page Appendix de manuscriptis oxoniensibus is one of the earliest printed catalogues of an English library
STC 959 Madan 1599.8 Pforzheimer Catalogue no.21
£20,000
Exhibitor: H.M. Fletcher
Source: guardian.co.uk
Author and publisher Carmen Callil has withdrawn from the judging panel of the Man Booker International prize over its decision to honour Philip Roth with the £60,000 award. Dismissing the Pulitzer prize-winning author, Callil said that "he goes on and on and on about the same subject in almost every single book. It's as though he's sitting on your face and you can't breathe".
One of three judges on the panel for the literary award, alongside rare book dealer and author Rick Gekoski, who acted as chair, and novelist Justin Cartwright, this morning Callil revealed that, after the decision was made to give the prize to Roth from a shortlist which also featured Philip Pullman, Anne Tyler and Marilynne Robinson, she decided to retire from the panel.
"I don't rate him as a writer at all. I made it clear that I wouldn't have put him on the longlist, so I was amazed when he stayed there. He was the only one I didn't admire – all the others were fine," said Callil, who will explain why she believes Roth is not a worthy winner in an outspoken column in the Guardian Review on Saturday 21 May. "Roth goes to the core of their [Cartwright and Gekoski's] beings. But he certainly doesn't go to the core of mine ... Emperor's clothes: in 20 years' time will anyone read him?"
Founder of the feminist publishing house Virago, Callil is also the author of Bad Faith, a history of Vichy France. "I've judged many prizes before and I've rarely had my own favourite – it's always a question of 'I think X is a genius and you don't, so let's go for Y'. That didn't happen," she said. "We should have discussed everything more, but Philip Roth came out like a thunderbolt, and I was too surprised. We took a couple of days to brood, and then I spoke to Justin and said I thought I should give in, if I didn't have to have anything to do with the winner. So I said I didn't want my name attached to it, and retired. You can't be asked to judge, and then not judge."
Gekoski, speaking from the Sydney Writers' festival, said that the decision to give the prize to Roth had been reached "slowly and with a great deal of discussion and a considerable amount of argument".
"Three is a very dangerous number, a hard number to come to a decision. Two people came in very, very strongly supporting one writer, and one not," he said. "Literary prizes are generally pretty contentious [and] you have to guard against satisfying the judges rather than picking the right author. Saying let's compromise – nobody wants [this author] to win but we can live with it ... Well, my view is you want to get passionate support for someone."
All three judges, said Gekoski, "felt very, very strongly about the reading, about the process, about who should win". "We have read our guts out for the last 18 months, so to do that and not come up with someone you can care about is a painful thing and not a desirable thing. I entirely understand that," he said. But, he went on, in a field that included Roth, "tell me who else we could have picked".
"In 1959 he writes Goodbye, Columbus and it's a masterpiece, magnificent. Fifty-one years later he's 78 years old and he writes Nemesis and it is so wonderful, such a terrific novel ... Tell me one other writer who 50 years apart writes masterpieces," Gekoski said. "If you look at the trajectory of the average novel writer, there is a learning period, then a period of high achievement, then the talent runs out and in middle age they start slowly to decline. People say why aren't Martin [Amis] and Julian [Barnes] getting on the Booker prize shortlist, but that's what happens in middle age. Philip Roth, though, gets better and better in middle age. In the 1990s he was almost incapable of not writing a masterpiece – The Human Stain, The Plot Against America, I Married a Communist. He was 65-70 years old, what the hell's he doing writing that well?"
In her Guardian Review column, Callil also writes of her disappointment that the prize failed to celebrate writers in translation – the shortlist also included the Chinese authors Wang Anyi and Su Tong, the Spanish Juan Goytisolo, Italian Dacia Maraini and Lebanese Amin Maalouf – honouring instead "yet another North American writer".
"Obviously [writers in translation] have a disadvantage and there's no sense pretending they don't, of being read in translation," said Gekoski. "They are disenfranchised in that way, [but] ask me who my favourite writers are and it's Flaubert and Dostoyevsky – if the quality's there, it will shine through."
The prize in his view, though, is "not about who's the best: I think that's fatuous". Instead, it's about honouring "achievement in fiction".
"Are we saying Philip Roth is the best living novelist in the world? I don't know I want to say that. But he is the one we have chosen to honour and there are very good reasons for that," he said.
