Throughout his life, Leonardo da Vinci worked to understand and illuminate the mystery of human anatomy. His skill as an anatomist is revealed in notes, sketches, and drawings that depict bones and muscles with an accuracy centuries ahead of its time. At da Vinci's death in 1519, his research—which he planned to publish—was placed with his personal papers and lost to the world for four centuries.

The Royal Collection in London is currently showing da Vinci’s anatomical work in the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist. The exhibition at The Queen's Gallery in Buckingham Palace highlights the incredible detail and scientific fidelity with which da Vinci recorded the human body.

The exhibition catalogue was produced by Marquand Books and designed by John Hubbard. It features eighty-seven illustrations of da Vinci’s key studies, including his dissections of the skull, drawings of major organs and vessels, and notes on human proportion. Collaborative essays by Martin Clayton and Ron Philo provide historical insight to da Vinci’s anatomical research, which, according to da Vinci, was impeded "only by time."*

To learn more about the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist or to purchase the catalogue, visit The Royal Collection online. 

*Martin Clayton, Ron Philo. Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist. (London: Royal Collection Publications, 2012), 29.

photography by Jeremy Linden

What was the first map you worked on at Marquand Books?

In 2009, I created our first in-house map; it was for the book The Arts of Africa. I traced out the map, drew in the country outlines, and put the labels where the client wanted them. We went through a couple different color schemes as I worked with the designer to coordinate the map with the theme of the book.

Tracing the outline was pretty tedious. When you’re doing it, you’re working really close up to the map, but when you zoom out, you have this awesome, detailed coastline. Making the map was really fun; for some reason, I really enjoyed it.

What were the next maps you made?

The year after The Arts of Africa we did a much smaller, less-detailed map of Japan for the book Dreams and Diversions. Then we worked on a few small figure illustrations. The next big one—which is probably one of my favorite maps—was for the Art of Armor.

Why is this one your favorite?

It was more detailed and, because of the book’s design, it allowed me to be more stylized. I also had a full, double-page spread to work with. This book included a timeline, so I designed the timeline and map to match. I got to come up with icons and keys myself, so I drew little daimyo castles. It’s gratifying to take the maps and adjust them to complement the design of the book—in this case, the black and orange of the map plays with the Japanese lacquer and the rusty orange colors of the armor.

The map of Australia in Ancestral Modern: Australian Aboriginal Art is very detailed. Tell me about your design process.

I made this map right after Art of Armor, and I wanted to make sure it didn’t look the same. I really like the dark background of the Art of Armor map, but I didn’t want to go that route again. With this one, I picked up the color from the text and tried to make the elements reflect the aboriginal art, with the repeating lines and dots.

What books tend to include maps?

So far, it’s been books with specific regional information. The Arts of Africa and Ancestral Modern are good examples—they want to show where in the area art came from. With Ancestral Modern, topography plays into in the actual works of art. We’re working on a book now about French faience and porcelain, and the map will show locations of the manufactories. We’re also working on a book about van Gogh, and that map will include biographical information about where the artist lived and how those regions influenced his art.

What do you like about designing maps?

I love maps; I think they ground the story. And making maps seems so simple—it’s just an infographic—but there really is an art to it. It’s not that you’re coming up with something new, but you get to decide how you will take the information and present it. That's when it starts to become fun.

If you could design any map, what would it be? 

I would probably do a non-fictional place. I’d like to try my hand at making a map look antique. So far, my maps have been very clean—just information. They look very modern. But some of the maps we’ve had made in the past look almost painted. I think painting a map digitally would be a fun challenge.

Boston photographer F. Holland Day advocated for the acceptance of photography as fine art. In the early 1900s, he gained international recognition as a leader in the Pictorialist movement—a style of photography that resisted the notion of photographs as mere records of reality. From intimate portraits of friends to stylized photographs of models in costume, Day’s work demonstrated his ability to create and capture scenes with as much detail and emotion as an artist working with paint.

