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Treasures from the Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet, Paris
French bookbinders led the world in their craft in the earlier part of the 20th century -- especially from the 1920s to the 50s -- and fostered the designer-bookbinder movement that took firm root in several other countries. The most influential of these were Legrain and Adler, who between them created some 525 bindings for the French bibliophile, couturier, collector, and philanthropist Jacques Doucet. Curated jointly by Yves Peyré, Director of the Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet, and by H. George Fletcher, Brooke Russell Astor Director for Special Collections of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, the exhibition highlights the creativity and vision of these two artists through fine examples of the art of bookbinding. Among these are a stunning perforated steel and blue leather binding by Legrain, and another of citron leather with an inlaid gemstone designed by Adler. The bindings cover rare editions and manuscripts from Doucet's collection, the works themselves constituting a unique legacy of French literary culture in the modern era. (View all images) Jacques Doucet (1853-1929), who was an active participant in the world of literature and the arts between 1880 and his death, had assembled a first-class collection of manuscripts and rare editions by mostly contemporary French writers, including Stendhal, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Mallarmé, Apollinaire, Gide, Claudel, Valéry, Cocteau, Mauriac, Giraudoux, Reverdy, Breton, Tzara, Aragon, and Desnos. Doucet sought special bindings for these precious works, and in 1916 he gave several commissions to a designer named Pierre Legrain. Pierre Legrain Pierre Legrain (1889-1929) is credited with revolutionizing bookbinding design in France, but he came to this calling serendipitously. After his medical discharge from the French army in 1916, the unemployed Legrain, who had studied theater design and applied art, turned for help to Doucet, for whom he had designed furniture and jewelry before World War I. Doucet asked him to design bindings for his outstanding collection of literature. Though at first reluctant to accept the proposition, Legrain went on, in a brief career of only a dozen years, to create a series of trailblazing designs for over 1,200 bindings (almost 400 of them for Doucet), which changed the face of bookbinding design, first in France and then in Europe and America. Avoiding overembellishment, Legrain became known for his artistic restraint, combining a refined simplicity with luxury (one of the hallmarks of Art Deco) to create bindings that expressed nuance while staying attuned to the text. His bindings, which soon adorned works by such writers as Verlaine, Gide, Cocteau, and Morand, demonstrate a vibrant yet restrained sensibility in their use of colors and geometric shapes. For Remy de Gourmont's Les Chevaux de Diomède, for example, Legrain used red goatskin adorned with black undulating lines and small circles in a frieze-like motif. The design is carried over to the lining of black silk. One of the most eye-catching items on view is the binding Legrain created for Paul Morand's Les Amis nouveaux, in which he combined blue calf with perforated nickel-plated steel, with gold dots in the center of the perforations and repeating on the spine and the doublure. Considered one of the great "modern" bindings, the composition appears to salute architect Otto Wagner and his Postal Savings Bank in Vienna, an impression reinforced by the steel rivets on the inside of the covers. In another example, a double moonrise, on the front and back covers of Paysages légendaires by Georges Rouault, is accented by gold stars and silver dots. In this design, probably his last, Legrain combines brown and black goatskin and carries the theme almost seamlessly over onto the spine; the lining is of dove gray suede. Pierre Legrain died in 1929 at only forty years of age. Rose Adler A native of Paris, Rose Adler (1890-1959) was a founding member of the Société de la Reliure Originale. She specialized in the application of gilt tooling and also designed clothing, furniture, and jewelry. When Jacques Doucet first encountered Adler's work in 1923, he was taken by her talent and immediately commissioned three bookbindings, the first of the 145 fine bindings she would create for him. If Legrain can be said to represent the early phase of Art Deco, Adler incarnates the later phase, introducing a new suppleness and sensuality. Combining calf and goatskin with more unusual materials such as crocodile, lizard, or snake, and often using inset gemstones, Rose Adler took modern bookbinding to a new level. Adler's unconventional, imaginative style is evident in her binding for Valéry's La Soirée avec M. Teste, where the interior and exterior of the binding are, in effect, reversed. She combines gray snakeskin on the front and back covers with red calf for the spine and the doublure. The color motif repeats in the endpapers of gray watered silk and even in a braided placemarker that ends in a red coral pearl. Adler was passionately inventive in her designs, and Doucet offered her the rarest editions of Mallarmé, Apollinaire, Reverdy, Gide, and Aragon. For Louis Aragon's Les Aventures de Télémaque, for example, Adler created a "confetti" design of colored mosaic roundels, inset into polished black calf, with a spine of lacquered gold leaf interrupted only by simulated clasps of red calf. An elegant simplicity defines her bright citron binding for Francis de Croisset's Aux fêtes de Kapurthala, in which a vertical gold and silver and black bar is highlighted by an inlaid chrysoprase in the center. Though the book is only 7 inches tall, Adler has created an object that is both jewel-like and imposing. Rose Adler experienced a fallow period during the years of the German occupation and emerged from the austerities of the war years in poor health. She worked again during her last decade to produce decorative objects and bookbindings, though at a noticeable remove from the imagination and vigor of the years with Doucet. The Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet The Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet, a principal institution for the study of French arts and letters, collects French literature from Baudelaire to contemporary writers. Its holdings include more than 120,000 manuscripts and more than 35,000 rare books, as well as newspaper archives, photographs, and works of art. The collections contain the archives of such writers as Apollinaire, Aragon, Baudelaire, Breton, Desnos, Eluard, Gide, Mallarmé, Malraux, Mauriac, Rimbaud, Tzara, Valéry, and Verlaine. As an essential research center, the library is a distinguished repository of France's literary heritage. The New York Public Library's Spencer Collection The Spencer Collection of Illustrated Books, Manuscripts and Fine Bindings was established by the bequest of the American expatriate collector William Augustus Spencer, who died aboard the Titanic in 1912. Along with his personal collection of 232 primarily French nineteenth-century illustrated and sumptuously bound books, the gift included a generous endowment fund and a directive to acquire the finest illustrated books and manuscripts produced in any country, language, or period. Today the Spencer Collection comprises more than 10,000 objects and surveys the illustrated word and beautiful bindings from medieval manuscripts, Japanese scrolls, Islamic manuscripts, and Indian miniatures to contemporary livres d'artiste. Among its many treasures are four bindings by Rose Adler, six by Pierre Legrain, as well as an album of 96 original designs for bindings by Legrain. Companion volume Art Deco Bookbindings: The Work of Pierre Legrain and Rose Adler, by curators Yves Peyré and H. George Fletcher, is illustrated in full color and features all of the bindings in the exhibition. More than 80 images offer views of the exteriors and some interiors of the bindings, as well as striking pages from the books and manuscripts themselves, along with introductory texts that discuss the works' revolutionary effect on modern design. Published by Princeton Architectural Press in association with The New York Public Library, it is available in hardcover ($35) at The Library Shops and in bookstores nationwide. The Art Deco Bookbindings of Pierre Legrain and Rose Adler has been jointly organized by the Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet, Paris, and The New York Public Library. The exhibition is on view February 27 through June 12, 2004, at The New York Public Library's Humanities and Social Sciences Library in the Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery on the main floor. Exhibition hours are Tuesday and Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; closed Sundays, Mondays, and national holidays. Admission is free. For more information about exhibitions at The New York Public Library, the public may call 212-869-8089 or visit the Library's website at www.nypl.org. Major support for this exhibition has been provided by The Florence Gould Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the Grand Marnier Foundation. Support for The New York Public Library's Exhibition Program has been provided by Pinewood Foundation and by Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III. Contact: Tina Hoerenz or Herb Scher, 212-221-7676. Available images th: pro |
