Founded in 1884, the Grolier Club is America’s oldest and largest society for bibliophiles and enthusiasts in the graphic arts. Founded in 1884, the Grolier Club of New York is America’s oldest and largest society for bibliophiles and enthusiasts in the graphic arts.
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Named for Jean Grolier (1489 or 90-1565), the Renaissance collector renowned for sharing his library with friends, the Club’s objective is to foster “the study, collecting, and appreciation of books and works on paper.” The Club maintains a research library on printing and related book arts, and its programs include public exhibitions as well as a long and distinguished series of publications. As part of its mission to promote the art and history of the book, the Grolier Club regularly hosts the lectures and gatherings of other bookish organizations, and opens many of its own events to the public. No advance notice is required to view Grolier Club exhibitions; however, RSVPs and reservations for other events should be made through Maev Brennan, tel. (212) 838-6690, x7, [email protected].
Operating as usual
Our "Magazines and the American Experience" exhibition was featured this morning on NY1! The exhibition will be open through April 24, 2021, and reservations should be made via https://grolierclub.eventbrite.com.
Issues date back to the early 18th Century.
The Library's latest blog post features a heavily annotated Renaissance-era school book from the club's collection. We hope you enjoy learning about this treasure from our incunabula collection!
https://grolierclub.wordpress.com/2021/02/03/a-renaissance-school-book-designed-for-note-taking/
Please note: The Grolier Club will be closed Tuesday, February 2, due to inclement weather.
The Grolier Club will be closed today due to the snow storm in New York City. While you can’t see our current exhibitions in person today, visit the “Online Exhibitions” page on our website to see current and past shows!
Image: Rudolph Ruzicka, “The Harlem River.”
Please note: Due to forecast severe weather, the Grolier Club will be closed on Monday, February 1.
Exhibition at the Grolier Club presents highlights from the Collection of Steven Lomazo, MD
Reflecting the broad spectrum of American culture, printed magazines from the 18th through the 21st centuries have both driven and documented the Amer
Collecting the History of Magazines | Fine Books & Collections
If your stack of unread New Yorkers gives you anxiety, consider the stacks owned by Dr. Steven Lomazow, whose collection of historic magazines numbers 83,000. Lomazow was born a collector, as he told us in an interview back in 2009. He started, as many of us do, with stamps and coins. When he was a....
We are pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibition in our first floor gallery: “Magazines and the American Experience: Highlights from the Collection of Steven Lomazow, M.D.” The exhibition will run through April 24, 2021. Reservations are free of charge but must be made at least 48 hours in advance via https://grolierclub.eventbrite.com. Can’t make it to the physical exhibition? There is a digital version available at https://grolierclub.omeka.net/exhibits/show/american-magazines. #grolierclub #exhibitions
A little preview of our next first floor exhibition: "Magazines and the American Experience: Highlights from the Collection of Steven Lomazow, M.D." The exhibition opens to the public Wednesday, January 20, and 2-hour visits may be reserved at https://grolierclub.eventbrite.com.
The Grolier Club’s exhibition “Magazines and the American Experience” presents a sweeping history of periodical print media in the U.S.
Please note: The Grolier Club will be closed on Monday, January 18, 2021, in observance of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.
Please note: The Grolier Club Library will be closed Monday, December 28 - Wednesday, December 30. The Library's Tuesday & Thursday hours will resume the week of January 4.
Please note: The Grolier Club will be closed December 24, 25, 28, 31, and January 1 for the winter holidays. Our galleries will be open December 26, 29, and 30, and normal hours will resume on January 2. Just be sure to make a reservation at least 48 hours in advance at https://grolierclub.eventbrite.com. We wish you all a safe and happy holiday season!
Please note: Due to the severe weather forecast for New York City, the Grolier Club will be closing at 2:00 pm on Wednesday, December 16, and will remain closed on Thursday, December 17.
We are pleased to announce a new posting on our blog (blog.grolierclub.org), wherein you can learn all about the Grolier Club's strangest armchair...
The co-curators of our current “Further Impressions” exhibition, Meghan Constantinou and Eric Holzenberg, are pleased to offer a new online guided tour of the exhibition: https://vimeo.com/user4535612. We hope you enjoy!
