News from everywhere

Un viaggio a Italia... Don't miss the First Bodio Lomnago Congress, which will take place in Northern Italy the 12th and 13th of May, just after the German DEG congress which this year will be on May 03 - 06 in Grassau / Chiemgau... It will also be the Annual Congress of the Italian Bookplate Association, and as none has taken plave for quite a while, there will be many important Italian collectors who will be available for exchanges and interested in commissioning ex-libris... All the information on the venue can be found here, and the inscription form is available here.

The author of this pleasant little volume (19 x 17 cm, 111 pages) is a freelance critic and writer and former curator of prints at the University of Glasgow. It draws on the wonderfully rich collection of the British Museum and centres on the 1875-1950 period. It mostly contains British ex-libris but also a strong smattering of foreign (especially German) ones, and there are plentiful discoveries to be made! Foreign collectors tend to consider British bookplates boring, but these are far from dull! There are a few questionable inclusions, such as Beardsley's plate for Olive Custance (more research needs to be done on the subject), but on the whole the book is sound and well worth acquiring.

This volume also has the merit of allowing one to situate British bookplates within the wider context of European ex-libris during the 'modern' period. On the other hand, it fails to deal with contemporary bookplates, and this is symptomatic of the absence of vitality and the sluggishness of the British bookplate scene today. There are many members of the Bookplate Society who collect and research historical bookplates, and still a few artists who with great talent can produce superb wood-engraved plates for bibliophiles to paste into their books. But there are less than half-a-dozen collectors of contemporary plates, and what goes on in the rest of the world is unheeded in Britain. On page 109, the author gives some indications as to further reading - but they are dismally insufficient!

One must hope that the Bookplate Society finds the energy and resources to revitalise the art of bookplates in Britain, especially through competitions and congresses. Otherwise Mr. Hopkinson's volume will mark the end of ex-libris creation in Britain.

The Congress of the Shanghai Fu Xian Zhai ex-libris society, last month, was a wonderful experience. Please click here for a full description of the event! Images will be added in a few days...

Our friends from the German DEG have just brought out the catalogue of their 2011 competition on The Book-adequate bookplate, and it can be obtained from the society at a price of 10 EUR (including shipping!). Don't hesitate to contact birgit.goebel@t-online.de
The catalogue shows that it is possible for artists to express themselves beautifully and intelligently in a small format, which can really be pasted into books. One suddenly remembers that these are "book plates" i. e. small graphics made to identify the owner of a book into which it is pasted!!!

Cristiano Beccaletto is opening on the 9th of July an exhibition at the Museo Ex Libris Mediterraneo, in Ortona, an exhibition a exhibition on 'The Mediterranean dream in the bookplates of Vincenzo Piazza'... Anyone near Ortona this Summer should make the detour to see the show, as Piazza is without doubt one of the best engravers in Italy today. More information at http://www.exlibrismed.it/

The Shanghai Fu Xian Zhai is very productive!!! I just received their latest publications - the last issue of their magazine for 2010, the first two of 2011 (the latest is illustrated below) and a superb book on the bookplates of Katsunori Hamanishi. All this with an invitation to participate in a competition for collectors - the San Min Cup about which information will be posted on the competitions page. Bravo to this 'young' member society of FISAE!

Membership to the SFXZ costs 50 Eur and is really worth it! Payment is easy... get the info from gyy501231@sina.com

The former president of the Swiss Exlibris Club and friend Josef Burch has organised an exhibition on 'Children's worlds in bookplates' which is open in the Historical Museum of Sarnen (Switzerland) until July 31st 2011. an article was published with an interview of Josef... happy reading to Germanophones!

A Brazilian collector of ex-libris just asked me how to remove old mounts (paper, cardboard) on which bookplates have been pasted. Below is my answer, but I wonder if anybody could send him additional advice (Luiz Felipe P. Stelling [lufe1966@gmail.com]) and copy me at benoit.junod@akdn.

