Books On Books Collection – Peter Criddle

Commend Me to the Ampersand (2018)

Commend Me to the Ampersand (2018)
Peter Criddle
Booklet, sewn saddle-stitch, untrimmed at the head. H110 x W154 mm. 10 folios, untrimmed at the head. Acquired 8 September 2022.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Like Andrew Morrison’s Ampersand& (2007), also in the Books On Books Collection, Peter Criddle’s booklet is a design festival of ampersands. In his celebration, Criddle uses metal & wood ampersands (whereas Morrison’s are all wooden) , but his effort’s chief distinction is the revival of an extended piece of doggerel, first presented in Punch Magazine (1869).

He’s never bothered, like A.B.C.
In Index, Guide, and Directorie:
He’s never stuck on a Peeler’s coat,
Nor hung to show where the folks must vote.
No, my nice little Amperzand,
My plump and curly Amperzand,
When I’ve a pen in a listless hand,
I’m always making an Ampersand!

Nothing for him that’s starch or stiff,
Never he’s used in scold or tiff,
State epistles, so dull and grand,
Mustn’t contain the shortened and.
No, my nice little Amperzand,
You’re good for those who’re jolly and bland,
In days when letters were dried with sand
Old frumps wouldn’t use my Amperzand!

But he is dear in old friendship’s call,
Or when love is laughing through lady-scrawl:
‘Come & dine, & have bachelor’s fare.’
‘Come & I’ll keep you a Round & Square.’
Yes my nice little Amperzand
Never must into a word expand,
Gentle sign of affection stand,
My kind, familiar Amperzand.

‘Letters Five do form his name:’
His, who Millions doth teach and tame:
If I could not be in that Sacred Band,
I’d be the affable Amperzand.
Yes, my nice little Amperzand,
And when PUNCH is driving his five-in-hand,
I’ll have a velocipede, neatly planned
In the shape of a fly-away Amperzand.

For now, Criddle’s may be “the last word on the ampersand”.

Books On Books Collection – Amy Lapidow

2022/12/302022/12/28Books On BooksLeave a comment

Spiralbet (1998)

Spiralbet (1998)
Amy Lapidow
Tunnel book. Cloth bound and lined archival box. Closed:H165 x W185 x D5 mm. Open: D220 Acquired from the artist, 9 September 2022.
Photo: James Prinz

This work was first spotted in the online catalogue for Abecedarium: An Exhibition of Alphabet Books (1998) from the Guild of Bookworkers. Being a small thumbnail on the second screen or page and accessed only by clicking on the artist’s name, its discovery was serendipitous. Its still being available was pure luck.

Photo: Books On Books Collection.

Photo: Amy Lapidow.

The structure and binding are the work of Amy Lapidow, who has taught bookbinding at the North Bennett Street School in Boston, MA. The airbrush coloring was executed by student Nancy Ames.

Photo: Books On Books Collection.

Other tunnel books with which compare and enjoy Lapidow’s are Borje Svensson & James Diaz’s Letters and Animals (1982), Karen Hanmer’s The Spectrum A-Z (2003) and Helen Malone & Jack Oudyn’s The Future of an Illusion (2017).

Along with Lapidow’s and Hanmer’s explorations of color and the alphabet, Jean Holabird’s Vladimir Nabokov: AlphaBet in Color (2005), Carol DuBosch’s Rainbow Alphabet Snowflake (2013) and Rebecca Bingham’s Defining the Rainbow (2018) offer a range of variations to compare and contrast. Andrew Morrison’s Chroma Numerica (2019) offers a similar exploration of colors but with numbers.

Books On Books Collection – Estelle J.

2022/03/312022/07/28Books On BooksLeave a comment

STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ: Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard (ND)

STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ: Un coup de dés n’abolira le hasard (ND)
Estelle J.
Self-covering accordion format with three tipped-in pages. H245 x 185 mm closed, 2100 mm open. Twenty-four panels and flap-insert for closing. Edition of 6 variations, of which this #6. Acquired from Studio Montespecchio, 22 February 2022.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Little information has emerged about this artist or her work that arrived in a shipment from a dealer based in Italy. He seemed to recall that she was young and at a table of her own at an exhibition in … was it Barcelona or Madrid? There is only the artist’s signature at the end of the work and an indication that it is the sixth of six copies. The dealer remembers that each of the six varied due to their handmade nature.