The physical exhibition will be open through January 2, 2021. Reservations are free but should be made at least 48 hours in advance at https://grolierclub.eventbrite.com. You can also find “Further Impressions” online at https://grolierclub.omeka.net/exhibits/show/further-impressions. #grolierclub #exhibitions
We are pleased to announce the opening of a new exhibition in our Second Floor Gallery: “The History of Plastic Surgery: Much More Than Skin Deep” from the collection of Douglas M. Monasebian, M.D., D.M.D., F.A.C.S. The exhibition will run through February 13, 2021. We are also pleased to announce new gallery hours: Monday-Friday 10-4 and Saturday noon-4. Admission is free, but you must register at least 48 hours in advance at https://grolierclub.eventbrite.com. We hope to see you soon! #grolierclub #exhibitions
Samuel Putnam Avery had to bind his hand-list for the 1893 Grolier Club exhibition of The Complete Angler. Only Javanese sharkskin with Florida gar-pike edging would do. Tiffany & Co. did it right, with a silk bookmark catching a carved jade fish.
Chronological hand-list of various editions of the Complete Angler by Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton ... exhibited at the Grolier Club, December 9-29, 1893. New York: The Grolier Club, 1893. Gift of Samuel Putnam Avery. Exhibited in Lasting Impressions, 2004.
#GrolierClub #LastingImpressionsExhibit #TiffanyAndCo #CompleteAngler #FineBinding #19thCentury
BIBLIOGRAPHY WEEK happens each year at the end of January when the principal national organizations devoted to book scholarship and the book arts have their annual meetings. Other groups plan interesting events, too, since the attention of so many bibliophiles is focused on these few days.
Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Bibliography Week in 2021 will necessarily look quite different from past years. There will be few if any physical gatherings. The events being organized, while rivaling in number and quality those of any past year, will nearly all be virtual, offered via Zoom or other online conference services. Please visit the link below for a preliminary list of confirmed events. Signup links, speakers, topics and other details will be added as organizers provide them, and we expect the roster of events to grow as we get closer to Bibliography Week 2021.
https://www.grolierclub.org/Default.aspx?p=dynamicmodule&pageid=384901&ssid=322538&vnf=1
The Grolier Club
Controversial opinion from De Vinne: "Mr. Morris is certainly more of a poet than of a printer." Jotted in a corrected proof of his book The Practice of Typography, but this comment was never published. The next image is the title page opening of The Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley from Morris's Kelmscott Press. Whether you agree or disagree, you have to admit De Vinne had a sharp eye.
Theodore Low De Vinne, The practice of typography: Plain printing types [corrected proof copy]. New York: De Vinne Press, 1894. Gift of the De Vinne Family. Exhibited Lasting Impressions, 2004.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, The poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Hammersmith [London]: Printed by W. Morris, at the Kelmscott Press, 1895. Gift of Charles W. McAlpin, 1938. Exhibited Lasting Impressions, 2004.
#GrolierClub #LastingImpressionsExhibit #DeVinne #WilliamMorris #Typography #19thCentury #20thCentury
Just published on the Grolier Club Library blog: "Research Resources on Black American Book Collectors and Book Collecting." This guide highlights library collections with strong research materials in the history of Black American book collecting with links to their holdings. We hope it is useful and would be glad to hear of additional resources. Please contact Meghan Constantinou, [email protected] https://wordpress.com/post/grolierclub.wordpress.com/1220
We’re pleased to announce that our exhibition galleries have reopened! (On a limited, socially-distanced basis.) For more information and to register for a free two-hour gallery visit, please go to https://grolierclub.eventbrite.com. We hope to see you soon! #grolierclub #exhibitions
Grolier Club Director Eric Holzenberg and Librarian Meghan Constantinou powered through a marathon recording session last evening of a walkthrough of their “Further Impressions” exhibition, now on show at the Club through January 2. The edited recording should appear on the Grolier Club’s page of the Vimeo website in a few weeks—stay tuned!
These copper matrices, metal types, and printer's flowers were designed by the American type master Frederick W. Goudy (1865-1947). The monogram design is for Melbert B. Cary, Jr. (1892-1941), a printer and typographer himself who built this collection of Goudyana now at the Grolier Club. The extent of Cary's graphic arts collecting can be seen @ritcarycollection
Frederic W. Goudy. The Melbert B. Cary, Jr. Collection of Goudyana, 1903-1938. Gift of the estate of Melbert B. Cary, Jr. Exhibited in Lasting Impressions, 2004.
#GrolierClub #LastingImpressionsExhibit #Goudy #Cary #WoollyWhale #VillagePress #CaryCollection #Typography #DesignArchives
Ugo Da Carpi (ca. 1479-1533) innovated chiaroscuro woodcuts, but in this manual for the art of lettering, he says that all the good sciences and delightful arts depend on writing to explain their ideas. He compiled scripts from masters including Ludovico degli Arrighi, Sigismondo Fanti, and Giovantonio Tagliente. It proved popular enough for three printings with the same illustrations, in 1525, 1532, and 1535.
