In July this year, a video was posted as if in response to the conclusion of Kyle Olmon’s “Movable Book Artists” in Parenthesis 31 (2020):
There is little in the way of scholarship and criticism in regard to pop-up and movable books. Part of this is the stigma of being represented as a commercial novelty product or kiddie book by twentieth-century publishers. The explosion of artists’ books in the 1970’s gave rise to a subset of book artists that moved beyond the standard textblock to explore the book form in ways that surpassed commercial novelty publishing efforts. To date there is no consensus within the community on the classification of the types of book formats or even the terminology used when describing pop-up and movable elements in a work. Hopefully this will change when articles about pop-up artists’ books appear with more frequency and more scholarship is undertaken.
The Newberry Library’s Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts Suzanne Karr Schmidt gave the Book Club of Washington a reprise of her 2023 exhibition “Pop-Up Books through the Ages”:
List of contributors from Movable Books Society site.
Published to commemorate the Movable Books Society’s 25th anniversary, A to Z: Marvels in Paper Engineering is aptly subtitled. A video created by Christopher Helkey gives 26 brief cameos to the artists above in which they demonstrate those marvels.
Ed’s books are a delight: witty and/or thoughtful ideas cleverly presented in unusual structures. Ed is a great believer in designing the form to suit the content, so no two books are alike. Some basic forms re-occur, but there are tweaks to the basic structures that individualize them for each version.
Miller’s review in Byopia Press is also a delight, providing multiple links and routes to information about Ed Hutchins as well as to other reviews of his work. Below are images of the catalog for Stand & Deliver, curated by Hutchins in 2003.
Engineered by Kyle Olmon and designed by John DiLorenzo, the catalog demonstrates great inventiveness in the pop-up structure and mechanism that nudges the two booklets from the left and right sleeves as the catalog is opened. Note also the use of colors to demarcate its sections that follow the themes Hutchins used to organize this exhibition: Intriguing Shapes, Revealing Folds, Uplifting Pages. And note the distinctive and subtle shifting placement of colors in the right-hand booklet: at the top on the orange page, a white bar that shifts to the right on the green page as an orange bar marks the end of the previous section on the facing verso page. For an exhibition that traveled to five different locations, a more appropriately and intricately mobile catalog could hardly have been devised.
Design, Construct, Engage (2002)
Design, Construct, Engage (2002) Booklet-poster-catalogue in meander cut and fold. Closed: H220 x W140 mm. Acquired from Ed Hutchins, 26 January 2022.
Ephemera (1996 – 2003)
Flights of Fancy (1996) Envelope with tab, trifold, center-cut single sheet forming booklet H145 x W116 mm. Acquired from Ed Hutchins, 20 May 2014.
Gadzooks, Pages Alive (2002) Velcro-fastened trifold cover glued to 18 pages, fixed spinner inside cover. 107 x107 mm. [18] pages. Acquired from Ed Hutchins, 20 May 2014.
The Unfolding Nature of Books (1993) Envelope with tab, trifold, with split Turkish map in center. Self-enclosing evelope with split Turkish map construction exhibition list in center Closed: 85 x 85 mm. Acquired from Ed Hutchins, 20 May 2014.
Thinking Editions (1999) Accordion fold booklet with 16-page gathering saddle-stitched with single staple to first fold, four panels of accordion slit to receive four cards to create 8 interleaved pages, final panel has pocket holding 3 color postcards. H155 x W110. 28 pages. Acquired from Ed Hutchins, 20 May 2014.
Thinking Editions card (1999) Four-card construction displaying 7 views. 126 x 126 mm. Acquired from Ed Hutchins, 20 May 2014.
Call for Entries, Stand & Deliver (2002/3) Pop-up invitation with entry cards. Acquired from Ed Hutchins, 20 May 2014.
Books On Books 