Decorated Paper: A Selection of Publications in Watson Library

This is the seventh volume of Paper Portfolios, a thematic series. This volume features the pulp paintings of eighteen artists working with a variety of fibers and implements, from stencils to dentist tools. Pulp painting is the technique of applying pigmented pulp to a wet sheet of handmade paper. During pressing, the pulp becomes integral to the sheet. Shown are the papers of Beverly Sky (left) and Shannon Brock (right). Sky’s pulp art was created with 250 sheets laid out together and pulp painted as one piece, so that each sheet contributes to one whole artwork.

These miniature marbling books show the work of Ann Muir and Christopher Weimann. Muir’s books display a collection of traditional specimens marbled on vintage paper and ten marbled illustrations with natural motifs inspired by the Turkish art of Ebru. Muir was inspired to create The Ancient Art of Ebru after seeing Weimann’s Marbling in Miniature of which Watson Library owns three copies. Weimann, a pioneer marbler who specialized in the historic marbling techniques of India and Turkey, created these diminutive designs with eye droppers and fine needles.

These miniature marbling books show the work of Ann Muir and Christopher Weimann. Muir’s books display a collection of traditional specimens marbled on vintage paper and ten marbled illustrations with natural motifs inspired by the Turkish art of Ebru. Muir was inspired to create The Ancient Art of Ebru after seeing Weimann’s Marbling in Miniature of which Watson Library owns three copies. Weimann, a pioneer marbler who specialized in the historic marbling techniques of India and Turkey, created these diminutive designs with eye droppers and fine needles.

These miniature marbling books show the work of Ann Muir and Christopher Weimann. Muir’s books display a collection of traditional specimens marbled on vintage paper and ten marbled illustrations with natural motifs inspired by the Turkish art of Ebru. Muir was inspired to create The Ancient Art of Ebru after seeing Weimann’s Marbling in Miniature of which Watson Library owns three copies. Weimann, a pioneer marbler who specialized in the historic marbling techniques of India and Turkey, created these diminutive designs with eye droppers and fine needles.

This portfolio contains twenty-four leaves of marbled paper with Ottoman motifs by German-Turkish artist Nedim Sönmez. Known as a representative of Turkish marbling art (Ebru), Sönmez is also a paper historian and founder of the Ege University Paper and Book Arts Museum in Izmir. Watson Library owns fourteen of his publications featuring Turkish marbled specimens of various themes, including flowers and underwater nature.

The Heyeck Press, founded by Robin Heyeck in 1976, publishes fine letterpress editions on marbling and poetry. Adventures of a Marbler was written, designed, printed, and marbled by Heyeck, and contains thirty-five marbled specimens used in her books, ephemera, and artworks. It describes the pleasures and challenges of being a marbler, and includes tips, technical instruction, and a bibliography of the Press’s publications.

This marbling technique overview by innovative artist Karli Frigge features fifty-nine specimens divided into six chapters: classical marbling, granulating paint marbling, “double print” marbling, “dear mistakes” (focusing on common mistakes), Dutch suminagashi marbling, and Turkish Ebru “Tiger-Eye” marbling. The brief text explains practical approaches to marbling and imparts inspirational quotes. This dynamic specimen book is bound by Frigge in a sewn binding with five leather bands.

Serious Play centers around Carol Blinn’s apprenticeship with Arno Werner (1899-1995). Anecdotes about their friendship are interspersed with photographs of Werner, original samples, and reproductions of papers used in past projects. Blinn’s spirited stories tell about her experimentation with tools, techniques, and design. Bound by Blinn in paste paper over boards with Coptic stitch sewing, the set is encased with a paper wrapper and slipcase.

The Bird & Bull Press has produced many books on decorated paper technique and history. This one describes making roller-printed paste paper, a method of printing repeating patterns onto paper that has been coated in wet colored paste. The book features colorful specimens executed by Henry Morris, and is hand bound in quarter-vellum and roller-printed paste paper.

Christopher Weimann was a pioneer of twentieth-century marbling who was known for the meticulous research that allowed him to understand and reproduce historical marbled papers, and for his success in developing new designs informed by the past. Designed and printed by Henry Morris at the Bird & Bull Press, Weimann’s text describes the origins of Japanese marbling (suminagashi), Turkish marbling (Ebru), and Dutch book-edge marbling. It is illustrated with twenty-two original hand-marbled papers by Weimann.

This book surveys the history and technique of chiyogami, a form of traditional Japanese paper with repeated graphic patterns, originally printed by woodblock but now in silkscreen. Chiyogami was developed during the Edo Period for making decorative objects. The book is printed letterpress on Arches paper and quarter-bound in goatskin. It includes woodcuts, watercolor illustrations, and twenty-four foldout sheets from the author’s collection.

Franz Weisse, one of the great German marblers and teachers, published his essential marbling text in 1940. The bulk of the first edition was destroyed during World War II, but seven editions followed. This edition was translated from German by the American marbling historian Richard J. Wolfe, who also wrote an introduction and marbled the original papers within.

