The best of both worlds

Jerry Kelly

Artists' books always contain art, and the art often serves as the primary reason for the book's existence. And the history of bookmaking, since the Gutenberg Bible, contains examples of books whose typographic and design excellence is immediately apparent and beyond dispute, but which contain no art. Occasionally, the two worlds intersect and overlap, resulting in books as noteworthy for their artwork as their printing, as praiseworthy for their artistic content as their design and manufacturing. In this full color selection of 77 books from Europe and the Americas, the authors select, and comment upon the "best of both worlds": books whose pages reveal the best graphic work of the past century; artwork from the hands of masters as diverse as Braque, Calder, Dine, Hockney, Mapplethorpe, Matisse, Maillol, Picasso, Oldenburg and Rivers -- coupled with memorable texts orchestrated by...