Dessine-moi une lettre (2004)

Dessine-moi une lettre (2004)
Anne Bertier
Casebound, sewn. H258 x W258 mm, 56 pages. Acquired from Amazon, 17 August 2021.
Photos of the work: Books On Books Collection.

Anne Bertier’s three alphabet books cross sub-genres of the ABCs with distinctive style and educational challenge. While the answers to the visual puzzles are offered at the end of the first and last books, considerable pleasure is missed by giving up too quickly. For the English speaker learning French, there’s the added pleasure of cementing a familiar word with Bertier’s images and discovering a new word that will also stick because of them.

Rêve-moi une lettre (2005)

Rêve-moi une lettre (2005)
Anne Bertier
Casebound, sewn. H135 x W132 mm, 52 pages. Acquired from Amazon, 30 August 2021.
Photos of the work: Books On Books Collection.

Here is the French version of the alliterative alphabet. Its opening with Alice suggests an underlying literary motif, but more likely at play is the association of the book’s title (“dream me a letter”) with Alice’s dreaming of Wonderland.

Construis-moi une lettre (2008)

Construis-moi une lettre (2008)
Anne Bertier
Casebound, sewn. H135 x W256 mm, 56 pages. Acquired from Amazon, 17 August 2021.
Photos of the work: Books On Books Collection.

The English alphabet’s “go to” for the letter A does not work for the French pomme, but from the similarity between the image here and that in Dessine-moi un lettre, there seems to be one, too, for the French alphabet. With the cognate word in French and English, the letter B is too easy. But C is for ?

With the overlap between design, art and children’s education, Bertier’s numerous large-scale exhibitions in China, Italy, Japan, Korea as well as France come as no surprise. Think of Dik Bruna, Eleonora Cumer, Katsumi Komagata or Bruno Munari.

Further Reading

“Abecedaries I (in progress)“. Books On Books Collection.

“Eleonora Cumer”. 6 September 2019. Books On Books Collection.

“Lisa Campbell Ernst“. 12 December 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Katsumi Komagata“. 22 March 2020. Books On Books Collection.

“Suse MacDonald“. 10 August 2022. Books On Books Collection

“Nicolas McDowall“. 12 December 2022. Books On Books Collection.

“Bruno Munari“. 19 August 2021. Books On Books Collection.

“Dave Pelletier“. 10 August 2022. Books On Books Collection.