The Marriage of Text and Image: Selections from Special Collections

Andrews Library Special Collections
August 12 – October 4, 2024

This exhibit includes examples of illustrated modern limited editions from the Rare Books and Gregg D. Wolfe Collections.

At the start of the 20th century, book publishers often made arrangements for artists and writers to work together on high-quality limited press runs. During the peak of the “Livre d’Artiste” movement, contemporary artists were commissioned to illustrate classic texts, creating new life from classic texts, such as Aesop’s Fables. Often, publishers juxtaposed the work of known artists, such as William Blake, with known texts, such as Paradise Lost by John Milton. New interpretations emerged from such pairings. Initially, these editions were designed as limited works of art, crafted at a time when artists, political thinkers, and writers were collaborating on many projects together, capitalizing on each other’s skills to produce works that forced people to think about books in a whole new way. By the late 1920s, presses, such as Heritage Press, made beautifully designed books more affordable and more accessible to the general public by providing reprints of the earlier limited editions.

Special arrangements can be made to view additional limited editions from our collections. For more information, contact Denise Monbarren (ext. 2527).

Posted in Library Announcement on August 5, 2024.