How much would you pay for a book?
Not for a rare book, a Shakespeare folio or a Gutenberg Bible to keep under glass, but for a volume simply to grace your bookshelves or your coffee table.
Would $199 be too much? Sports artist Dick Perez hopes that 5,000 people are willing to put out that amount for The Immortals, a collection of his portraits of Baseball Hall of Famers.
What about $461.62? That's what online bookseller Amazon is asking for Microsoft executive-turned-chef Nathan Myhrvold's new, six-volume culinary compendium Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking.
How about $15,000, the publisher's list price for the "Champ's Edition" of GOAT: A Tribute to Muhammad Ali (Greatest of All Time), featuring more than 3,000 images, plus a small sculpture by Jeff Koons and four silver gelatin prints signed by photographer Howard L. Bingham and Ali? Or $4,500 for the "Collector's Edition," with a Koons photo-litho instead of the sculpture and without the silver gelatin prints?.
In an era when the popularity of e-books has exploded and hardcover volumes seem destined to go the way of the LP, high-priced books are holding on.
"Expensive coffee-table books are not facing the same pressures as other books," says Lynn Andriani, a senior editor for the trade journal Publishers Weekly. "The expensive books keep coming."
That's because e-books don't satisfy a book lover's yen for "that really nice special edition," explains her colleague, PW features editor Andrew R. Albanese.
Beauty sells, and costly books are all about beauty, usually in the form of art or photography. The book itself becomes a piece of art, "something tactile, that you can hold and feel and see the quality of," says Creed Poulson, public-relations manager for the American subsidiary of the German firm Taschen. Taschen publishes GOAT and other high-end books, including a "Collector's Edition" of Linda McCartney: Life in Photographs that comes in a clamshell box, is signed by Paul McCartney, and sells for $1,000. (The trade edition, not signed by Paul, is $69.99).
Rarely, an expensive book surprises even its publisher and sells a lot more copies than anticipated. The Red Book, a reproduction of an illuminated manuscript by the famed psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, has racked up about 50,000 sales in English language translation since W.W. Norton published it in October 2009, says James Mairs, its editor. The volume, which measures 18 inches long by 12.3 inches wide by 2.5 inches thick and weighs 9.4 pounds, carries a price tag of $195, but is available online for $109.
The Red Book is "an anomaly," Mairs adds. The manuscript, in which Jung worked out some of the essentials of his psychology, had lain unpublished for decades in a safe in Switzerland, where only a few people had access to it. "There was a pent-up demand that we don't see for many books we publish," Mairs says.
The coffee-table niche is seldom so wide. While expensive books may not be going away, their audience remains small and their production costs large, a combination that makes publishers cautious. Mairs' colleagues at Norton proceeded cautiously with The Red Book, rejecting Mairs' suggestion of a first printing of 15,000 in favor of a safer 5,000. Even Taschen does not deal exclusively in big-ticket books. Its catalogue includes a GOAT edition for $150 and other titles for less than $20.
Bookstores are even warier than publishers of expensive titles. Chain bookstores, which rely on moving large numbers of books quickly, don't want to carry books priced north of $200, says Publishers Weekly's Albanese. Independent bookstores are also chary of such costly books. Michael Fox, proprietor of Joseph Fox Booksellers in Center City, says he handles "maybe one or two at Christmas time."
Taschen solves the problem by having its own chain of 12 bookstores in the United States and Europe, but that's not a road many publishers want to travel.
Faced with cautious publishers and reluctant bookstores, some authors like Perez and Myhrvold opt for self-publishing, becoming part of what Albanese calls "a very strong trend."
"A lot of of authors are examining the price of production and finding that the margins kind of work for them," Albanese says. The Internet makes it possible for them to sell their books themselves rather than rely on a publisher for distribution. "It's not that difficult to reach a global market [online]," Albanese says, though he says it's "not exactly a mature market."
Still, Perez and Myhrvold think it's mature enough.
Perez, official artist of the Phillies and formerly official artist of the Baseball Hall of Fame, acknowledges that The Immortals is "a niche book, even though it's baseball and baseball is popular. It's not a Stephen King book, or Ken Follett, or whatever."
Which is why he decided to print only 5,000 copies of the 560-page book, which includes 1,400 of his paintings, about 400 of them not previously published. He has no plans for a second printing.