This book is from a series of Harper’s books for youth. It describes and illustrates the new Harper Brothers wrought iron building, built in 1854, and its modernized book publishing operation. By showing all aspects of the Harper establishment in detail, including bookbinding and marbling (shown here), the book gives modern readers a view into the commercial book publishing methods of the nineteenth century.

This first edition of Nicholson’s popular and often-reprinted comprehensive bookbinding manual provides instructions for all aspects of hand bookbinding, including forwarding (binding up to the point of decoration), finishing (decorating with onlay and tooling), edge gilding, and paper and edge marbling. It contains twelve plates of bookbindings and seven original traditional marbled papers, in addition to illustrations throughout the text.

This is the first English translation of Josef Halfer’s manual on marbling, which still inspires marblers today. Halfer practiced marbling when it was being replaced by mechanically produced substitutes. His innovative applications of scientific advances resolved earlier technical problems, resulting in an efflorescence of new patterns and a revival of interest in the craft.

From the series, Lehrbücher der Buchbinderei (bookbinding textbooks), this volume focuses on marbling and serves as a manual of the oil and paste method. Beginning with a discussion of materials, tools and equipment, it proceeds to describe techniques for different methods of marbling and recommends suitable color combinations. The final pages show the latest colors on the market with twenty-four vibrant specimens.

The Curwen Press, founded in London in 1863, was a leader of early twentieth century British design. It worked with many well-known graphic artists, including Thomas Lowinsky, Enid Marx, Paul Nash, and Diana Wilbraham, whose patterned paper designs are represented in this book. The book features thirty-two tipped-in pattern papers with accompanying artists’ biographies. This edition is quarter-bound in buckram and a Curwen paper, designed by Claude Lovat Fraser.

Issued in a kōzo paper folded enclosure, this selection of thirty-six traditional and contemporary specimens was distributed by Hiromi Paper International in California. It includes samples of cedar bark, straw, hemp, and traditional washi (Japanese paper) from the Fuji Paper Mills Cooperative in Tokushima, Japan. Traditional washi is made from the processed bast fibers of the mitsumata, gampi, and kozo plants.

This is an early European example of printing on paper made entirely from plant fibers. The text is the work of French writer and politician, Villete. The book was printed at the incentive of Pierre-Alexandre Léorier Delisle (1744-1826), director of the paper manufactory at Langley, who promoted alternative fibers for papermaking. It includes twenty specimens made from various plant materials such as nettle, hops, moss, thistle, oak, and elm.

Karli Frigge is an accomplished marbler who has published books on her artwork and on the historic papers in her collection. This book includes papers from the Aschaffenburg factory (1811-1968), Europe's largest manufacturer of decorated papers. Frigge provides paper names from the original Aschaffenburg catalog, technical descriptions, a history of the factory, and an interview with an ex-employee. The book is bound by Frigge in an accordion format with an added sewn signature, in cloth over boards.

This trade catalog represents a variety of marbled patterns from the Aschaffenburg paper company which Karli Frigge’s sample book is based upon. A collection of sample books was distributed annually by A. Nees & Co. Buntpaperfabrik. Watson Library owns seven additional volumes.

This striking, unattributed Art Deco trade catalog contains seventy-three decorated papers printed with gold, silver, bronze, and other metallic inks on colored papers. The diverse modern patterns include sunbursts, triangles, and stars. These vibrant designs were likely intended as coverings for the packaging of luxury goods and gift items such as perfume, cosmetics, cigars, chocolate, and other confections.

This trade catalog contains 192 marbled samples by a German bookbinding firm offering a range of designs for the edges of account books. The original marbled papers are pasted onto the recto of ninety-six cardboard leaves with lithographed headings. Each leaf is protected by a tissue-guard. The title lettering on the blind-embossed green calf binding is inlaid with marbled paper.

This wallpaper sample book, created during the peak of the early Meiji Period, includes gold embossed paper made to emulate seventeenth-century Dutch gilt leather wall hangings (see The Met’s gilt-leather wall hanging in Gallery 607). The Japanese motifs, which include landscapes and cherry blossoms against a patterned background, were most likely intended for a European market during the vogue of Japonisme.

Shown here are several unbound marbled paper samples from the Cockerell firm and a sample book of handmade and machine-made Japanese papers distributed by the Victoria Paper Company. These are part of a collection containing additional papers, correspondence, and promotional material distributed by the Company. In addition to Japanese and Cockerell English papers, there are handmade papers from Central and South America, Tibet, and India.

Sheryl Oppenheim is a painter, paper marbler, and maker of graphic books. Black Light is an accordion bound artists’ book with a foil-stamped cover and thirty-six pages of acrylic marbling on black cotton paper. Made early in Oppenheim’s marbling career, the papers are free-form and imaginative in their approach to pattern. Her use of black paper shows how dark paper affects and enlivens the translucent colored paints. Watson Library owns seven of her artists’ books.

Claudia Cohen is an edition bookbinder, decorated paper maker, publisher, and collector. She uses her collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century decorated paper for bookbinding and as content for her publications about decorated paper. Some Decorated Paper incorporates ninety-two papers from her collection, including printed, paste, marbled, and embossed paper. Watson Library owns eight of Cohen’s artists’ books.