BOOK ART COLLECTION

The first exhibits in the Book Collection, which has grown to encompass some 3,500 objects, were acquired in the early years of the Museum.
In the first few years of building up the collection, the empha-
sis lay on magnificently bound tomes, valuable incunabula and prints from the 16th to 18th Centuries, manuscripts and bibles. These include an edition of Hartmann Schedel’s “Weltchronik”, a Merian and a Luther bible. The range of purchases soon widened to include titles with particularly fine illustrations and typographically outstanding works from the 19th Century, focusing especially on Jugendstil. Examples of bookbinding art, illustration and typography spanning the entire 20th Century followed.

Besides many objects by internationally celebrated illustrators and book designers such as Beardsley, Crane, Czeschka, Morris, van de Velde and others, the collection has considerable numbers of illustrated children’s books and magazines (including Derrière le Miroir, Émigré, Pan, Sigill, Ver Sacrum, Wendingen), family albums, hymn books, calendars and almanacs. Among the artists’ books we find Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, HAP Grieshaber, Oskar Kokoschka, Henry Moore and Pablo Picasso. At present it is principally books with work by contemporary artists which are on the list for acquisition. Only a small part of the Fine Book Collection is on display in various departments of the Museum. Selected items are shown sporadically in the reading room of the Gerd Bucerius Library.

After prior request, selected items from the Fine Book Collection can additionally be viewed in the reading room of the Gerd Bucerius Library.

“Forum Buchkunst” has grown up around the collection. Regular events in the Library , are addressed to the audience interested in books and bibliophilic art in the widest sense.