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Artists' Books and Supporting Resources: Find Articles

Article Database

Art Source indexes several major artists' book journals, including Bonefolder, Journal of Artists' Books, and Umbrella.

Clinkscale, by Helen Douglas and Telfer Stokes

An accordion fold artist's book featuring a photo of grass.

Selected Journals

Openings: Studies in Book Art, Journal of the College Book Art Association

"Openings: Studies in Book Art is the online journal of the CBAAOpenings is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes critical, historical, and theoretical articles, book and exhibition reviews, as well as interviews about book art and its pedagogy. Contributions from diverse perspectives are welcome as are interdisciplinary and international explorations of the relationship of book art to the broader art world and to related fields such as poetry, graphic design, printmaking, digital media, and other textual and/or visual disciplines."  (Open access)

Journal of Artists' Books
"The Journal of Artists' Books provides a platform for both theoretical and creative expression. As a forum for the study of artists' books, JAB publishes critical and theoretical articles, reviews of artists' books and exhibitions, and commentary on conferences and and other book art-related activities. JAB also regularly showcases creative work in the form of artists' statements and artist-designed pages and covers."
(from the JAB web site) The library provides access to JAB electronically and in print (intermittently from 1997 until it ceased publication in 2020) at the Sloane Art Library.

The Bonefolder
"The Bonefolder, an outgrowth of the Book Arts Web, is a peer-reviewed "open-access" e-journal for bookbinding and the book arts. Since fall of 2004, The Bonefolder has reached a global audience and contributed to the body of knowledge in the book arts both theoretically and practically."
(from the journal's web site)

Umbrella (up to 2005 publicly available)
Umbrella is another of the very few journals that deal specifically with book arts. It features interviews, essays, book reviews, and news about events and exhibits.

A number of more general art journals occasionally feature articles on artists' books, including Art on Paper, Printmaking Today, Afterimage, and many others. Most of these journals are indexed in Art Full Text so searching that database can be the best way to find articles from a broader range of sources.