Exhibition

Contemporary Designer Bookbindings from The Collection of Neale and Margaret Albert

Featuring the work of designer bookbinder George Kirkpatrick (born 1938), one of the most imaginative artists represented in the collection of Neale and Margaret Albert, this display also included exemplars by other noted designer bookbinders working today, such as Susan Allix, Hannah Brown, Gabrielle Fox, Michael Wilcox, and Robert Wu.

Many of these bindings were especially commissioned by Neale Albert (Yale JD 1961), who is an active supporter of this often underappreciated aspect of the book arts. Albert was elected in 2014 as an honorary fellow of Designer Bookbinders, the principal society in Great Britain devoted to artistic bookbinding. All of the books included in the exhibition were a promised gift to the Center from Neale and Margaret Albert, who kindly extended the run of the exhibition through November 29, 2020.

Credits

Contemporary Designer Bookbindings from the Collection of Neale and Margaret Albert was curated by Molly Dotson, Assistant Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Center.

Top image
George Kirkpatrick, designer and binder of The Neale M. Albert Collection of Miniature Designer Bindings; A Catalog of an Exhibition Held at the Grolier Club, September 13–November 4, 2006, by Neale M. Albert (New York: Grolier Club, 2006) (detail), bound in 2008, leather binding with leather onlays and gold tooling, Collection of Margaret and Neale Albert, Yale JD 1961, photo by Richard Caspole