News from
everywhere...
02.07.08 Italy this summer? Cristiano Beccaletto has curated a show of bookplates by Mariaelisa Leboroni and Lanfranco Lanari which opens on July 12th at 18.00h at the Museo Ex-libris Mediterraneo in Ortona. It will be on until September 10th. The artists will be present at the opening. 24.06.08 Wouter van Gysel has taken a major step in the world of the web and posted his site at www.librixarts.be . RUSH to visit it... it is very informative, as on his site, he... sells the ex-libris which he has commissioned! I haven't yet had the time to go through all the pages, but prices vary between 10€ for a wood engraving (Vermeylen) to 25€ for his Nozdrin, or Tycz, or an erotic Sugimoto... 35€ for his Denisenko and 65€ for his 'Hamlet' plate by Julian Jordanov. This new approach is really of great interest. Remo Palmirani, in one of his last publications before he died, criticised severely the primitive system of barter or 'swop' which people use for exchanges. He forecast that with time, collectors would put prices on their bookplates, so you could 'buy' at a known and clear price - as well as sell at a clear price. Each collector would have his system of hierarchies, and the price might be affected by, for example, how many prints the collector (still) has at his disposal. A step in this direction has also been made by the Istanbul Ex-libris Society, which is selling the 'spare' print from the Ankara Biennial competition on http://www.lebrizshop.com/shop2/listprods.asp?ref=&view=1&lang=TR&filter03=0&filter02=0&filter02Min=-1&filter02Max=-1&filter01=0&sort=0&sortType=ASC&reyon=0&altkat=77&q=3 for prices ranging from about 40 to 60€. E-Bay is also indicating that there are people out there willing to pay very large prices for bookplates, especially erotic ones. This is all fine and good. But what does this mean for the artist? If a bookplate by Jordanov sells for 60€ and even 100€, who is making money and is it on the back of the artist? Another question is to ask if this is a way to bring in new collectors of ex-libris, or are we going one step further into the realm of small-format graphics? And one cannot avoid asking oneself what effect will this have on artists as to the price of commissioning editions of bookplates? 24.06.08 Jean-François Chassaing has just sent the new web site address of the Morhange engraving gallery, of which he is the artistic advisor. Morhange, in Lorainne, organises a number of exhibitions of engravings every year, and often of artists active in the field of ex-libris. Go and visit http://salondemorhange.monsite.orange.fr 20.06.08 Those of you who get news on the grapevine will probably know that a major ex-libris earthquake has occurred in Turkey! Fortunately, no dead and no wounded! Our friend Hasip Pektas, who has been the life and soul of the Ankara Ex-libris Society since its founding in 1997, accepted to be the head of the graphics department at Isik University in Istanbul. So Hasip moved from Ankara to Istanbul. And a few months ago, he registered officially the Istanbul Ex-libris Society, which has incorporated the members of the Ankara society and whose new address and contact numbers can be found on the Turkish Member society's page (click here). An Ex-libris Museum is being created within the University campus, with an excellent exhibition space and facilities. The kick-back for you and me is that the 33rd International FISAE Congress will take place in Istanbul instead of Ankara. Although I have a soft spot for the capital of Turkey - where I lived nearly four years - there is no doubt that Istanbul is much more attractive. And Hasip has 24 months ahead of him to prepare a FANTASTIC congress for all of us! Bon courage! 20.05.08 A wonderful parcel arrived in my letterbox a short while ago, and I must say it was a delightful surprise: at last, Arkady and Gennady Pugachevsky have a really good publication about their work. You can see the cover of the book by clicking here. Published by the editor Sergey Brodovych in Kiev (Ukraine), with an interesting foreword by Y. E. Berdichevsky (God bless the English summary!), the 170-page full colour book shows a well-printed panorama of the outstanding work of the Pugachevskys, father and son. The variety of themes, the originality and precision of the technique as well as the brilliant approach to making real bookplates, which can adorn any precious book (as well as be the object of assiduous exchanges!) have confirmed the two Ukrainian artists as major figures in our field of interest. Persons wishing to purchase the publication can do so by e-mailing pugachevsky@gmail.com 19.05.08 Argentina and Italy have very special links, as you probably know. But this is a special one: Gian Carlo Torre, the Italian collector and exlibrist, has written an article about the Argentine artist Esteban Grimi in the March issue of GRAPHICUS. Have a look at the title page here, and read the article by