As to ‘lifting’ ex-libris from old paper or cardboard supports:
First check that there are no inscriptions in ink on the plate or support. Take a shallow tray, and fill it with distilled water (rather than tap water). Insert the plate and its support face down into the water, avoiding bubbles on the surface, and let it macerate for about 2-3 hours (maybe less if the bookplate is printed on fine Japan paper). According to the thickness of the ex-libris and the porosity of the paper, it will take a longer or shorter period of time for the bookplate to detach itself from the support. Do NOT try and pull it off if it doesn’t come loose by itself... leave it for longer. If after soaking for a whole night it still doesn’t come off, it’s because the glue is an insoluble one, and you’d better give up, unless the support paper can be peeled off and leave just the insoluble glue on the back of the ex-libris. Take the ex-libris and put it face down on a good, white blotting paper, and let it dry well (don’t put it between two sheets of blotting paper, or the remnants of glue will stick to the blotting paper and you’ll be back to square one!). Press it flat between two sheets of blotting paper in a press or under a pile of books for a few days. This process will also clean the ex-libris from surface dirt; if there are stains and they don’t disappear with the distilled water, soak it for a little while in a liter of distilled water to which you might add a soup spoon of peroxide (H2O2). Most brown stains or watermarks will disappear and the plate will be clean. Rinse the plate in distilled water before drying it...
This is a slow process, but for good ex-libris it is really useful - but beware of modern ex-libris with hand-colouring! Keep an eye on the plate as it ‘detaches’ from the support paper, as I have come across examples where there were inscriptions on the reverse of the bookplate which if left too long in water would have faded.

The two-volume catalogue of Eros & Thanatos was ready for the opening of the first exhibition of the best works from the competition, at the Castle of Nyon, close to Geneva. One volume is dedicated to the best erotic plates, and one to the best Eros & Thanatos. Both contain an introductory section with historical ex-libris on both subjects, and articles by Pierre-Yves Lador (a Swiss writer and historian), Michel Froidevaux (director of the FINALE erotic art foundation, Lausanne) and Benoît Junod, your favourite webmaster...

The volumes are 24 x 16.5 cm and contain 94 and 96 pages... with full colour illustrations. The books were designed by Marijena Junod. The two volumes are held together by a sleeve, and close with ribbons.

The two volumes cost 49 Swiss Francs (€ 36.30) TOGETHER!, plus postage and packing. The best is to visit the web site of Michel Froidevaux, www.humus-art.com from which the book can be ordered and paid by Paypal. They are sent immediately after being ordered.

OOOhh, of course! You MUST be over 18 to order the books... and the only exceptions are the ones made for Ichigoro Uchida and Lars Stolt!!!

A visit to St. Petersburg is always a pleasure, but this time it was also a surprise! I met Vladimir Vereschagin and we went to see a major exhibition of ex-libris by artists from the region, at the Gallery of the Lermontov library, in the city centre. This public institution has as mission to promote all aspects of the arts of the book and literature. It has three contiguous exhibition areas and the space (total 250m2) is used for exhibitions of rare and collectors’ books, illustration, applied graphic arts such as typography and typefaces, contemporary art based on literature, artists’ books… and ex-libris! The library develops its own collection of graphic works and fine books, and also organizes lectures and workshops for graphic arts.

The director of the gallery part of the library is a dynamic young woman called Natasha Ergens, and she has so far organized half a dozen exhibitions of which the first in the field of bookplates opened on February 10 and will last until March 11, 2011, showing close to 200 works of 50 artists of St. Petersburg, of which many are great masters in the field and winners of bookplate competitions worldwide. The image below shows some of them at the opening:

From left to right: Front row- Valery Babanov, Yury Borovitsky, Natasha Ergens, Kiril Avelev (collector), Oleg Yakhnin (behind), Vladimir Vereschagin (in front)
2nd row- Valery Orlov, another Valery Orlov (!) ,Victor Permyakov, ?, Tamara Romanova, Elena Pertova, Marina and Sergey Tyukanov, ?, Pitchugin, Nina Kazimova, Evgeny Blumkin, Yury Brehov, Kabanin (tall!), Yury Kazimov (with glasses), ... from the right side Nikolay Sautin and his wife ...