Ugo da Carpi. Thesauro de scrittori … [Rome: Antonio Blado, 1535?]. Purchased from the Jaffray Fund, 1928. Exhibited in Lasting Impressions, 2004.
#GrolierClub #LastingImpressionsExhibit #Calligraphy #Carpi #16thCentury #Typography
Thomas Frognal Dibdin (1776-1847) was the PR man for book collecting in the early 19th century. Bibliophily was a somewhat arcane passion, even for the gentry and nobility, but Dibdin's publications Bibliomania (1809) and the Bibliographical Decameron (1817), turned those gentlemen into book hunters. The Grolier Club has an extra-illustrated copy of the Bibliographical Decameron, swelling to twelve volumes with extra plates.
Thomas Frognal Dibdin. The Bibliographical Decameron, or, Ten days pleasant discourse upon illuminated manuscripts, and subjects connected with early engraving, typography, and bibliography. 12 volumes. London: Printed for the Author by W. Bulmer and Co., 1817. Gift of Lucius Wilmerding, 1937. Exhibited in Lasting Impressions, 2004.
#GrolierClub #LastingImpressionsExhibit #Dibdin #Bibliomania #BibliographicalDecameron #BookCollecting
This 'Dance of Death' initial begins the first universal bibliography in Europe, compiled by Konrad Gesner before the age of thirty. He brought together all the authors he could find with texts in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, but on the very first page we can see Arab authors like the astronomer 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Qabisi, or Abdilazus as Gesner called him.
Konrad Gesner. Bibliotheca universalis … Zurich: Christoph Froschauer, 1545.
#GrolierClub #LastingImpressionsExhibit #Bibliography #16thCenturyBooks #KonradGesner
The Grolier Club is pleased to announce a new online exhibition: “A Century of Dining Out: The American Story in Menus, 1841-1941”, curated by and from the collection of Henry Voigt. The exhibition is available at https://grolierclub.omeka.net/exhibitions/show/dining-out and a physical exhibition of the collection will be mounted in the Grolier Club’s first floor gallery in December 2022. #grolierclub #exhibitions #online #menus
This is the earliest of the manuscript library catalogues and inventories owned by the Grolier Club. Arthur Capel (1631-1683), Earl of Essex, amassed a great library at his estate in Cashiobury, and John Evelyn wrote that “the library is large, and very nobly furnished, and all the books richly bound and gilded; but there are no manuscripts except the parliament rolls and journals, the transcribing and binding of which cost him 500l.” Evelyn seems to have overlooked this manuscript catalogue of Capel’s library, compiled for Capel by his chaplain, William Stanley (1647-1731).
Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex. A catalogue of ye library of Arthur Earle of Essex, at Cashiobury, made an. 1681, 1682, 1683 [manuscript]. Purchased in 1910. Exhibited in Lasting Impressions, 2004.
#GrolierClub #LastingImpressionsExhibit #Manuscript #Catalogue #PrivateLibrary #17thCentury
John Evelyn (1620-1706) introduced mezzotints to England in his book Sculptura, which includes the first published instructions on producing mezzotints. Originally published in 1662, it included a detail of one of the first mezzotings ever produced, known as "The Little Executioner.”
John Evelyn, Sculptura, or, The history and art of chalcography and engraving in copper. London: Printed for J. Payne, 1755. Purchased in 2001 through the generosity of Leonard J. Hansen. Exhibited in Lasting Impressions, 2004.
#GrolierClub #LastingImpressionsExhibit #Mezzotint #JohnEvelyn #17thCentury #PrintMaking
Thomas James (1573?-1629), librarian to Sir Thomas Bodley (1545-1613) and first librarian of the Bodleian Library, compiled this list of the manuscripts at Oxford and Cambridge, the earliest institutional library catalogue in the Grolier Club library.
Thomas James, Ecloga Oxoniensis-Cantabrigiensis. London: George Bishop & John Norton, 1600. Gift of Lucius Wilmerding. Exhibited in Lasting Impressions, 2004.
#GrolierClub #LastingImpressionsExhibit #Catalogue #Libraries #Oxbridge #Bodleian
A refined version of the type-casting technology Gutenberg invented – the hand mold and copper matrix pictured here efficiently manufacture type from hot metal. The printer Moxon published it in his Mechanick Exercises: a multi-year series on various crafts that included the first comprehensive manual on the art of printing.
