Exhibitions
One of HBC’s (Hand Bookbinders of California) foundational mandates is to provide opportunities for local bookbinders to share their work—not only with one another but also with a broader community. Every year since our inception in 1972, HBC has created a public Annual Members Exhibition. All members in good standing—whether amateur or professional, beginner or expert —are welcome to enter their work.
The books and book-related art in our annual exhibitions reflect the varied interests of our diverse membership and can include design bindings, fine press, artist’s books, calligraphy, conservation, box-making, historical structures, and paper decoration. A full-color catalog accompanies each exhibition.
A variety of respected Bay Area museums, galleries, and libraries have hosted HBC exhibitions. The list of venues includes the San Francisco Public Library, Stanford University, Mills College, the University of San Francisco, the University of California at San Francisco, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Center for the Book, and the American Bookbinding Museum among others.
HBC54 MEMBERS EXHIBITION
The 54th Annual Member’s Exhibition will be held this year at The American Bookbinders Museum in San Francisco. The exhibition will open on September 12 and run through December. Please plan to have your exhibition entries ready to submit by mid-July. Please send any questions to exhibitions@handbookbinders.org
HBC55 MEMBERS EXHIBITION
2027 will be the 55th anniversary of HBC. We are working on a collaboration with the CODEX Foundation and a special set book to mark the 55th anniversary. The Fragments of Parmenides will be the set book for 2027. This is a major book; unlike anything we have ever done before. There will be copies available with and without a suite of 10 signed engravings. Each set is accompanied by 2 type specimens (one for each Greek typeface), a prospectus, and various ephemera. All books are signed and unnumbered from an edition of 146 copies.
The complete fragments of Parmenides of Elea in the original Greek, varying in length from only a few words to 66 hexameters, were composed 2,500 years ago in southern Italy (Magna Graeca). The Greek text was handset in Dan Carr’s Parmenides Greek at the press by Richard Seibert, Robert Bringhurst, and Peter Koch. An English translation by Robert Bringhurst was set in Monotype Dante at the Golgonooza Letter Foundry; the cover display text, printed in red and black, was set in Christopher Stinehour’s Diogenes Greek. The Afterword by Bringhurst is set in Bringhurst’s custom digital Dante, New Hellenic Greek, and Lazurski Cyrillic, and printed from polymer plates. Included in the book are five wood engravings by Richard Wagener, hand-printed in vibrant red, fiery orange, and velvety black on Zerkall mill paper.
We will send out additional information on how to purchase set books after Codex. If you are not a regular participant binding the HBC Set Book, have questions or are interested in the scholarship copies, please email Beth Redmond at exhibitions@handbookbinders.org.