The current exhibition at the Addison Gallery of American Art, Making a Presence: F. Holland Day in Artistic Photography, explores Day’s dynamic persona through a variety of pictures, including photographs by Day and portraits of the artist taken by his contemporaries. The photographs reveal Day’s diverse interests, independent spirit, and elaborate imagination.

Marquand Books produced the exhibition catalogue for Making a Presence: F. Holland Day in Artistic Photography. The 132-page book, designed by Zach Hooker, presents more than ninety color illustrations and includes essays by Trevor Fairbrother, the curator of the exhibition.

To learn more about Making a Presence: F. Holland Day in Artistic Photography, visit the Addison Gallery of American Art. To pre-order a copy of the exhibition catalogue, visit Yale University Press.

* Trevor Fairbrother, Making a Presence: F. Holland Day in Artistic Photography. (Andover: Addison Gallery of American Art, 2012), 15.

photography by Jeremy Linden

“I want to remain vulnerable to beauty. I want to be stopped in my tracks by something I call beautiful that I have never noticed or seen before.”
– Barbara Rogers

This month Hudson Hills Press will release Barbara Rogers: The Imperative of Beauty. The book documents Barbara Rogers’s development as an artist and teacher and chronicles her use of figurative, abstract, and ornamental forms.

Nature is a prominent subject in Rogers’s work, and she explores its nourishing and destructive powers. Vibrant colors, animals, and people compose her early paintings, while abstract and ornamental forms take center stage in her recent works. Present throughout her work is Rogers’s pursuit of beauty: “Through my paintings, I am reclaiming a space for beauty in the midst of everyday life; I seek to create a place of respite, reflection, and contemplation.”

Marquand Books produced The Imperative of Beauty. Designed by Zach Hooker, the 224-page book includes more than 150 color illustrations and features essays by Paul Eli Ivey and interviews with Rogers by Marilyn Zeitlin. Visit Rogers's website to learn more about her life and work. To purchase The Imperative of Beauty, visit Hudson Hills Press.

Photography by Jeremy Linden

The book’s true fascination comes in its color photographs and illustrations, scores of them. We see naturalists in the field, the tools they used and the specimens they returned—legions of stuffed birds, minerals, mushrooms and insects . . . the story of the Academy of Natural Sciences engrosses. Its collections, sampled here, are valuable, and the attitude of its founders—that satisfying one’s curiosity about the natural world is celebratory activity—is refreshing.
 

The book chronicles the museum’s 200-year history of collection and research. It was produced by Marquand Books and designed by Jeff Wincapaw. To purchase A Glorious Enterprise, visit the University of Pennsylvania Press.

The exhibition was significant; for the first time, Doherty’s media installation Ghost Story was shown together with photographs he’d taken in Ireland during the 1990s. The exhibition separated the works into adjoined rooms. The catalogue takes its design cues from both the nature of Doherty’s work and the layout of the exhibition itself.

What makes this book different from others you've worked on?

The exhibition had two parts we needed to include in the catalogue: a series of photographs and a video installation. The challenge was to bring both segments of the exhibition together in a book and to somehow recreate the movement of the film on the page.

How did this influence the design?

Well, we wanted to bring the experience of the exhibit to the catalogue. To simulate the rhythm of the film and create emotional responses for the reader, we varied the sizes of the video stills, how many were on a page, and so on. 

To separate the two parts of the book, we used a formal white backgound for the photographs and a dark gray for the film’s still photos. The gray makes it feels like you're in a theater—everything but the image fades into the background.

In what way did the subject matter shape the design? 

The format of the book conforms to Doherty’s photographs and film. Overall, the design is restrained. The typography is neutral, understated. An essay separates the photographs from Ghost Story, and once into the film portion of the book, it is primarily pictorial. There aren't page numbers. We kept it as minimal as possible in an effort to present the work cinematically.

The subject matter is beautiful, but it’s also discomforting. The pictures from the film are moody and, subconciously, a bit unsettling. We wanted them to pop off the page, so we used a gloss finish on the photographs, which helps to illuminate them.

