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Smithsonian Libraries and Archives / Unbound

What is an artist’s book?

Anne Evenhaugen
June 1, 2012
11 Comments

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some are to be
chewed and digested.”

 ~Francis Bacon, Essays (1625) Bacon’s Essays By Francis Bacon, Richard Whately.

 

 

We have talked about artists’ books on the Smithsonian Libraries blog before. And we’ll talk about them more, as a part of a short series to highlight interesting works of book art owned by the Smithsonian’s American Art & Portrait Gallery Library.

But what, exactly, is an artist’s book? You may not be able to tell just from looking at the object itself!

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Perfume and the Pilot

Leah Smith
May 30, 2012
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Page from The Little Prince

Doesn’t everyone have a female friend of the family that they call aunt, but she really isn’t a blood relation?  I had one.  Aunt Honey.  Honey was single, educated and well-traveled, and when I was a kid I thought she was so sophisticated and cool.  She had been absolutely everywhere and she always smelled heavenly.  I never knew what perfume she wore until after she passed away-it was Vol de Nuit Guerlain.

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Smithson’s Cookbook: English Curry

Daria Wingreen-Mason
May 23, 2012
5 Comments
Smithson’s Cookbook: English Curry"Currey", the Indian way.

The origin of curry, the saucy, spiced dish celebrated in India and Great Britain, is not exactly known.   But it is now thought that similarly spiced dishes were developed concurrently, but independent of each other, in England and in India thanks to the spice routes that spanned from Asia and into Europe.   Exotic spices like turmeric and pepper made their way into England during the conquests of the Romans in 40 AD and the Moors in 711 AD, and came in handy during Middle Ages when highly seasoned meats could make aging meat more palatable.

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