The Art of the Book:
Treasures from the Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries
The Art of the Book: Treasures from Special Collections showcases a variety of artworks housed in the Special Collections Research Center at Temple University’s Charles Library. Organized through a curatorial collaboration between graduate students from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, the exhibition and catalogue examine how the format of the book has been treated across time and geography. A key question at the heart of this exhibition is, what constitutes a book? The diverse examples featured in this show challenge our preconceived notions and expand our definitions of this type of object. Melding illustration, painting, object-making, calligraphy, and storytelling, the objects featured in The Art of the Book transmit a robust sense of the time and place in which they were created. Many of these books function as repositories of memory that simultaneously reflect the values, history, and available technologies of the particular cultural moment in which they were created. The thematic groupings of these treasures display the variety of ways in which artists from across the globe have dealt with similar subject matter and content.
The Art of the Book project is a collaboration between the Tyler School of Art and Architecture and Temple University Libraries.
Curated by graduate students from Tyler: Daniel Cappello (MFA Sculpture), MeiLi Carling (MFA GAID), Ivy D’Agostino (MA Art History), Bradford L. Davis (MFA Ceramics), Ana Matisse Donefer-Hickie (PhD Art History), Emma P. Holter (PhD Art History), Robin Morris (MA Art History), Mike Ray (MFA GAID), Ha Tran (MFA GAID), and Rachel Vorsanger (PhD Art History), with Dr. Joseph Kopta (Assistant Professor of Instruction, Art History) and Kimberly Tully (Curator of Rare Books, Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries).
Photography by Tyler MFA Photography students Sophia Dell’Arciprete, Natalia Purchiaroni, William Toney, and Yaqeen Yamani, with Byron Wolfe (Professor and Art Department Chair).
Graduate Project Manager: Jackie Streker (PhD Art History); Design Assistant: Emily Feyrer (BFA GAID); Lesson Plans: Marcella Green (M.Ed. Art Education); Videos: Nic Justice, Watch Me Rise Films.
The exhibition, catalogue, and public programming have been made possible by Temple University Libraries, the Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University’s General Activities Fund (GAF), the Jackson Fund for Byzantine Art, the Center for the Humanities at Temple (CHAT), the Art History Department and the Art Department at Tyler, and two anonymous donors.