With its three tipped-in pages inside a double-sided accordion structure, with their mix of laser-cut and printed text, with the bright collage of abstract and figurative images (screen printed?), the work speaks for itself. But where in the collection does this work belong? First and foremost, it belongs among the many works of homage to Stéphane Mallarmé’s Un Coup de Dés Jamais N’Abolira le Hasard such as those by Christopher Brennan or Benjamin Lord.

The cover gives the poem’s title in French, but the abridged text is in English, some of it laser-cut and some printed, all on tipped-in pages. The unhappy translation comes from the Oxford University Press’ World Classics. The cuts place it among the “works of homage by redaction”, for example, those by Jérémie Bennequin or Michel Lorand. As the burnt edges suggest, it comes chronologically after the adoption of laser cutting in artists’ books, which has growing representation in the collection, for example, in works by Jaz Graf or Islam Aly. In its combination of letter and geometric shapes, the work falls between Scott McCarney and Aaron Cohick.

A collage of abstract and figurative images, letters and numbers rolls across both sides of the accordion, structurally recollecting the works of Helen Douglas or Sibyl Rubottom and Jim Machacek.

The paper is a heavy card, susceptible to fine cuts and sturdy enough to hold them.Colors of black, yellow, orange, silver and red cover the inner side, while those on the outer side adhere to an orange-gold-yellow palette. Its bright colors place it among the bursts of color from Shirley Sharoff and Andrew Morrison.

Perhaps the mystery artist will stumble across this entry, have a view on where it belongs and share some of its background, technique, process and materials — and what the other five versions look like.

Books On Books Collection – Le Cadratin

2022/02/082023/02/13Books On BooksLeave a comment

Voyelles (2012)

Voyelles (1871/1883/2012)
Arthur Rimbaud
Design and direction: Jean-Renaud Dagon H325 x W235 mm, 32 unnumbered pages. Edition of 200, of which this is #67. Acquired from Le Cadratin, 6 November 2021.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Le Cadratin is more than a typesetting and printing house or fine press. An atelier-typographique, founded by Jean-Renaud Dagon, its artists perform tightrope acts in typography, ink, paper and form. Under Dagon’s direction, Joanne Bantick, Hugues Eynard, Nicolas Regamey and Roger Jaunin have composed and printed a rendition of Arthur Rimbaud’s sonnet “Les Voyelles” that deserves applause.

Written in 1871 by Rimbaud and first published in 1883 by Paul Verlaine, the sonnet is one of the better known historic literary examples of graphemic-color synesthesia — strongly associating a color with a letter — and in Rimbaud’s case with strong tones of eroticism. Le Cadratin’s artists leave Rimbaud’s eroticism bound to his text, handset in 28pt Roman Idéal, but deliver their own exuberance with subtle tactility and visual texture in large format wooden type using Heidelberg and Vandercook presses.

Voyelles contributes to other themes in the Books On Books Collection besides the alphabet motif. The handling of wooden type echoes David Clifford’s Letterpress Printing ABC and Andrew Morrison’s Ampersand& (2005) and Two Wood Press A-Z (2013). The synesthesia of letters is shared with Jean Holabird’s Vladimir Nabokov: AlphaBet in Color (2005)

Books On Books Collection – Andrew Morrison

2021/09/152023/03/08Books On BooksLeave a comment

Chroma Numerica (2019)

Chroma Numerica (2019)
Andrew Morrison
Perfect bound cased in quarter-hinged paper-on-board binding. H143 x W145 mm, 60 pages, printed on one side. Edition of 30, of which this is #17. Acquired from the artist, 2 September 2021.
Photos of the work: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with artist’s permission.

In the children’s book tradition, counting books and alphabet books often come paired. Chroma Numerica‘s partner appears with the same binding earlier in Andrew Morrison’s work below, and in both cases, the printing process is the real subject — not the learning of numbers or letters. From his wood type, Morrison rolls out oversized numbers 1-30 printed in a chromatic scale on Somerset Book 200gsm paper.