Natasha Ergens is enthusiastic about organizing more shows of bookplates. “The culture of bookplates has existed in Russia for several centuries. But now the tradition to mark the books of a library has faded and rubber stamps are mostly used. Now ex-libris exist mainly as a personalized art of graphic miniature, interesting for collectors and bibliophiles. Collectors are starting to reintroduce the practice of pasting them into their favorite books, making their library more beautiful and precious, and also exchanging them with other collectors.”

Left to right, Benoit Junod, Natasha Ergens, Vladimir Vereschagin and Pavel Pitchugin

News from Italy... Paolo Rovegno has a new website with illustrations of his work... go and visit www.paolorovegno.com

What a mistake!!! It's going to be fabulous. But at least, even if you can't afford the ticket or think that the trip is too long, or are (mistakenly) wary of Turkish cuisine, or afraid of being raped by belly-dancers, at least you can buy online the superb catalogues made by Hasip Pektas and his team!!!

If you want to buy the catalogue you have to transfer it's fee by MoneyGram to Hasip Pektas. (www.moneygram.com) And sent reference number to hasipp@ttmail.com
or transfer to Akbank Maslak Branch Account Name: Istanbul Ekslibris Dernegi Swift Code: AKBKTRIS IBAN: TR900004600645036000092044
The fee of the Competition Catalogue is EURO 30, the Collections Catalogue is EURO 30, the Bogdan Krsic Catalogue is EURO 20 (ingluding postage charges)
P.S.: If your ex-libris is in it, catalogue will be sent to you without fee

Please look at the page in this site dedicated to the next FISAE congress... you will be able to consult the final version of the Agenda for the Delegates' meeting!

... From April 23rd until May 7th, the Casal de Catalunya in the quarter of San Telmo, Buenos Aires, is showing an exhibition called "Hidden Treasures: Ex-libris as bridges between cultures". The show puts in dialogue engravers of ex-libris from GADEL (Marcelo Aguilar, Juan Bértola, Eduardo Campello, Alejandra Leyes, Eva Farji, Osvaldo Jalil, Sandra La Porta, Marcela Miranda, Gladys Muñoz, Fernando Polito, Anteo Scordamaglia, Julieta Warman) with Catalan artists who immigrated into Argentina from Cataluña in the 19th Century (Pompeyo Audivert, Emilo Bertrand. Francesc Fábregas i Pujadas, Lluis Macaya) and modern Catalan artists: Frank Alpresa, Jaume Carbonell, Oriol Diví, Francesc Orenes i Navarro, Josep Triadó.

Congratulations to GADEL for this innovative idea... If only there were a catalogue!

An invitation from AFCEL... they are having a bookplate exhibition from 5th to 27th March 2010 at the Médiathèque of Maizières-les-Metz... with a conference on women in bookplates.

Going to China soon? If you go to Tianjin, don't miss the exhibition of Martin Baeyens' "Duo" show. Martin put his work in dialogue with that of six Chinese artists, and they made four-handed ex-libris which are very, very interesting! Let's hope he also shows the project in Europe...

After a tremendous amount of work, and terrible setbacks such as the theft of his laptop with huge amounts of work on it, Anthony Pincott has at last finished the digital catalogue of the Franks collection at the British Museum. It is downloadable FREE OF CHARGE! This is a real gift, as this key work is one which every collector of British bookplates should have! Go and visit http://www.bookplatesociety.org/ On the site, in the Members' area, you will find also an auction of bookplates... where the prices are a mere fraction of what you see on e-bay!

