Society and book culture: The exhibition “Meetings in the book” in the General Staff building in Saint-Petersburg

"Meetings in the book", which focuses on the role of publishers, art galleries, bibliophile societies, as well as the artists themselves - in the new section of the permanent exhibition in the General Staff building (the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg) "Study of the book of the artist" is the first exhibition opened April 16, 2016 or authors release livres d'artiste.

The exhibition presents books from the collection of Mark Bashmakov. This collection is already familiar to the audience of the Hermitage, but submitted works, with a few exceptions, did not appear earlier in the Hermitage. 

In France, in the XX century, the publication of books with original graphics artists and sculptors became a prestigious occupation. A characteristic feature of this phenomenon is that the main role in it was played by people who initially were not professional publishers. By publishing them pushed the personal touch with artists. These books became known as artists' books, the Books of Masters.

The French name of the livre d'artiste gradually become an accepted and required no translation. Livre d'artiste is an object of art, harmoniously combines the achievements of literature, graphic and typographic excellence.

The exhibition presents about 50 books. Among them there are publications, illustrated by such famous artists as Edgar Degas, Andre Derain, Salvador Dali, Henry Moore. Along with this exhibition visitors will have an opportunity to get acquainted with the work of Wifredo Lam, Enrique Zanartu Anthony Tapesa, Lars Bo, and other artists who may be new to him.

Among the genuine masterpieces of book art at the exhibition you will see the monumental work of Salvador Dali's "Moses and Monotheism" with the text of Sigmund Freud, the famous Kipling's "Jungle Book" - a joint work of the artist Paul Juva, engraver Francois-Louis Schmid and publisher Philip Gonen, deluxe edition "Till Eulenspiegel" with compositions Paul Klein.