Provenance (2018)

Provenance (2018)
Andrew Morrison
Casebound with dustjacket. H152 x W155 mm, 9 foldouts, 6 leaves (including 1 trimmed short), 2 end leaves. Edition of 30, of which this is #28. Acquired from the artist, 2 September 2021.
Photos of the work: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with artist’s permission.

While Chroma Numerica and A-Z use printing processes to count and spell out their subjects, Provenance uses folds and stitching to conceal texts and images that reveal the making of the book itself. More than the other two books, Provenance requires “reading with the hands”. The two sequences below show the result and process — or the effect then cause — of needle perforation and wire stitching. In the first, the perforation can be seen along the right-hand edge, then along the left, and then in the middle of the unfolded image, which is annotated with a description of the printing process and paper. In the second sequence, the wire stitch can be seen in the gutter; then, with the two tabs pushed back, the German stitching machine comes in view, again annotated with a description of the printing process.

Provenance recalls those sets of binding models produced by Gary Frost, Karen Hanmer and others, but it may be too fragile for the constant reading with the hands that it would undergo as a teaching tool. It is more to be carefully and gently admired — a beautiful peacock admiring itself in the mirror of itself.

Two Wood Press A-Z (2013)

Two Wood Press A-Z (2013)
Andrew Morrison
Hardcover. Casebound glued. H180 x W155 mm, 56 pages. Edition of 30, of which this is an A/P. Acquired from the artist, 5 May 2020.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with artist’s permission.

An inspired A-to-Z, with tongue in cheek evident in the material form as well as the text. At first, there seems to be no letter A, but closer inspection reveals the ampersand sneakily placed at the start of the alphabet on a page glued halfway up the pastedown. For the letter C, we have “chase” — the heavy steel frame used to hold type in a letterpress. Of course, the type held in a chase would read as in a mirror, and so “C. WADE.” and “HALIFAX.” do just that in their “paper” chase. E for embossing is, of course, embossed. The usually difficult search for a word or term beginning with X is not a problem for typophile and provides a self-defining demonstration as does “yellowing” for Y. For the letter Z, we have to take it on trust that the images are the result from “an etched letterpress printing plate made of zinc”.

Ampersand& (2007)

Ampersand& (2007)
Andrew Morrison
Board cover, perfect bound. H180 x W180 mm, 22 pages. Acquired from the artist, 5 May 2020.
Photos: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with artist’s permission.

The sneaky ampersand at the beginning of Two Hand Press A-Z may have escaped from Ampersand& — or given the density and evenness of the possible escapee’s color, perhaps not. Any collection of wooden type will have “character”-giving flaws — nicks, nocks and abrasions. So it is with this … what is the collective noun for ampersands? The variation in shape of these ampersands and Morrison’s flaunty display of them deliver even more character. And note the watermark in the Somerset paper peeking through the third image below.

Books On Books Collection – David Clifford

2021/09/152022/03/31Books On BooksLeave a comment

Letterpress Printing ABC (2004)

Letterpress Printing ABC (2004)
David Clifford
Miniature. H78 x W78 mm, 62 pages. Edition of 50 numbered copies, of which this is #48. Acquired from Bromer Booksellers, 1 August 2021.
Photos of the work: Books On Books Collection. Displayed with permission of the publisher.

Among the several outstanding production features of Clifford’s miniature is its variation on Claire Van Vliet’s binding structure in The Gospel of Mary (2006). It first becomes apparent in the double-page spread below. As with most of the structures demonstrated in Woven and Interlocking Book Structures (2002), the binding structure consists of woven strips of paper to hold the folios together and attach the cover. The top-down view of Letterpress ABC shows the gathered folios and, if enlarged in a browser, also shows the paper tape running from the cover and across the gathers.