The former graphic designer put the book together himself. He got historian William C. Kashatus to write the text.
"It's a huge book," says Perez, in the living room of his Wayne home, which is lined with his work and lit like an art gallery. "The stock is 100-pound test, which is the best. The stock and the binding is probably more than the printing." He says each volume costs about $50 to $75 to produce, not including his time during the last three years.
Perez did his own marketing, designing a brochure and mailing thousands of copies. (The book is sold through Amazon.com and www.dickperezimmortals.com)
Perez' strategy has been to sell the book as a collectible. It helps that "people know me as the baseball artist," he says.
And while it's a product of passion, Perez wants it to be profitable. "I've got my legacy there," he says. "If I break even, maybe make a few bucks, I'm happy."
Like Perez, Myhrvold, Microsoft's former chief technology officer, decided to self-publish his big book. He talked to commercial publishers, but decided early in 2010 to go his own way, said Wayt Gibbs, the cookbook's editor.
"There were a couple of factors," says Gibbs, a former senior writer for Scientific American magazine. "Commercial publishers are limited in some respects with books for which demand is unproven. The natural thing is to err on the side of prudence and order fewer rather than more. There's a pretty steep manufacturing cost, so the price has to be pretty high for that reason - so much so that it's terra incognita for commercial publishers. Nathan comes from a different business perspective. It didn't make sense to sink all this capital into producing so few books that you barely make a profit at it."
Gibbs explains that Myhrvold "set out to make a smaller book that would be priced under $100," but the scope of the project "grew and grew," expanding to six volumes - five volumes of recipes and a one-volume kitchen manual.
About 50 people worked on the project at one time or another, says Gibbs: "Four full-time research cooks, an art director . . . dozens of free-lance writers and editors, as well as two indexers."
Why did someone like Myhrvold, with his extensive computer background, not just opt for digital publication?
The beauty factor.
"He chose print because it's the best way to show big, beautiful, explanatory photos," Gibbs says. "If you shrink that down and put it on a small screen, the text becomes illegible."
By mid-April, orders for the set had reached 8,000, exceeding the first printing of 6,000 copies, according to the Modernist Cuisine website. "The remaining 2,000 or so orders . . . will be filled when copies arrive from the second printing, starting in July," Gibbs continued.
Myhrvold and his team "are quite relieved and pleased with the demand for this book," Gibbs says. "We're looking for a much larger second printing."
Source: Paul Frasier Collectibles
Rare limited edition copy of Orlando signed by the author
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) is often regarded as one of the foremost modernist figures in literature of the 20th century.
Her most famous works include Orlando, Mrs Dalloway and To the Lighthouse.
After battling bouts of depression for much of her life, Woolf filled her pockets with stones and drowned herself in the River Ouse near her home in Sussex in 1941.
Offerred for sale is a magnificent book. It is a hardcover first edition of Orlando, measuring 6.25" x 9.25". It is one of only 800 limited edition copies of the book signed by the author, this being number 465.
Orlando, published in 1928, is a novel partly based on Woolf's lover Vita Sackville-West.
The book has been signed by Woolf in purple ink on the reverse of the half title page. The autograph is in excellent condition.
The book also features an owner's bookplate which has been affixed to the front pastedown showing the books original owner was the famous American Impressionist landscape painter Daniel Garber. This copy originates from Garber's personal library - the bookplate reads "Ex Libris - Daniel and Mary F Garber". Garber's paintings are now on display at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.
Pencil notations have been made on the first, blank page. The book also features some light overall toning and some light sunning to the spine, otherwise it is in fine condition.
A rarely seen signed edition of an important 20th century novel with great provenance having come from the library of Daniel Garber.
For sale: £1,950 About $3170 For More Information contact Paul Frazier Collectibles
Opportunities like this don't come along very often, especially not with a 15% discount on the market value. Be quick to act and secure this magnificent item.
Source: Paul Frazier Collectibles
Buzz Aldrin is an American mechanical engineer and astronaut who was the Lunar Module pilot on Apollo 11, the first manned landing on the moon in history. On July 20 1969, he became the second person to set foot on the moon behind mission commander Neil Armstrong.
Magnificent Desolation (2009) is a book by Buzz Aldrin which features beautiful images from the Apollo 11 mission with words from the famous astronaut. It was published to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first manned lunar landing in history.
