Artists' Books Guide

The Center for Book Arts online collections database is an indexed, searchable online resource that contains the Center’s historic and contemporary collection of approximately 2,500 (and growing) artists’ books and prints created by artists and publishers of regional, national, and international significance; reference books, periodicals and exhibition catalogues; and our institutional archive, which documents the distinctive history of the Center’s programmatic and administrative activities as the first non-profit book arts organization of its kind in the United States.

The Franklin Furnace Artists’ Books Collection is now housed on the campus of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. This research resource is made available to the faculty and students of Pratt as well as artists, curators, and the general public for study, enjoyment, and exhibition. By appointment only.

The Thomas J. Watson Library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art has an extensive collection of artists' books that are available for researchers without an appointment.

The Artists’ Books Collection (ABC) of the New York Public Library is one of the largest and most important collections in the country. To date, the collection holds more than 8,500 items.

Booklyn's mission is to promote artists books as an art form and as primary research material. Booklyn helps artists exhibit, distribute and publish their artwork and provides the general public and educational institutions with services and programs involving contemporary artists publications and works on paper including collage, drawings, prints and photographs.

The Center for Book Arts is committed to exploring and cultivating contemporary aesthetic interpretations of the book as an art object while invigorating traditional artistic practices of the art of the book. The Center seeks to facilitate communication between the book arts community and the larger spheres of contemporary art and literature through exhibitions, classes, public programming, literary presentations, opportunities for artists and writers, publications, and collecting. Founded in 1974, it was the first organization of its kind in the nation.

Central Booking in DUMBO is a new kind of art gallery with a welcoming atmosphere, Brooklyn’s own space focusing on the art of the book. We exhibit the breadth of the various approaches to the form, since the artist’s book can be anything from a pamphlet done inexpensively on a copy machine to a letterpress codex bound book integrating words and images to a sculptural piece that is an object itself. Brooklyn has taken its position as a major art center in the world and it now has a space where artist’s books from established artists to emerging ones can be seen all in one place and on a continual basis.

Hand bookbinding requires technique, skill and practice, as well as a few simple hand tools. Full Tilt classes address all of these by focusing on one particular structure, incrementally. The needs of the present-day bookbinder are considered in conjunction with historical aspects of the book. Classes are accessible to all levels of experience. Beginners are very welcome and will find expert introductory instruction; more experienced students will practice, refine and expand their repertoires.

Intima Press creates limited edition artist's books in New York City. Its fine printed books can be found in over two dozen public collections including the Library of Congress, the National Museum of Women In The Arts, the Victoria & Albert Museum National Art Library, Yale University Art of the Book Collection and Brown University's American Poetry Collection. The Intima Press offers workshops on letterpress printing and book arts at Studio on the Square.

The New York Chapter was the first regional chapter of the national Guild of Bookworkers. In support of the Guild's mission, the NY Chapter offers local workshops, lectures and other events related to book arts and crafts.

Printed Matter is the world''s largest non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of publications made by artists. Founded as a for-profit alternative arts space in 1976 by artists and artworkers, Printed Matter reincorporated in 1978 to become the independent non-profit organization that it is today. Recognized for years as an essential voice in the increasingly diversified art world conversations and debates, Printed Matter is dedicated to the examination and interrogation of the changing role of artists’ publications in the landscape of contemporary art. Printed Matter specializes in publications produced in large, inexpensive editions and therefore does not deal in "book arts" or "book objects" which are often produced in smaller, more expensive editions due to the craft and labor involved in their fabrication.

Booklyn and the Greenwich Village Antiquarian Book Fair are proud to announce the 2nd annual AB/Z Fair, a dynamic Manhattan-based book fair of pioneering contemporary creative publishing from A(rtists’) B(ooks) to Z(ines). AB/Z's goal is to give our participants an affordable and intimate Manhattan venue that provides access to new audiences, collectors, curators and librarians, and provides the general public access to artists and presses that previously have not had book fair venues in Manhattan.

Held annually in New York and L.A. in the early fall.