Staking his claim over Andrew Morrison as first past the post, Clifford starts his A-Z with the last symbol of the alphabet (“Ampersand”) and closes with the same Z term (“zinco”). There are other overlaps in terms, but the two efforts differ so rewardingly — Clifford’s woven binding, typeset definitions, miniature trim size and handmade paper versus Morrison’s children’s board book hinged binding, demonstrated definitions, larger trim and Somerset paper — that one cannot be chosen over the other.

An additional pleasure from Clifford’s book is its complement to two other Heavenly Monkey publications in the Books On Books Collection: Francesca Lohmann’s An Alphabetical Accumulation (2017) and Rollin Milroy’s Francesco Griffo da Bologna: Fragments and Glimpses (2020). If it were not for Rollin Milroy, the attentive reader and I would forever struggle with the puzzle of how Clifford’s 2004 binding came to be influenced by Van Vliet’s 2006 binding. Milroy writes:

Claire came to Vancouver in ’04 and gave a day-long class, which David (& his daughter Yasmine) attended. The project was already in development (probably even printed), and D showed Claire a dummy and got some pointers. I didn’t realize ABC preceded her own Gospel.

And here is the entry for Letterpress extracted from proofs for Heavenly Monkey’s checklist to be published in 2022:

Courtesy of Rollin Milroy. 2021 © Heavenly Monkey.

Books On Books Collection – The Last Word on the Ampersand

2020/06/272023/03/09Books On Books3 Comments

Isn’t it surprising that, given the greater frequency in human discourse of “yeah, but” over “yeah, and”, we can write “yeah, &”, but there is no logogram for “but”? No one can say that the last word has been said, written, printed or had about the ampersand. Someone will always be ready to append an & … but that has not stifled many an attempt. Apparently they have occurred every twenty years or so since 1936.

The Typophiles (based in New York and now a non-profit) organized the first attempt. Typographer Frederic W. Goudy and calligrapher Paul Standard contributed serious pamphlets on the subject to otherwise whimsical entries in this now rare portfolio volume: Diggings from Many Ampersandhogs (1936).

Some twenty years later along comes Jan Tschichold’s A Brief History of the Ampersand (1957), initially in German in 1953), which reproduced and updated Goudy’s set of examples and deepened the scholarship on the subject.

After Tschichold’s “last word”, The Ampersand Club (yes, there is one) invited one of its distinguished members — Rutherford Aris, Professor of Chemical Engineering (and Classics!) at the University of Minnesota — to attempt another “last word” in 1980.

While there are a few publications falling around 1999/2000, nothing approaches the colophonic status of the Typophiles’, Tschichold’s or the Ampersanders’ efforts. It’s not as if ampersand aficionados were running out of &s. Consider Robert Slimbach’s Poetica™️ (1992), his family of type that boasts 62 different ampersands.

Robert Slimbach’s 62 ampersands in the Poetica™️ family

Jumping the gun on 2020, we have both the 2018 reissued edition of Tschichold’s “last word” on the subject and Ray Czapkowski‘s 2019 celebration of the Diggings of Many Ampersandhogs. It is somewhat fitting that the publisher of the reissue of Tschichold is named ~zeug, which is the German suffix appended to a verb to indicate the instrument for carrying out the verb’s activity — e.g., Spielen (to play), Spielzeug (toy). And entirely fitting, too, that ~zeug could not resist the urge to make up a deluxe version by adding Et & Ampersands: A Contemporary Collection to Tschichold’s A Brief History.

By definition, the Velvetyne/~zeug catalogue is not a last word, and its cataloging of newly designed ampersands attests to the ongoing “and-ness” of letter design, which brings us to the first item in this sub-collection within Books On Books …

Hungry Dutch (2020)

Hungry Dutch: A Typographic Adventure (2016)

Russell Maret

Maret’s pattern, matrix and punch for the Hungry Dutch ampersand came into the collection in 2020 as recognition of Books On Books’ contributing sponsorship of the design and manufacture of the typeface.

… & … A Brief History of the Ampersand (2018)

… & … The Ampersand in Script and Print (1980)

The Ampersand in Script & Print: An Essay in Honour of the Ampersand Club on the Occasion of its Semicentenary (1980)

Rutherford Aris

The endnoting to the pages displaying the numbered ampersands suits the publication of this scholarly “after-dinner” speech, which has one rocking back & forth between typographical puns and paleographical insights.

