All exhibitions are free and open to the public.  Non-Yale community members must check in with the security guard in the lobby of the Loria Center, 190 York Street, to gain access to the Haas Family Arts Library.  Photo ID required to enter library.

Current Exhibition

Tom Morin's Threads of Influence:  The Visual History of a Life in Graphic Design

January 13 - April 13, 2012

Tom Morin's recently published book Threads of Influence: The Visual History of a Life in Graphic Design (2011) traces his development as a designer from childhood influences in the mid-20^th century through his professional work during the 21^st century.  This exhibit presents a survey of Morin’s career as a graphic designer with a strong focus on his influences and student projects during his years in the Graphic Design graduate program at the Yale School of Art from 1966 to 1968.  Layouts from the book are paired with original documents and projects created by Morin.

Upcoming Exhibitions

[Your Name Here]: The Ex-Libris and Image Making

April 23 - August 17, 2012

Bookplates, also known as ex-libris, are labels pasted inside the front covers of books to indicate ownership.  This exhibition explores the ex-libris through the theme of image making.  Despite its small format, the bookplate is an inventive art form that inspires artists working in an encyclopedic array of graphic media.  The bookplate functions as a mark of possession; however, this simple purpose belies how fervently book owners and artists consider the bookplate a vehicle for self-expression.  [Your Name Here] examines both historic and modern examples of bookplates with a variety of motifs.  It also uncovers how questions of authorship arise in the collaboration between artist and patron as well as in the act of collecting itself.

With an estimated one million individual bookplate specimens, dating from the fifteenth to the twentieth century, the Yale Bookplate Collection is one of the largest such collections in the world.  However, this collection is not a singular entity; rather, its holdings comprise many different collections and an assortment of documentary materials.  It is a unique visual archive that forms a timeline of the history and the art of the ex-libris.  Moreover, the collection serves as a significant resource for the study of bookplates as well as that of biography and histories of the book, art and design, and collecting.  In addition to bookplates, the selections on view will include process materials, original sketches, correspondence, publications, and other related printed ephemera.

Vista Sans Wood Type Project

April 23 – August 17, 2012

Artists Tricia Treacy and Ashley John Pigford are the initiators of this project that includes letterpress prints by over 20 artists and presses, often collaboratively made.  Inspired by their interest in the intersection of old and new media, Treacy and Pigford used the modern technology of a Computer Numerically Controlled (CNC) router to create traditional wood type of the digital font Vista Sans, designed by Xavier Dupré for Emigré.  A set of five letters, spelling “touch,” was sent to the various participants, along with a set of paper.  These basic elements and the medium of letterpress printing are the common factors among the prints.  The resulting portfolio shows the wide variety of work being produced by letterpress in the contemporary book arts world.  The exhibition features the prints in the Vista Sans Wood Type Project portfolio and examples of the actual wood type.

Previous Exhibitions

Capturing the Inaccessible: The Aerial Photographs of Robert B. Haas '69

October - December 2009

The Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library welcomes the installation of 34 works by noted aerial photographer and Yale alumnus, Robert B. Haas '69. Included in the installation are both published and unpublished photographs from three different National Geographic book projects by Haas: Through the Eyes of the Gods: An Aerial Vision of Africa (2005), Through the Eyes of the Condor: An Aerial Vision of Latin America (2007) and Through the Eyes of the Vikings: An Aerial Vision of Arctic Lands (forthcoming). The 18 images in the William H. Wright Exhibition Area will be on view through December. The 16 images installed in the atrium of the Haas Family Arts Library will remain on display. For more information see the press release.

Material Meets Metaphor: A Half Century of Book Art by Richard Minsky

August 2 - December 21, 2010

Richard Minsky, pioneering contemporary book artist and founder of the Center for Book Arts in New York City, is known for his conceptual approach to hand bookbinding and commitment to changing the perception of the book arts from craft to fine art. He combines a background in Economics with an innovative use of traditional methods and new materials to create sculptural, often political bookworks.  His blending of an eclectic mix of interests, from musical and theatre performance to social issues and virtual worlds, remain a hallmark of Minsky's career.  This exhibition showcases his editioned (non-commissioned, made in multiple copies) bookworks alongside selections from the Richard Minsky Archive, which documents the history of his career and his working process.

A PDF catalog of the exhibition is free to view and download at http://www.library.yale.edu/arts/specialcollections/Material_Meets_Metaphor-Minsky2.pdf

For more information on Richard Minsky's work, including his own commentary, visit his web site, www.minsky.com

Curator Jae Jennifer Rossman, Assistant Director for Special Collections
With assistance from Mia D'Avanza, 2009 Kress Fellow in Art Librarianship & Molly Dotson, 2010 Kress Fellow in Art Librarianship

The Book as Memorial: Book Artists Respond to and Remember 9/11

September 6 - December 16, 2011

Ten years have passed since the tragedy that occurred on September 11, 2001, in several locations on the East Coast of the United States.  People in all parts of the country were affected and many of them looked for ways to respond.  This exhibition shows art work created by artists in response to the events of that fateful day.  Specifically, this exhibition focuses on works that memorialize the people lost and the indescribable sense that we, as a people, also lost something more intangible.  Some might call it a sense of innocence, others might call it a sense of safety, but few Americans would deny that the world felt changed after that day.  Using the book format, these artists have given form to these difficult thoughts and emotions to share with a wider audience and to help us remember.

The exhibition includes work by: Art of the Book program (Art School, Pratt Institute), Maureen Cummins, Mimi Gross & Charles Bernstein (Granary Books), Kate Ferrucci (People to People Press), Emily Martin (Naughty Dog Press), Mac McGill (Booklyn Artists Alliance), Sara Parkel (Filter Press), Werner Pfeiffer (Pear Whistle Press), Maria G. Pisano (Memory Press), Otis Rubottom, Sibyl Rubottom & Jim Machacek (Bay Park Press), Rocco Scary, Gaylord Schanilec & Richard Goodman (Midnight Paper Sales), Robbin Ami Silverberg (Dobbin Books), Patricia M. Smith (P.S. Press), Gail Watson (Zuni Press), Marshall Weber (Booklyn Artists Alliance), Pamela S. Wood (Rarehare Creations), J. Meejin Yoon (Printed Matter & Whitney Museum of American Art)

Anamnesis: 9/11 Postings. Installation created by Robbin Ami Silverberg. Courtesy of the artist.

Book Eleven.  Rocco Scary.  Courtesy of the artist.