This first edition copy of Magnificent Desolation is limited to five hundred copies, all of which have been signed by Aldrin.
This copy features Aldrin's autograph clearly in blue ink on a white page at the front of the book. It comes complete with a Certificate of Authenticity stating that the book was hand-signed by Buzz Aldrin on August 21 2008 in the presence of Jack Bacon (publisher). The certificate is signed by Bacon and Gregory G. Krisilas of Coconut Rosie Books.
Buzz Aldrin signed book
A wonderful memoir of one the most incredible historic events.
For sale: £595
All items are sold with:
A Certificate of Authenticity
Free insured delivery
Considering that Buzz's autograph on a signed photo has increased in value by 347.5% in the last 10 years we reckon these books offer a great opportunity, especially given the price...
I first learned of the work of Alireza Darvish in an article by Stephen Gertz in Booktryst. As an avid reader and book collector, I have begun to collect art related to books and reading. I found Mr. Darvish's work to be very intelligent and moving and wanted to share it with you. I also wanted to know a bit more about this artists relationship with books so I contacted him and asked if he would participate in an interview for this post. He graciously agreed and here is the interview:
1. Can you tell me who inspired your love of reading and books.
I was 11 years old when the Islamic Revolution happened and our childhood, quite involuntary, was mixed in with the chaotic games of the adults. Our dramas and fantasies became smeared with the immature desires of our brothers and fathers. The atmosphere was filled with heavy, complicated, but seductive words and phrases. Our toys all smelled of gunpowder or even worse, slogans.
I was born in Rasht, a city in northern Iran, in the Caspian Sea region. This part of Iran, being so close to Russia, has a longstanding leftist tradition. Communism was very fashionable those days among the young, and I was attracted to it as well.
I quite accidentally came across one their greatest libraries located nearby my residence. I became a member and also for two years I was active in their youth department until it was raided and set on fire like many other such libraries. It was where I connected to the world of books in a serious manner. There we had reading groups and I recall after reading each book that we would get together to discuss it.
2. How did your interest in reading and books effect your life?
Society's post-revolutionary chaos and popular disunity over accepting one political force created a cozy open society.
There were thousands of questions needed to be answered. People had said no to the previous regime by their daily street demonstrations. Now after all this turmoil, they wanted to do something quite abnormal, something unaccustomed--thinking about fulfilling their demands and dreams!
Many felt themselves responsible to find the answers to these questions. Political parties and movements, religious groups, and intellectuals each tried to come up with an answer from their own standpoint and views. It was under these circumstances that books and book readings had become such an unbelievable and widespread necessity. The cities were filled with the rows of bookstores and book peddlers. We should also remember that the internet did not exist then and that books and other media still were the leading source of communications and consciousness-raising.
Book reading was becoming a culture in and of itself, though, unfortunately, a short-lived on. Shortly with the establishment of a religious totalitarian regime, book and book reading were also suppressed. The Islamic Cultural Revolution was the last nail in its coffin.
During this period I read miles of third rate leftist and communistic novels that were translated daily. They were all in connection with either the Russian Revolution or other revolutions in the world. I tried even to understand Marx’s Capital, and read Lenin’s collection works. I read Gorky, Solokhov, and Romain Rolland with considerable enthusiasm and absorb as much as I could.
This period of my book reading ended with that library's incineration. Soon the Iran-Iraq was started; the dominant political atmosphere of the day was turning more and more violent, and its horror and pain was spreading to almost every corner of the country and affected all the citizens alike.
And one day, due to my arrest by the religious faction of the army, my brothers, fearing further repercussions, bagged all the books in our library and dumped them in the river. And that was the end of that!
As you see, my connection and disconnection with books both were inhumane. A beginning that neither found a chance to develop well, nor ran its course and left a habit or an experience behind. It just stayed in me as an unfinished affair that needs to be given more time, more thought and more nurturing.
I was only 14 when I left home in Rasht and went to Tehran to continue my education in painting in the only academy of art in the capital. Everyone in my family but my mother was against it. I think her faith and trust in me was the only thing that kept me from going astray. Tehran, with a population of ten million in those days, was a wild city, burning with war fever where the march of death was the only melody of those days I recall. But our Academy of Art was a safe, calm and quiet island in the middle of all this chaos and insecurity. There, I would learn new things everyday, while carried away with the artistic life.