To purchase a copy of Willie Doherty: Requisite Distance, visit Yale University Press online. 

photography by Jeremy Linden

Last Friday, the L.A. Times featured an article on the Norton Simon Museum's current exhibition, Proof: The Rise of Printmaking in California. Highlighting works from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, the exhibition chronicles the revival of printmaking in the United States.

Marquand Books produced the 256-page exhibition catalogue that was edited by the show's curator, Leah Lehmbeck. Proof illuminates the history of California's postwar printmaking boom through essays, illustrations, and a chronology that identifies key people and events of the movement.

Proof: The Rise of Printmaking in Southern California opened October 1, 2011 and runs through April 2, 2012. To learn more about the exhibition, visit the Norton Simon Museum online.

photography by Jeremy Linden

The Bellevue Art Museum’s current exhibition Knitted, Knotted, Twisted & Twined highlights more than ninety pieces of jewelry by local artist Mary Lee Hu. The show chronicles Hu’s work from the 1960s to the present and focuses on the original techniques she brought to the worlds of jewelry and metalwork.

Employing fiber techniques like twining and weaving, Hu manipulates metal as if it were textile. Her methods cause light to reflect off her jewelry in deliberate, mesmerizing ways. By wrapping wire and folding metals, she constructs textured neckpieces, earrings, bracelets, and brooches, as well as several small animals—a lizard, turtle, and squid are a few of the creatures displayed.

The 128-page exhibition catalogue, designed by Jeff Wincapaw, was produced by Marquand Books and features more than eighty color illustrations. Essays by Janet Koplos and Jeannine Falino illuminate Hu’s journey in metalwork and jewelry design.

To learn more about the Knitted, Knotted, Twisted & Twined exhibition and catalogue, visit the Bellevue Arts Museum online. 

The High Museum of Art is currently showing the exhibit Bill Traylor: Drawings from the Collections of the High Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibit, a collaboration of the two museums, showcases over sixty works by the self-taught, Alabama artist Bill Traylor.

Born into slavery around 1854, Traylor grew up in rural Alabama. In 1928 he moved to Montgomery where he survived on the streets of Monroe Avenue, working and living in meager conditions. When he was eighty years old and physically unable to work, he started to draw. On the sidewalks of Montgomery, he used crayons, graphite pencils, and poster paint on pieces of old cardboard to create pictures of rural and urban life.

Charles Shannon, a Montgomery artist, befriended Traylor in 1939. He soon championed his work, buying and preserving most of Traylor’s drawings. For nearly forty years, Shannon protected Traylor’s art, convinced the drawings deserved to be in museums alongside works by mainstream artists. Finally, in the late 1970’s, the drawings were introduced to the public and are now regarded as important examples of American art.

The exhibition catalogue, produced by Marquand Books, allows the reader a close view of the textural, temporal qualities of Traylor’s work. Essays by Susan Mitchell Crawley and Leslie H. Paisely explore both the history of the artist’s life, as well as the history of preserving his works. The 111-page catalogue includes portraits of the artist and selected works from the collections of the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts and the High Museum of Art.

To learn more about the exhibition or to purchase the catalogue, visit the High Museum of Art online.

* Margaret Lynne Ausfeld, Susan Mitchell Crawley. Bill Traylor: Drawings from the Collections of the High Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts. (New York: Prestel, 2012), 13. 
 

photography by Jeremy Linden

The history of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia is as interesting as its collections. Established in 1812, the Academy was the nation’s center for scientific thought and discovery. It funded expeditions into the western wilderness and its members classified and categorized the variety of specimens they found. Today, the Academy’s collections are important libraries of the biodiversity in flora and fauna.

The book A Glorious Enterprise chronicles events that have shaped the Academy’s history over the last 200 years, from its early beginnings as an epicenter for science to its present-day status as the United States’ oldest natural history museum. 

Produced by Marquand Books and designed by Jeff Wincapaw, this 464-page book details the collections of the museum in more than 250 color illustrations. Essays by Robert McCracken Peck and Patricia Tyson Stroud and photographs by Rosamond Purcell illuminate the stories of past discoveries.

To purchase A Glorious Enterprise, visit the University of Pennsylvania Press.

photography by Jeremy Linden