Splendid Pages : Modern Illustrated Books

This work documents a major, unpublished collection of 20th-century book arts, incorporating classic livres d'artistes, unique book-objects, mass-produced artists' books from the 1960s, visual poetry, altered novels and portfolios of prints.

The Molly and Walter Bareiss Collection of Modern Illustrated Books, at the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, provides a comprehensive international overview of the history of modern book arts, featuring work from Eastern and Western Europe and the United States as well as Central and South America and Asia.

One of its particular highlights is a group of 73 books with original prints by Picasso. "Splendid Pages" brings together a range of texts from individuals devoted to the book arts as collectors, artists, poets, publishers and historians.

Through a range of colour illustrations it explores how 20th-century artists have worked with the printed word, from Picasso, Miro, Braque, Leger, Dufy and Chagall, via German Expressionists Kokoschka and Kirchner, to contemporary artists Josef Beuys, Anselm Keifer and Robert Motherwell, among many others.