clicking on this link. 18.03.08 Dear friends, I thought that you would never have any more updates from the fisae.org website! Six weeks ago, I suddenly found I could not use my usual programme to make changes, and the problem was with the server which hosts the site. By the time I asked for help, it was my computer hard disk which suddenly crashed in a terrible and definitive manner. Fortunately, much of my data could be saved, but 1.8 Giga of all that which dealt with the Nyon Congress was lost... as well as my programmes, of which the one I used to update the site. As it is not a very modern programme (and therefore perfectly suited to my incapacity) it took a good while to find... and it is only today that everything came back to working normally. So I have A LOT to catch up!!! Mind you, I was professionally very busy this last month, with the opening of a major exhibition of the Aga Khan's Islamic art collection at the celebrated Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon... where during the official dinner I managed to meet José Vicente de Bragança so to speak, in the flesh. A most enjoyable and memorable occasion - we managed to convince the Museum director to host a historic review of early bookplates, and more on this soon. But enough - I am abusing this site to give personal information!
25.01.08 For those of you who tend to travel in France by car, go and visit the small town of Avranches in the 'Manche' Department (between Rennes and Caen), where from February 1st to March 30th, AFCEL has organised an exhibition of contemporary ex-libris in the celebrated 'Scriptorium d'Avranches', which is the museum of the famous mediaeval manuscripts of the Mont St.-Michel. 1.01.08 Those of you who are in touch with Hasip Pektas, the President of the Ankara Ex-libris Society, will already know that he has left Hacetteppe University to become the director of the Graphic arts and Design Department of Isik University in Istanbul. Of course, as he is the life and soul of the AED, the society is moving to Istanbul as well, and at http://www.fisae.org/memberturk.html you can find all the new addresses. Your reaction might be: "Oh dear! What will become of the 2010 FISAE Congress, foreseen in Ankara?" Well, be reassured! Isik University has a wonderful campus in Istanbul, and the institution is very dynamic (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%C5%9F%C4%B1k_University). Moreover, the Dean of the Arts Faculty is none other than Suleyman Saim Tekcan, who is a member of AED, a well-known print artist and a member of the Jury in both ex-libris biennials of the AED. He and Hasip have already started preparing detailed information on how the Congress will be organised in Istanbul - a city which, moreover, has much more of interest to offer that the capital of Turkey... This information will be sent to all member societies before the Beijing Congress. We wish Hasip and all 150 members of the society much luck and success in their new location, and that they prepare a wonderful Congress for us in two years' time! 10.01.08 Most of you already know that Graphia will celebrate its 50 years of existence with a Jubilee Congress which will take place in Sint Niklaas on April 11-12-13 2008. The address is : Hotel Serwir, Koningin Astridlaan 57 te B-9100Sint-Niklaas. Please contact for registration marierose.theunis@telenet.be before 01.03.08... There are rumours floating that it is going to be a major event, with strong international participation! 28.11.07 The Belarus artist Anna Tikhonova will have a one-person-show of close to 50 of her bookplates in the Stadtbücherei of Regensburg (Germany) in December 2007 – January 2008. The opening will take place on 7th of December 2007 (Stadtbücherei, Heidplatz 8, Regensburg (Germany). CV of Anna Tikhonova
27.11.07 Most of you know the main vendors of ex-libris: Claus Wittal, Niels Witte, Marcela Groeneveld. They often post new lists on their web sites, and when I hear about them, I will mention them here. Marcela has just put up list No. 5 and you can latch onto it here. 1.09.07 Morhange, a small town some 50 kilometers due east of Nancy, in the heart of Lorraine, is a rising star in the print and ex-libris world as the 7th International print Salon of Morhange opened its doors last week. Jean-François Chassaing, who is on the board of the event, tends to priviledge bookplate artists... which is why this year Hayk Grigorian, Josef Werner and Katarina Zaric are amongst the seven exhibitors. The exhibition is not open permanently, but will be on September 21-23 and 28-30. If you are in the area, don't miss it! 10.09.07 Occasionally, a new web site relating to ex-libris appears. Go and visit www.ricardoabad.com, a site made in honour of the Spanish artist Ricardo Abad (1912-1992), active in Madrid. Abad was very prolific and made bookplates during fifty years. The webmaster of the site, Eugenio Rincón, has many of Abad's bookplates for sale.
