Bridwell Library’s triennial bookbinding competition is named for Helen Warren DeGolyer (1926–1995), a well-known supporter of the arts and education in Dallas, as well as a skilled devotee of design bookbinding. Following her testamentary wishes, her brother, Joseph Warren, and her children, Everett Lee DeGolyer and Edith DeGolyer, established in 1996 an endowment to support a triennial bookbinding competition, exhibition, and conference on the contemporary book arts to be held at Bridwell Library.
The competition challenges bookbinders to submit their proposals for a specific book held by Bridwell Library, as well as a recent example of their work. While the DeGolyer Award winner receives a commission to bind the book according to his or her proposal, the jury also selects award winners for excellence in fine binding and artistic design. The judges for this year’s competition include Tish Brewer (The Center for Art Conservation), Bexx Caswell-Olson (Michigan State University Libraries), R. Arvid Nelsen (Bridwell Library), Ellen Buie Niewyk (Hamon Library, SMU), and Priscilla Spitler (Recipient of the 2015 DeGolyer Award for American Bookbinding). A PDF of the catalog is available here.
The 2018 commission book is volume four, Apocrypha, of The English Bible Containing the Old Testament & the New, published in Hammersmith by the Doves Press in 1903–1905. The competing designs and sample book bindings, as well as the bindings commissioned during past competitions, are included in this exhibit. The Doves Press Apocrypha, bound as issued, and volumes II, III, and V of the set in design bindings, are also in this year’s display.
Price
- FREE!
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