The Hungarian ex-libris association has a new website... Please go to www.kisgrafika.hu

The Suomen Exlibrisyhdistys/Finnish Exlibris Association is presenting an exhibition of Belgian bookplate portofolios at the gallery of the city library of Helsinki in Itä-Pasila. The vernissage will be at the 8^th of January 2010 and the exhibition will be open untill the end of January. It was conceived by Arja Laakkonen (secretary of Finnish Exlibris Association) and Niklas Bengtsson (vice president of the association).

The exhibition is based on bookplate portfolios published by the Antwerpsche ex-libriskring. This Belgian association was founded in 1937 and according to the catalogues of the Belgian Royal Library it published portfolios until 1960. In the archives of the Finnish Exlibris Association there are portfolios from 1948 to 1960. The exhibition will be based on these portfolios. Click here to see an example...

These portfolios include bookplates and other graphic works by Belgian and foreign artists, for example by Dutch Cor de Wolff (1889-1963), Belgian Victor Stuyvaert (1897-1974) and Gerard Gauden (1927-2003). Artists presented in the portfolios were not important only in Belgium but also at an international level – for example in 2003 Frank-Ivo van Damme (1932-) was awarded an Albin Brunovsky Certificate by FISAE, which shows his international excellence in bookplate design.

At the opening seremony, a new book on ex-libris will be presented, called Exlibris- ja kuvasalkkujen elämäkertoja (Biographies of bookplate and art portfolios), which also has a chapter concerning the portfolios of the Antwerpsche ex-libriskring. This book is written by Niklas Bengtsson and published by the Finnish Exlibris Association.

As most of you will have guessed, from over three months without updates to the website, I have been really swamped with work. Mea culpa! I didn't inform you abour a splendid exhibition of ex-libris on the theme of wine, organised by Gian Carlo Torre. See the attached leaflet!

I have received an e-mail from Daniela Hartl-Heisan, a young Austrian artist who is interested in ex-libris and has a web site promoting them as well as her designs in this field. Go and visit her site at www.exlibrisstudio.com !

Giancarlo Torre has organised an exhibition of music-related ex-libris in the Italian town of Castello. Now, when I looked up Castello, I found that there were 30 towns of that name in Italy! Giancarlo than gave me more precise information, that it is Castello in Umbria... and I discovered that there are four Castello in Umbria! Further research made me conclude that it is the Città di Castello ("castle town") in the province of Perugia, in the northern part of the Umbria region of Italy. It is situated on a slope of the Apennines, on the flood plain of the river Tiber. The city is 56 km north of Perugia and 104 km south of Cesena on the S3bis. It is connected to the A1 highway by the SS 73 from Arezzo.... DON'T MISS IT !!! The exhibition will be open from 22 August to 6 September...

Apologies for the long silence... The Finnish Ex-libris Society (the one which is not Aboensis!) has a new website which I invite you to visit at

Congratulations to our dear friend Ichigoro Uchida who has the honour to preside the Nippon Exlibris Association! And also to Yoshinari Suehiro who has taken on the task of editor of the society journal.

The Hungarian artist Ferenc Keresi kindly sent me a link to a new website of Hungarian ex-libris artists, which you can visit by clicking on www.exlibris.lap.hu . Although Hungarian is not an easy language, if you click on the names of the artists, you open their sites and some have English versions. An excellent initiative which hopefully will make the artists from this country better known!

After a long silence, the Lithuanian Exlibris Club seems to be active and has organised, in cooperation with the Lithuanian Cultural Centre in the Netherlands, a Lithuanian Ex-libris Exhibition, which will open at 19.00h on February 5th at the Goethe Institut of Rotterdam (Westersingel 9, Rotterdam). Below are examples of two of the bookplates which will be on show:

(click on the images to enlarge - you will be able to see the signature and date!)