Fortunatley, my art historian teacher, Mr. Samii, was a poet and a literary critic. He played an important role in the development of my thought and contributed to my transformation into who I became. He was the first one who taught me and encouraged me to free myself from the dogmas I had picked up in the early years of Revolution and was the one who thought me to be a free thinker. He introduced me to the contemporary as well as the classic Iranian and world culture and literature. He coached me to start my return to books, with a new perspective, albeit more vivid and more creative.
3. There are many book lovers and readers who cherish their relationship with books but you faced personal hardships we can only imagine. How did this inspire your art?
Few years later, as a young artist, I started working in the prestigious literary magazine “The World of Speech”. This magazine was among the rare literary and cultural publications that had survived and continued to survive with much effort. There, I found the opportunity to meet many of the great names in art and literature. Making a design for an article about book burning was quite shocking to me. It involved me in a subject which I had felt with all my heart and mind, a subject, so close to me emotionally that it became the subject matter of my works today, as you can see.
I wanted to demonstrate that we human beings are like moving and changing words and phrases, that we all are like books that are unwritten, or if written, read badly if at all; they should be read and read well. Of course, all changes occur in the course of time, contexts, circumstances, or new discourses. My painting is a reflection of the same interpretation of words. I have not drawn anything that I have not seen or heard, or read. All my works are my narratives of human being I have represented in my paintings as books. After all, I’m from a generation that has uniquely tasted the three phenomena of revolution: its inception, its turmoil, and finally its consequential loneliness and isolation. I found it quite natural to turn all these impressions into a visual monologue running in my head. However, as much as they are my concerns, they can become yours and even others'; and in this way, they echo and perpetuate themselves. Concepts such as love, loneliness, human rights and human destiny, censorship, uncertainties, our relations with ourselves as well as the world around us, our journeys, our being left out, our philosophical wandering to find an answer to the unanswerable, etc. all are those that we all have a taste of; we read them in books or in people, but I draw them. My drawing, in fact, is my paying respect to us, to my generation, to my children and to the generation to come; with my painting I remind all of us the role that books played in our life.
4. My readers are collectors. Can you tell us how we may purchase your art?
- Anyone interested in my painting could contact my wife, Ms. Carmen Perez Gonzalez at carmenperezg@yahoo.com (or: perez-gonzalez@museenkoeln.de) or contact me via my website at: www.animacal.com to receive more information about my paintings and instruction for ordering them.
5. Do you consider yourself a book collector? What genre do you prefer? What area of collecting? Who are your favorite authors? Favorite Books?
There certainly are plenty of good reasons to keep me from doing this, directly. The most important is that during these past years, we had to relocate several times to different countries because of my wife’s studies or job changes. We have moved from Germany to Spain to the Czech Republic, and back to Germany. But this time our re-location should more permanent. We have to anchor somewhere permanently for our children's sake.
Yes, It is true that my paintings are about books, but it is my wife who collects books. She has an excellent collection of art history books about the history of photography. This is her field of study. She has recently finished her PhD in the history of early photography in Iran.
I myself am interested in poems and novels.
Many writers in various periods have captured my love and admiration. When younger, I was a very passionate reader of Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Mayakovski. Later I turned to the magic realism of South American writers such as Borges and Octavio Paz. I spent some time reading Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre, and, a little later, Milan Kundera who all involved me in their philosophical thoughts and ideas. Arthur Miller, Salinger, Becket, Gunter Grass, and Saramago were all among my favorites. Among the poets, Lorca is even present in my painting. I love Khalil Gibran, Idris Shah, Rilke and Albert. Of the poets and the writers of my homeland, I love Hafez, Rumi, Farokhzad, and Hedayat, who have made a great impression on me that is well reflected in my paintings, but it is still the Little Prince of Saint Exupéry that makes my heart shiver!
6. Do you have any plans of visiting the United States? Are you currently working with any galleries or have exhibits planned?
- In September and October of 2011 there will be an exhibit of my paintings on books in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. This exhibit is sponsored by Ars Libri, Ltd, the largest rare and out of print book collector in the USA .
I have traveled to the United Sates before for the screening of one of my short animation films in the Brooklyn Film Festival, but this in the first time my paintings are on exhibit there.
