Meet the U.S. and U.K. binders of the 2018 facsimile by Kitty Maryatt of the 1913 book, La Prose du Transsibérien, by Blaise Cendrars and Sonia Delaunay. The binding by Paul Bonet of a copy of the original in 1963–64 was the inspiration for the idea to commission twenty-five binders to bind the 2018 facsimile, which replicated the original techniques of letterpress and pochoir. The resulting bindings were shown at the exhibit titled Drop Dead Gorgeous, which toured the country starting in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston. The exhibit closes in Minneapolis at MCBA on May 9, and will land in London in the fall. An exhibition catalog for Drop Dead Gorgeous is available.
The binders will discuss their process of designing and executing a binding for the new facsimile of a book that was groundbreaking for its time. The 1913 book was printed on four large sheets of paper, trimmed,glued into a scroll, then folded in half vertically and folded again into an accordion-fold book. The original binding was a piece of vellum, painted in oils, folded in half, which was to be glued to the top edge of the book. The Paul Bonet binding folded the pages di‡erently from the original; he received the pages unglued, so he decided not to fold the pages in half first; then he folded them into an accordion book. The newly commissioned binders were free to glue and fold the book as they wished, though a few binders were given the book already glued and folded by the original method.
The twenty-one participating binders will give presentations in groups of five, with breaks in between each of four sessions for brief questions and/or comments. It will be organized alphabetically, so that you can be sure to know when your favorite binders will be presenting. There will be time at the very end of all the sessions for the binders to ask each other questions, and to interact with the audience.
Session 1: Kathy Abbott, Servane Briand, Hannah Brown, Coleen Curry, Sue Doggett.
Session 2: Samuel Feinstein, Erin Fletcher, Don Glaister, Susan Hulme, Lang Ingalls, George Kirkpatrick.
Session 3: Midori Kunikata-Cockram, Monique Lallier, Kitty Maryatt, Sabina Nies, Eleanore Ramsey.
Session 4: James Reid-Cunningham, Dominic Riley, Tracey Rowledge, Haein Song, Julian Thomas.
Kitty Maryatt, Creator of the 2018 La Prose du Transsibérien Re-creation, will moderate this event.