02.08.07 The Swiss Ex-libris Club held its annual meeting in the last days of June in Zurich. Josef Burch had earlier indicated that he wished to retire from the Presidency of SELC, and Stefan Hausherr was elected in his place. The new president is a well-known librarian and works at the manuscripts and special collections department of the Library of Winterthur, close to Zurich. He has a substantial collection of bookplates and his interests span the history of early ex-libris right up to contemporary art. His English is quite good, and his French somewhat rougher... Stefan will certainly be very active in promoting ex-libris in Switzerland and will be able to count on the support of Hermann Anliker, SELC vice-President, Marianne Kalt, the association's secretary and Julia Vermes who handles the treasury. You will find that the SELC data on the members' page has been updated. I'm sure you will join me in extending our best wishes to Stefan for the future of SELC, and thanking Josef Burch for the excellent work he has done for so long. Josef can now deal more with his own collection... and he has become a web expert in order to work on the SELC site, http://www.exlibris-selc.ch/ 23.04.07
Ankara Ex-libris Society opened
an ex-libris exhibition in Canada,
Edmonton City at
SNAP Gallery in March 1st -
April 14rd, 2007. 03.04.07
Ankara Ex-libris Society opened
an ex-libris exhibition in Canada,
Edmonton City at
SNAP Gallery in March 1st -
April 14rd, 2007. 20.03.07
The
Results of
Hacettepe University
and
Ankara Ex-libris Society
2nd
International Ex-libris
Competition-Ankara 2007. 18.10.06 There will be a great Ex-libris Jamboree Meeting at Malbork Castle from June 1st to June 3rd 2007, in conjunction with the exhibition of the 21st biennial of Malbork (see competitions).The participation form can be downloaded here. More info, visit www.zamek.malbork.pl . 17.10.06 Dear friends, I apologise for having been so slow in dealing with the PILE of things left to do after Nyon. One of these was to revamp a bit our now official website, and I hope you like the new 'look'. There are kind offers to help with the German and French versions, but I will wait until the restructuring of the English version is complete before launching into the question of translations. Please let me know if there are broken links or things which don't work. Our friend Hasip Pektas has promised to help with adding images to the site and bringing the list of artists up to date... but he seems to be very busy also... So please be patient, and visit the site often to see the novelties! 13.09.06 New book: Small pictures - great images is a new book edited by Leila Lehtiranta about the ex-libris work of Pentti Kaskipuro. Click here to find out more 14.07.06 The Swedish Ex-libris Society has had a very important event! On June 19th, at the Royal Castle in Stockholm, the SEF presented two bookplates at an audience to HRH Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden. Printed in 5000 copies each, the two ex-libris were chosen by Her Royal Highness from some proposals submitted by the heraldic artist Vladimir A. Sagerlund. The first, in colour, was presented by Lars C. Stolt, as President of the SEF, and the second by vice-president Per-Axel Wiktorsson. From left to right:
24.06.06 Sometimes the news which I can bring you is really like sunshine! And this is a case in point: our friend and collector Lewis Jaffe has created a 'bookplate blog' which not only is worth a visit, but worth putting in your 'favourite favourites' and visiting as often as possible! It is a reflection of its maker: imaginative, with wide interests, enjoying the 'hunt' for all that is the fun story around any bookplate. If your idea of collecting ex-libris is just adding little art pictures into a box, forget visiting http://bookplatejunkie.blogspot.com/ . But if you enjoy teasing out information on who is behind the name, why it was made with this or that motif, why the artist accepted such a commission, what symbols the plate contains, whether the date written on it corresponds to when it was made or not - and if you are also sensitive to the aesthetics of bookplates, their endless variety and charm, then follow me and become a junkie, hooked on Lew Jaffe's blog. Congratulations Lew, and keep it up!!!
