Book Arts and Book History Classes at Virginia
Rare Book School
RARE BOOK SCHOOL is pleased to announce its Spring and Summer 2003
Sessions, a collection of five-day, non-credit courses on topics
concerning rare books, manuscripts, the history of books and printing,
and special collections to be held at the University of Virginia.
FOR AN APPLICATION FORM and electronic copies of the complete brochure
and Rare Book School expanded course descriptions, providing
additional details about the courses offered and other information
about Rare Book School, visit our Web site at
Subscribers to the list may find the following Rare Book School
courses to be of particular interest:
33. ARTISTS' BOOKS: STRATEGIES FOR COLLECTING. (MONDAY-FRIDAY, JUNE
9-13) The field of artists' books includes work that spans the full
spectrum of cultural objects, handmade originals, calligraphic and
typographic experimentation, conceptual productions, and works
produced in the traditions of fine printing and independent
publishing. This course provides critical and historical perspectives
from which to conceive of a collecting rationale for both individuals
and institutions. Instructor: Johanna Drucker.
JOHANNA DRUCKER became Robertson Professor of Media Studies at UVa in
1999; she has also taught at Columbia, Yale, and SUNY Purchase. She
has been making artists' books for many years. Among her books are The
Visible Word: Experimental Typography and Modern Art, 1909-23 (1994)
and The Century of Artists' Books (1995).
41. INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF ILLUSTRATION. (MONDAY-FRIDAY, JULY
7-11). This introductory course is a survey of the history of
illustration from medieval manuscripts to the contemporary book.
Topics include: painted and drawn illustrations before the advent of
printing, early woodblock printing (including blockbooks), German and
Italian Renaissance illustration, the Encyclopédie and other works of
the French Enlightenment, children's books, the private press
movement, the period of l'Art nouveau, and the use of photography in
book illustration, among other subjects. Instructor: Alan Fern.
ALAN FERN retired in 2000 after 18 years as director of the National
Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, before which
he was Chief of the Prints and Photographs Division (and later
Director for Special Collections) at the Library of Congress. He has
published and lectured widely on various topics in the graphic arts,
including the history of the poster, the Art Nouveau, the history of
photography, American portraiture, and the work of such 20th century
artists as Leonard Baskin, Fritz Eichenberg, Maurizio Lasansky, and
Arnold Newman.
73. JAPANESE PRINTMAKING, 1615-1868. (MONDAY-FRIDAY, AUGUST 4-8). A
survey of Ukiyo-e, the art of the Japanese woodblock print. Ukiyo-e
literally means "floating art world," and it is through an exploration
of the Floating World that produced this art that we come to
understand it. The course considers how the Floating World developed
in the c17 out of the earlier court culture, how it created an
interest in the courtesans, actors, and famous places of Japan that
became the chief subject-matter of c17-c19 printmakers, and how it
declined and changed in the late c19. The course will take advantage
of the extensive collection of Japanese prints owned by the University
of Virginia Art Museum. Instructor: Sandy Kita.
SANDY KITA is Assistant Professor of Japanese Art at the University of
Maryland, and is the author of A Hidden Treasure: Japanese Woodblock
Prints in the James Austin Collection (1996) and The Last Tosa: Iwasa
Katsumochi Matabei, Bridge to Ukiyo-e (1999).