In presenting this list of new acquisitions in pop-ups and movables from a private collection, one is struck right away by the staying power of these marvels of paper engineering. What was created to provide visual entertainment in the pre-cinema age continues to find an audience in a world that is oversaturated in visual stimuli. From the peepshow, which commemorated landscapes and events in three dimensions in the 18th and 19th centuries, all the way up to modern practitioners, such as Edward Gorey, whose Tunnel Calamity shows how hard it is to ignore the proverbial elephant in the room; to the pop-up book, a format pioneered by 19th-century children’s book publishers like Dean and Sons and popularized in the 21st century by paper engineers like Robert Sabuda—the lineage that runs through this collection is like a thread that brings one of these paper sculptures to life.
NY: Bouillon-Sanders & Chopp, (1926). Quarto. (16)pp. Illustrated throughout in color and black & white, and in a bright orange binding featuring the main character, Willie, with fully movable arms. A "Willie Wait a Minute," who is always postponing his responsibilities to play just a minute longer, is able to..... More
Paris: Guérin Müller & Co, c. 1865. Small quarto. 8ff., printed one side only, with a pop-up image folded over the text. Each pop-up consists of three layers: a background, a middle ground with the characters of the particular scene, and the foreground with small landscape elements at ground level..... More
Guildford: Circle Press, 1986. Small folio. (36)pp., french-fold. From an edition of 80 copies, this one is designated "A.P." Signed by the illustrator, Ronald King, and the poet, Roy Fisher. Illustrated in color with numerous photo-collage vignettes, seven tableaux from drawings, and twelve movable puppet designs by King. The puppets..... More
(Strasbourg: c. 1900). Chromolithographed postcard with an internal wheel that recreates the operation of the famous astronomical clock in the Cathédrale Notre-Dame in Strasbourg, France. As one turns the wheel, the automata and rotating panels at three different levels of the clock change. The title is in both German and..... More
Amsterdam: (c. 1925). Small octavo. (15)pp. With eight full-page illustrations, printed in orange and black. At the back of the volume are a head and two legs set to rotate on brass rivets; when unfolded, they align with the torso on the upper cover to create the illusion of a...... More
Brussels: Libraries de l'Office de Publicité, (c. 1850). Six hand-colored, movable double-engravings; one engraving is half-pasted from the top, another from the bottom, and their remaining halves are pasted together to create a flap that the reader may flip down to see one image and up to see the other..... More
1982. Quarto. (14)ff. A one-of-a-kind book, signed by the artist. Each two-page opening contains a unique and colorful collage, using string, torn papers, textured papers, and paper toned by etching and aquatint. Pop-up elements and folded paper strips add a third dimension to this multimedia meditation on the link between..... More