The exhibition will be open until 13 March 2009. I am sure that the organisers will be happy to see a large number of ex-libris enthusiasts at the opening! As many of you know, Lithuania has a long and fertile tradition of bookplates and many outstanding artists working in this field. More information on the show can be obtained from Saule Gaižauskaitė at the Lithuanian Cultural Centre, www.litouwscc.org , tel. +31(0)6 135 73 046

The Italian artist Roberta Angiolani has just remodelled her web site and added a section on her ex-libris. Please visit it at www.angiolani.com

Happy New Year, dear ex-libris friends, and may 2009 bring you a snowstorm of new bookplates, just the ones you were looking for!

And may the New Year bring you the conviction, which so many of us already share, that the most important feature of our hobby is the friendships it brings!

Our Finnish friends came to Beijing in an over 20-person strong delegation - as you can see from the cover of issue 3/08 of the Exlibris Aboensis magazine below!

It bears proudly a blue banner saying that the 2012 FISAE Ex-libris Congress will be in Finland, as was proposed by the president Tauno Piiroinen in Beijing. We all wish our Finnish friends great success with the preparation of the Congress. Even if they have nearly four years ahead for their preparations, it is a daunting task - but they have over 500 members, and I know that moreover they can count on the cooperation of their Finnish sister-society, Suomen Exlibrisyhdistys. My hope, personally, is that the Naantali Congress will be a bridge between ALL bookplate collectors and enthusiasts, in particular between those for whom a congress is solely a place for exchange of small original graphics, and all the others for whom the fascination of ex-libris comes from their history, their owners and artists, their style and origin, whatever their size or technique.

This issue of Exlibris Aboensis contains as a contribution to Beijing participants a booklet with a worklist of the Finnish artist Raimo Kanerva (1941-1999) whose original and imaginative bookplates brought him many awards.

Jean-François Chassaing has blogged! A brilliant idea... instead of the tedious task of sending an electronic newsletter to all AFCEL members and fans, he has created an AFCEL blog, of which the url is http://exlibris-afcel.blogspot.com/ . You can become an 'abonné fidèle' (faithful customer) by clicking on the front page and filling in a Google-blogger form in German... Hopefully, the system will be simplyfied, and meanwhile, go and AFCEL-blog regularly!

If you want to know more about the German Ex-libris Congress in Wiesbaden in 2009, go to http://www.fisae.org/meetsandcongs.htm and click on the right name...

I nearly missed an event: Hasip Pektas opened an exhibition of his ex-libris the day before yesterday (and it's open until December 30), at the Grafik Bölümleri Iletisim Grubu, Maltepe Üniversitesi İletişim Fakültesi İç avlu, Marmara Eğitim Köyü, Maltepe, Turkey. For those of you who might be in Istanbul in the course of this month, take the E80 motorway in direction of Ankara, cross over into Asia and about 8 km further you will see indications to turn right to Maltepe. If you get lost, telephone Hasip... +90 216 470 9292...

Our Argentine friends are still close to Xylon and the web site of this organisation, http://www.xylonargentina.com.ar/gadel/, continues to give information on bookplate activities in Buenos Aires and the region. However, Osvaldo Jalil, who is in many regards the 'engine' of the ex-libris group in Argentina has just created a new GADEL Blog which well deserves your visit. It can be seen at http://gadel-argentina.blogspot.com/. You will see that GADEL has organised a show of the Myths and Legends competition, as well as one of bookplates by the Hungarian artist Imre Szilagyi, and they are enjoying themselves!

A quick note to tell anyone who is close to Milano next week: the exhibition organised by Gian Carlo Torre, La Montagna incartata (the mountain wrapped up in paper) will open at 17.00h on Saturday December 6 at the Villa Sottocasa in Vimercate (about 45 minutes' drive, northeast of Milan).