Joseph Moxon. Mechanick exercises, or, The doctrine of handy-works applied to the art of printing. London: Printed for Joseph Moxon, 1683 [i.e. 1684?]. Acquired in 1888. Exhibited in Lasting Impressions, 2004.
#GrolierClub #LastingImpressionsExhibit #HistoryOfPrinting #Moxon #MechanickExercises #Typography #17thCentury
The Lazarus Seaman sale isn't famous for its books, but for being the first modern auction in England. The practice, imported from the Netherlands, was so new that the catalogue's preface explained: "It hath not been usual here in England to make Sale of Books by way of Auction, or who will give most for them." It goes on to describe the purpose of the catalogue and the steps of the auction itself while selling the idea as better for both buyers and sellers.
Catalogus variorum & insignium librorum instructissimae biblio-thecae … Lazari Seaman, S. T. D. — London: E. Brewster & W. Cooper, 1676. Gift of the children of Waters S. Davis, 1941. Exhibited in Lasting Impressions, 2004.
#GrolierClub #LastingImpressionsExhibit #Auction #BookAuction #17thCentury
Visually simple but historically rich, the Bowyer ledgers might be the most famous item in the Club's printing history collection. They record the business transactions of the Bowyer-Nichols printing firm from 1710 to 1781. These pages include the charges and payments for printing Robinson Crusoe, and we can see that it was a best seller, quickly running from the second edition of 1000 copies on May 5, 1719 to 1000 more copies of the third edition by June 1, and a fourth edition of 1000 by June 25.
William Bowyer. Ledgers and account books [seven volumes in manuscript], 1710-1781. Purchased at the John Gough Nichols sale at Sotheby’s (London), November 18, 1929. Exhibited in Lasting Impressions, 2004.
#GrolierClub #LastingImpressionsExhibit #Bowyer #RobinsonCursoe #PrintingHistory #18thCentury
In 1570, if you wanted new markets for your books, you went to the Frankfurt trade fair to reach a cadre of international merchants. This is just what Henri Estienne (1531-1598), of the Parisian printing dynasty, did, and with great success. He wrote this econmium of the city, and ends it with special praise for Gutenberg, the inventor of printing, who “was unwilling to cherish that inven-tion in his own bosom, but shared it with all the world to the highest good of the human race.”
Henri Estienne. Francofordiense emporium …. — [Geneva]: H. Estienne, 1574. Gift of Leonard L. Mackall. Exhibited in Lasting Impressions, 2004.
#GrolierClub #LastingImpressionsExhibit #Frankfurt #BookFair #Estienne #16thCentury
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Founded in 1884, the Grolier Club of New York is America's oldest and largest society for bibliophiles and enthusiasts in the graphic arts. Named for Jean Grolier, the Renaissance collector renowned for sharing his library with friends, the Club's objective is to foster "the literary study and promotion of the arts pertaining to the production of books." The Club maintains a research library on printing and related book arts, and its programs include free public exhibitions, lectures and other events, as well as a long and distinguished series of publications.
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| Tuesday | 10:00 - 16:00 |
| Wednesday | 10:00 - 16:00 |
| Thursday | 10:00 - 16:00 |
| Friday | 10:00 - 16:00 |
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The Grolier Club is closed for the month of August, for deep cleaning, maintenance, repairs, and exhibition preparation. We'll look forward to seeing our members and our many bookish friends when we re-open after Labor Day. In the meantime -- happy late summer!
In a little more than two weeks, our exhibition hall will reopen to the public. There’s a bit of work remaining, but look how far we’ve come! #grolierclub #renovation #exhibitions #homestretch #almostfinished
We’re on the home stretch of the renovation, and it’s worthwhile to take a look at where we are and where we’ve been. Enjoy the time-lapse blast from the past! #grolierclub #renovation #exhibitions
It’s time for another renovation update and a reminder of how far we’ve come. The mezzanine is starting to take shape. Enjoy the video! #grolierclub #renovation #timelapse #exhibitions
Here's a peek at our renovation progess. Three months of work in 22 seconds!
Just a little taste of today's symposium...
Louise and Bernard Palitz Gallery
11 E 61st StHirschl & Adler Galleries Hirschl &
41 East 57th Street, 9th FloorSketch Night at Society of Illustrators
128 E 63rd StMuseum of Comic & Cartoon Art - MoCCA
128 E 63rd StHermandad de Nuestra Señora de Aránzazu
425 Park Avenue New CityHistoric House Trust of New York City
The Arsenal, Central Park 830 Fifth Avenue, Room 203
Feature Inc. 131 Allen Street New York NY 100
131 Allen St
