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The Jaffe Center for Book Arts revolves
around the Arthur and Mata Jaffe Collection: Books as
Aesthetic Objects. This collection consists primarily of
visual books gathered more for their artistic expression
than for their informational content. Words and text were
not the primary consideration in building this collection,
which has been assembled within a wide parameter of
aesthetics and book structures (including books that defy
traditional structure completely).
The essential focus of the collection is on artists' books
and the broader topics of the Book Arts: letterpress
printing, fine binding, handpapermaking and paper
decoration. The Jaffe Collection is one of the largest and
most varied collections of its kind in the country. And even
though it began as a private collection it is very well
suited to its current use as a teaching or academic
collection because of the broad range of techniques, styles
and genres it encompasses.
The beginnings of the collection were rather accidental:
Arthur Jaffe was not acquiring books with a collection in
mind, but simply began buying books that interested him. His
earliest books reflect his long interest in the Hebrew
"aleph bet," with a majority of the works being black and
white expressionist woodcuts. As his tastes changed and
developed so did the collection. Through Mata Jaffe's
influence, the collection became brighter and more
lighthearted and varied. Arthur says that Mata brought
"color and light to the collection."
Since the Jaffes' donation in 1998 to Florida Atlantic
University, the collection has more than tripled in size due
to continued donations from Arthur, as well as the donations
of our many supporters through the Jaffe Collection Support
Fund. The collection includes over 6,000 titles in our main
database, including such important works as Keith Smith's Book 91 (or "String Book"), an extensive collection of the
work of Leonard Baskin and the Gehenna Press, and numerous
pieces by book artists in the regional South Florida
community. Thanks to recent gifts to the collection, there
are also many books from the early artists' book movement of
the 1960s and 70s, featuring artists like Ed Ruscha and
Kevin Osborne.
Thousands of pieces of ephemera have also been collected
here, bringing additional depth to the Jaffe Collection.
(Ephemera includes correspondence, exhibition invitations,
newspaper and magazine articles, and even letterpress
printed drink coasters.)
The Jaffe Collection houses numerous smaller collections,
including the complete collection of the International
Society of Copier Artists Quarterly (ISCA), a collection of
almost 4,000 small books created by artists using the
photocopier as medium (Xerography). The Rosa Trillo Clough
Archive of Italian Futurism is also housed at the Jaffe
Collection, due to the many contributions to dynamic
typography by the Futurists. Our most recent addition is "Mutanabbi
Street Starts Here," a growing collection of broadsides
printed by members of the Mutanabbi Street Coalition--a
group of international poets, writers, printers and artists
creating literary broadsides in response to the March 2007
bombing of Mutanabbi Street, the historic bookselling
district and intellectual center of Baghdad. |
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