A book by Gian Carlo Torre corresponds to the exhibition and is one of the best publications I have seen on ex-libris in recent years:

It looks at all aspects of the triangular relation book - ex-libris - mountain, and the well- chosen texts are both in Italian and English (summaries in a few cases). The book can be obtained directly from the author, giancarlotorre@alice.it

I have just received the 15th electronic monthly bulletin of AFCEL from Jean-François Chassaing, which contains a large quantity of information on prints exhibitions and competitions, which can be useful especially for artists. One regrets that only very few of these are ex-libris-oriented activities. Should someone wish to receive it, they can ask for it by e-mail to jefchassaing@wanadoo.fr

There are few people in the ex-libris world whom I admire more than my good friend Klaus Roedel. Organiser of three FISAE congresses, artisan of the Frederikshavn Museum with its over-a-million ex-libris collection, researcher on bookplates and publisher of countless books and monographies on the subject, he has been for many years the guiding light of the Dansk Exlibris Selskab and editor of the Nordisk Exlibris Tidsskrift.

But... some five years ago, when I started this web site, Klaus and his dynamic treasurer Helge Larsen told me... yes, our web site is under construction! Whenever I asked Klaus about basic figures of the DES, he would say that Helge would give them to me... and that the web site was about to go on line. I finished by giving up, and waited patiently for the web site to be born, after a gestation period three times longer than an elephant's... AND IT HAPPENED! The web site is on line and can be visited at http://danskexlibrisselskab.dk/index.php/ .

One can regret that there is not an English version of the site available, or a German one (Klaus' German is perfect). I am sure that Klaus will tell us that it is under construction.

Perhaps one small addition to the site will be necessary: a recognition of the authorship of the ex-libris of which elements are used in the title banners of the site pages... They are by Martin Baeyens, and are bookplates for Bettina Burch, Wouter van Gysel and Vassilis Zevgolis. I am sure, of course, that Klaus asked permission of the author to use these images...

We have just received the catalogue of the Enchanted Wood (Bosco Stregato) competition, and you can see its cover by clicking here. It can be ordered from Tomaso Lo Russo, Associazione Solstizio d’Estate, Via Lupiano, 7 - 12050 Bosia (CN) • Tel. 0173/52.92.93 • e-mail: info@boscostregato.com

Osvaldo Jalil from GADEL just sent a message saying that the awards and opening ceremony of the Myths and Legends Competition Exhibition had to be delayed a little for technical reasons. It will take place on Monday 24th November 2008 at 7.00 p.m. at the Fine Arts Museum in Quilmes, Buenos Aires. Any bookplate enthusiasts who happen to be in Buenos Aires are welcome. A catalogue is also being prepared that will be sent to all participants after the contest.

I had a short news update from Jo Kohn, who as you know is the secretary of the Pierre Roberti Circle in Luxemburg. Jo writes that the CPR has been a bit sleepy these last two years, due to health problems of some of the members or of their family. However - during this 'period of rest', as he terms it, five bookplate exhibitions were presented - two at Ettelbruck, one in Mersch and two in Vianden. At the moment , there is an ex-libris show in Ettlebruck for the 50th anniversary of the Agricultural Technical High School. The bookplates selected are those which illustrate the subjects which are taught there - agriculture, gardening, water management and forestry, pisciculture and horticulture.

Bravo, Jo... keep up the fight! If we know the dates beforehand, we can announce the events here - and will do so with pleasure!

Josef Werner is having a one-man show of his graphics from 7 November to 8 December at Galerie Stadtmuseum Weilheim i. OB, Marienplatz 1, 82362 Weilheim, Germany.

This artist is an important creator of ex-libris, and his opuslist in this field can be consulted here, or downloaded as a .pdf by clicking here.

Please note that the general e-mail of the Nippon Exlibris Society has changed to exlibris@oregano.ocn.ne.jp

Within the Istanbul Museum of Graphic Arts (IMOGA), the Istanbul Ex-libris Museum was formed on January 8 2008. It is part of the Istanbul Ex-libris Society, and Hasip Pektas presides both institutions. As you will see from the images below, the space is excellent and well equipped.

The nucleus of the collection is formed of the 7,500 ex-libris sent by artists who took part in the 2003 and 2007 Ankara Biennials, as well as the 2,500 items in Hasip Pektas' personal collection, which he donated to the museum. All donations of ex-libris from collectors and institutions will be most welcome!