I have had exhibits in various prestigious galleries in Europe such as Sale Rovira in Barcelona, Spain, and in the International Book Festival in Frankfurt in 2008. However in last few years, I have concentrated more on my animations. I have two short animations, “What if Spring Does Not Come?” and “Footsteps of Water” very much influenced by my paintings of books. Both of these animations have been presented in various film festivals and were received well, and received awards as well, including one Special Jury Award in 2008 from the Brooklyn Film Festival. My latest work has been my participation in making the film “Green Waves” as the main designer of its animation. But to tell the truth, these days I miss painting. I would like to go back to it and become active in painting again and hopefully find more opportunities to exhibit my works
7. Will your art be collected in a book? By what publisher? When?
A catalogue will be printed for the exhibition at Ars Libri.
8. Do you have anything else you'd like to say to fellow book lovers and readers?
For question 8 I have no more ideas… I have said everything that I wanted!
Source: Foxnews.com
By Lindsay Carlton Published April 13, 2011 | FoxNews.com
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/04/13/rare-bible-exhibition-tours-country/#ixzz1JSJGdlOH
About 17 months ago, the Green family went on a very expensive shopping spree.
But they didn’t burn the money on Bentleys, vacation homes or exotic yachts. They instead bought up 30,000 rare biblical texts and artifacts that now make up the largest private collection of its kind in the world.
The Greens, of Oklahoma City, are owners of the Hobby Lobby Empire, one of the nation’s leading privately owned arts and crafts retailers. Forbes Magazine puts the family fortune at around $2.5 billion.
Steve Green, president of Hobby Lobby and the leading family member behind the project, was eager to share his family’s new discoveries and pushed to have them featured in a traveling exhibit called, “Passages.”
“We believe the Bible has a positive influence and I think that all people should see what it has to say,” Green said. “We encourage people to make their choice and follow its principals like we do and strive to do.”
Scholars, politicians and businesspeople gathered for a first glimpse of some of the rare religious artifacts when Passages was announced last month at the Vatican embassy in Washington. The formal stage is set to debut at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art on May 16.
Some of the most notable antiquities include: the second-largest private collection of Dead Sea Scrolls, which are expected to help understanding of the earliest texts in the Bible, and the world’s largest private collection of Jewish scrolls, which includes Torahs recovered from Nazi concentration camps.
It also includes early printed parts of the Gutenberg Bible, one of the first major books printed in movable type in the 1450's, and a comprehensive collection of English bibles through the King James era.
But perhaps the collection’s most prized possession is the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, one of the earliest surviving Bibles. Purchased from a London auction house, Green says the Codex is one of his favorites, and is the fifth-oldest relatively complete bibles in the world.
Like any vintage item, these one-of-a-kind artifacts come with a big price tag. Museums don't disclose the amount spent on individual pieces, and the Green family abides by those standards. When asked how much the collection or even a single artifact was purchased for, Mr. Green declined to go into detail.
“It’s invaluable. We have texts that people have lost their lives to make, what you purchase it for and what it's worth are two different things,” said Dr. Scott Carroll, director of the Green collection. The cost of a single can be staggering. A Wycliffe, which is known as a group of bible translations from 1382-1395, can go for around $2.5 million to $3 million.
Spending millions of dollars on religious artifacts is not new to the Green family. Hobby Lobby CEO David Green is a regular donor to Christian organizations and joined Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and other wealthy Americans last year in ‘Giving Pledge,’ a promise to give away most of their fortunes to charitable causes.
The Greens live by Christian principles and apply them in their thriving business. Christian music can be heard throughout store hallways. They close up shop every Sunday. And while some have wondered if the family aim is more about proselytizing than collecting, others admire their generous efforts.
“If the collection can shed light on how these revered texts came to be, and why they were protected and passed down from generation to generation, that’s reason enough to applaud it,” said Father Edward Beck, a Catholic priest.
The astonishing collection has created buzz in the world of rare book collecting. “Auction season goes in cycles, you get sales in the spring and then they heat up again in the fall,” said Stephen Massey, an appraiser experienced in ancient religious objects. “There was buzz about this last spring, but that same buzz wasn’t repeated in the fall or winter. But now here we are in the spring and the buzz is back.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/04/13/rare-bible-exhibition-tours-country/#ixzz1JSIyQreW
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