The livre d’artiste (artist’s book) emerged in late nineteenth-century France in response to a growing demand for luxury books and an increasingly widespread interest in print collecting. In contrast to decorative, illustrated volumes produced for bibliophile audiences, publishers sought to pair avant-garde painters and writers with a view to creating works that explored innovative relationships between word and image. In the wake of the so-called “etching revival” of the 1860s and statements about the aesthetic virtues of the artist-printmaker by leading writers and critics of the period including Charles Baudelaire (1821–67), Alfred Cadart (1828–1875), and Philippe Burty (1830–1890), the book became a means by which limited edition, “original” prints could be
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Citation: Brown, Kathryn. "Livre d'artiste". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 August 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19504, accessed 21 November 2024.]