The address of the Museum is Ünalan Mah. Barajyolu Sok. No 14, Üsküdar TR-34700 Istanbul, Turkey. It can be reached by telephone: +90 216 470 92 92 or by e-mail to Hasip Pektas: hasipp@ttmail.com The Istanbul Museum of Graphic Arts has a web site, www.imoga.org, and information about the Ex-libris Museum will be added soon.

Thanks to the constant efforts of Martin Baeyens, three exhibitions of bookplates will be on the walls of the Zebrastraat Gallery in Ghent from November 11 until the end of the month. One is an exhibition of the results of the 3rd CGD ex-libris competition, the second is a show of Art Nouveau bookplates from the Sint Niklaas Museum collection, and the third is an exhibition of Martin's ex-libris. For the pleasure of your eyes, here is the poster he designed...

The Argentine artist Muriel Frega just published an excellent article about ex-libris in the digital magazine 'Sacapuntas' (pencil sharpener), and you can download the issue of the magazine at http://www.a- d-a.com.ar/ descargas/ sacapuntas017. zip
If you just want the article, I have made a .pdf file of it and you can download it by clicking here. Please be patient as it is a bit heavy! As there is not much being written outside our member societies in Spanish about bookplates, don't hesitate to send it to your Spanish-speaking friends!
Thank you, Muriel!

Gian Carlo Torre in Italy has just sent me information as to his book which will be published soon on Mountain and mountaineering bookplates. An exhibition on the same subject will take place in Genova from October 11 to 31 at the Istituto FASSICOMO, Via Imperiale 41. Further information on opening times, etc. can be obtained from tel. 010- 518651 or scuola.grafica@tiscali.it.

The exhibition will afterwards be shown in Trento, as an homage to the 96-year-old Remo Wolf, one of the great woodcut artists of the bianco-e-nero tradition, who lives there.

Jack van Peer, the President of Graphia, has taken advantage of the 50th anniversary of the well-know magazine to launch a study of membership both of artists and collectors. Hopefully, many people will respond to this inquest, which will allow the Graphia team to adjust the magazine's content to what the readers demand... as well as to publish profiles of artists and collectors in future issues...

What? You have not been sent the questionnaire? Quickly send an e-mail to jack.van.peer@skynet.be
and I am sure he will send it to you at once!

Much updating to be done... Our friend Serguey Hrapov has a new web site. Go quickly and take a look at http://www.hrapov.com/ and be visitor 011012 !!!

What a good surprise! I just received an e-mail from Professor Mark Ferson to ask me to post information as to the New Australian Bookplate Society which was founded in 2006 and counts some 60 members. It issues a full-colour quarterly newsletter. The contact data for the society is listed below and is posted on the 'non-FISAE members' page.

I would like to welcome on our readers' behalf this new society. It has applied for FISAE membership and hopefully this will be granted at the Beijing Congress.

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.

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.

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?

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

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!

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

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.

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!

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.

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!

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!

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 7^th of December 2007 (Stadtbücherei, Heidplatz 8, Regensburg (Germany). CV of Anna Tikhonova

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.

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!

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.

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.

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/

Ankara Ex-libris Society opened an ex-libris exhibition in Canada, Edmonton City at SNAP Gallery in March 1st - April 14rd, 2007.
Ankara Ex-libris Society opened an ex-libris exhibition in Finland, Helsinki, at STOA The Cultural Centre in April 10-22, 2007 with collaboration Mr. Olli Ylonen who is the chairman of the Finnish Ex-libris Society.
Hasip Pektas will open solo ex-libris exhibition in Belarus, Minsk at Belarussian State Academy of Arts in May 14-18, 2007

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 .

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!

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

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.

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!!!

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.

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

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...

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 !

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!

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.

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...

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/

Where can I find something which was posted and has been removed?
Competition results, in memoriam notices and all other material except what refers to ephemeral events such as meetings and exhibitions are posted to the 'Archive' section of this site. Consult it!