12.06.06 Terrible news! On May 19, a huge lime tree fell in Joke van der Brandt and Frank-Ivo van Damme's garden and smashed the veranda and part of the living room. Fortunately, neither was hurt, but they will need some six months to repair the damage, and have decided not to come to Nyon. We will sorely miss their charm and laughter... If you have ideas on how you can help them (even just with moral support!), don't hesitate to e-mail them at joke@kalligrafia.be, or give them a ring (+32 3 6472289... or send them a letter at St. Lukaslaan 22, B-2180 Antwerpen (Eheren), Belgium. You will see their work in the FISAE 2004-2006 exhibition in Nyon. Our warmest and very best wishes to them to quickly overcome this terrible event.
02.06.06 And another new web site... the Swiss Ex-libris Club (SELC) has been concocting this surprise for quite some time! Sleek, elegant and functional. Good information, and it's still under construction and will get better with time. The priority (in my opinion...) will be to get English, French and Italian versions going rapidly. That is quite a challenge (and it's a person who struggles daily with this problem who's writing...). Go and look for yourself: www.exlibris-selc.ch 31.05.06 A new web site, for the purchase of graphics, including ex-libris, is now online! The site can be visited at www.lukart.com . It has been created by a member of the SSPE, Mr. Luděk Klimeš member who can be reached by telephone at +420 775 252 977 and his e-mail is lukart@mtrebova-city.cz. The site is still far from satisfactory, as there is no search system by which ex-libris can be selected apart from free graphics, so one has to browse the list. Also, people are still wondering about the value of bookplates: two superb Brunovsky lithographic ex-libris were on sale. One, with a starting price of 3000 Czech Kroner (€110) was sold after two small bids over two months for €118; the other has a starting price of 40,000 CZK (€1420) and I doubt that it will find a buyer at THAT price!!! Another criticism is that all prices are in local currency and have to be converted... But it is a start, and Mr. Klimeš must be congratulated... 28.05.06 WoW! At last a site dedicated to important Chinese ex-libris artists. I find it is a little bit slow loading, and it would be good to have short biographical information in a Western language... but it is already a big step! Go and look at www.zhanglijiang.com ! 05.05.06 WOW! Our SELC President and this year President of FISAE, Josef Burch, came back from the DEG meeting in Zwickau with a big smile on his face: The Swiss Ex-libris Club was awarded the coveted von Zur Westen Award! Attributed by the German Society every two years, it recompenses individuals and societies who have done exceptional work in promoting the bookplate. It is true that thanks to the contribution of Carlo Chiesa and several other Swiss exlibrists (not least Josef Burch and his present and past group of Committee members), our small club does have quite an aura... We'll have to pull our socks up and make sure that the Nyon Congress is a hit! 20.02.06 We are starting a series of short articles in the 'archive' section of this site on the history of ex-libris in certain countries where there is not a substantial bibliography in one of the official FISAE languages... Go and see Professor Zhang's article on Ex-libris art in China... The next will be one on bookplates in Argentina. 31.01.06 A new database of ex-libris, with high quality images, is accessible on the Internet! It has generously been made available by the Pratt Institute of New York. So far, 125 items can be consulted, and the institute's whole collection (over 1200 items) with be online at a later date. Click here to find out more and access the site... 05.01.06 Yes... the German Ex-libris Association's website is back on line, with a good design and a huge amount of useful information - in German! Congratulations to all those who worked on it, and thank you for this useful reference tool... http://www.exlibris-gesellschaft.de/
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A page from Abad's ex-libris works
list...
