Kate Bernstein, Bath, UK
In One Volume, 2021
Produced for the project Dante: Libri Nuovi – for the celebration of the work and life of Dante in this the 700th year since his death, is a multi-layered response to Dante’s Commedia and the translators and artists who have been inspired by it. With an interplay of abstraction and colour, which includes drawing after Botticelli, the heraldic red and silver of the Florentine Guelphs and text in the vernacular. The book has a three-part structure; a case binding with a leather tie closure contains a folio, within which is a concertina with a projecting central form that implies a book. The tie is printed with Cayley’s translation of Inferno, Canto V, in which Minos wraps his tail around a sinner, signifying to which circle of Hell he should be sent.
Edition 12, 235 x 160mm (concertina ext. 540 x 210mm).
£95 (plus P&P and insurance)
Measuring the Heavens, 2020
In 2018 Kate Bernstein was invited by Creativity & Curiosity, an artists’ astronomy project, and the Royal Astronomical Society to visit the Society’s Library. Bernstein was then funded by the Arts Council to carry out collaborative research at the RAS Library and explore the outcome through the Book Arts.
With the assistance of the Society’s librarian and archivist Dr Sian Prosser, Bernstein explored early printed books and created three small editioned books, in which she explored the role of the printer in astronomical discourse.
Increasingly fascinated by the library itself and the relationships of individual books to the whole, Bernstein invited Prosser to collaborate on a book work which would reflect and explore the library and its historic collection. Collaboration was fundamental to this project. In a series of meetings, discussions ranged from the function and role of the library, past and present, and the imperative to share the knowledge contained therein, to the esteem in which it is held by the fellows and the complex role of the librarian as facilitator. 'Measuring the Heavens, 2020,' is the result of this collaboration.
An edition of two bound and printed by Kate Bernstein.
Box with inset leather label and raised silhouette of sextant, screen-printed image within. Book cloth and leather printed folio with lens-like leather-bound circular opening which contains a hinged paper book. Within the box a paper folio Sources.
Box 36 x 25 x4.5cm.
Book cloth folio 33.5 x 23.5cm.
Hinged book 32 x 23cm closed,
32 x 112cm fully extended.
Paper folio 32 x 22cm.
£900 (plus P&P and insurance)
Uccello's Formula II, 2016
Kate completed her MA at UWE Bristol in 2017 gaining a distinction and a prize for technical input. She has used all her knowledge and skills to produce two superb books which pay homage to the 15th-century artist Paolo Uccello. The three texts in this book are a description of 'The Battle of San Romano' and the commissioning of the paintings, Uccello’s formula and a variation on Vasari’s description of Uccello.
Unique book, 11pp, 48.5 x 33 x 1.5cm.
Screenprint and collage on Simili Japon.
Folio bound in cloth and calf with embossed circles.
£300 (plus P&P and insurance)