… & … Ampersand& (2006)

Ampersand& (2006)

Andrew Morrison

Board covers with a Caslon paper wrapper, cased over eleven linen-taped handsewn leaves of Somerset 300gsm, eleven images printed on a Vandercook proofing press. H175 x W180 mm. Acquired from the artist, 5 May 2020.

Printers have affection for the ampersand, not just because of its usefulness in shortening lines and in embellishing spaces, but also, I believe, because of its uniquely human shape; in one stroke it describes us, becomes a human pictogram. Placed together, ampersands appear endlessly various and take on human characteristics of slovenliness, arrogance, timidity and flamboyance. Ben Shahn said that the letters of the alphabet have an “austere dignity”, the ampersand in woodblock form, by contrast, is avuncular and buoyant. The book is a small celebration of the alphabet’s twenty-seventh letter and of design improvisation and characterisation within one simple symbolic form.
It’s hard to identify all the fonts used as many wooden fonts are local variations of standard faces but the book includes Cheltenham, Windsor, Gill, Grotesque and Caslon as well as some ampersands hand cut for this production. The text on the final page is hand set in Albertus. — Information provided by the artist.

… & … The Well-Travelled Ampersand (2017)

The Well-Travelled Ampersand (2015-17)

Jennifer Farrell

Book: Dustjacket and case over perfect binding of 34 pages, offset, multiple edition. 178 x 178 mm. Portfolio: Sleeve of gray French Kraftone encasing 16 prints on white French Kraftone. 305 x 305 mm. Edition of 50, of which this is #42. Acquired from the artist, 5 May 2020. Photos: Courtesy of the artist.

The book (2017) comes in response to interest in Farrell’s portfolio of sixteen prints of celebrated designers’ ampersands (2015-17). Farrell has constructed each designer’s ampersand with ornaments and flourishes carefully locked into shape with typesetting furniture forms. Each also contains images composed of ornaments, and each conveys the city or country associated with the original designer or typeface. The artist has provided extensive commentary and numerous photos here and here.

London: Johnston Underground (1916) Edward Johnston. Photo: Books On Books Collection.

Paris: Frutiger (1976) Adrian Frutiger. Photo: Books On Books Collection.

Switzerland: Sonnenzimmer (2015) Nick Butcher & Nadine Nakanishi. Photo: Books On Books Collection.

Books On Books

Curated by Robert Bolick

Andrew Morrison

Books On Books Collection – Peter Criddle

Commend Me to the Ampersand (2018)

Further Reading

Books On Books Collection – Amy Lapidow

Spiralbet (1998)

Further Reading

Books On Books Collection – Estelle J.

STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ: Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard (ND)

Books On Books Collection – Le Cadratin

Voyelles (2012)

Further Reading

Books On Books Collection – Andrew Morrison

Chroma Numerica (2019)

Provenance (2018)

Two Wood Press A-Z (2013)

Ampersand& (2007)

Further Reading

Books On Books Collection – David Clifford

Letterpress Printing ABC (2004)

Further Reading

Books On Books Collection – The Last Word on the Ampersand

Hungry Dutch (2020)

… & … A Brief History of the Ampersand (2018)

… & … The Ampersand in Script and Print (1980)

… & … Ampersand& (2006)

… & … The Well-Travelled Ampersand (2017)

Further Reading (& Viewing)

Commend Me to the Ampersand (2018)

Further Reading

Like this:

Spiralbet (1998)

Further Reading

Like this:

STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ: Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard (ND)

Like this:

Voyelles (2012)

Further Reading

Like this:

Chroma Numerica (2019)

Provenance (2018)

Two Wood Press A-Z (2013)

Ampersand& (2007)

Further Reading

Like this:

Letterpress Printing ABC (2004)

Further Reading

Like this:

Hungry Dutch (2020)

… & … A Brief History of the Ampersand (2018)

… & … The Ampersand in Script and Print (1980)

… & … Ampersand& (2006)

… & … The Well-Travelled Ampersand (2017)

Further Reading (& Viewing)

Like this: