Illuminated Books

This symposium and exhibition was sponsored jointly by Skidmore College and Union College. It brought speakers on Blake from research institutions across the east coast and included a workshop on Blake’s printing methods by Joseph Viscomi. A description of the program can be accessed below. An exhibition featuring original engravings by Blake, contemporary works, and Trianon Press facsimiles was held in conjunction with the two-day symposium and traveled from one institution to the other over a period of several months. The Friends of the Union College Library published a full catalog of the exhibition by Union College Professor of English James McCord.

This public event in the College Arts building welcomed “friends and guests” to a showcase of student creativity in response to Blake’s work, presented in the form of brief talks on a variety of subjects, dramatic readings, music, and other interpretive material. A program guide distributed at the event is available below. The Blake@Union website is designed to capture and preserve such events more fully in future.

This exhibit in Schaffer Library featured a facsimiles of Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience in particular. Sample images from different publishers were displayed along with material from Blake scholar and printmaker Michael Phillips. Student essays in the catalog for this exhibit, available below, focus primarily on the printing techniques used by Blake himself as well as those making the various facsimiles.

This lecture by Blake scholar and printmaker Michael Phillips was co-sponsored by the departments of English and Visual Arts. It was held in conjunction with the student-curated exhibit “William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and of Experience,” which explored various facsimiles of that work. A catalog of the student exhibit, to which Phillips contributed material, is available below.

This exhibit in Schaffer Library showcased Blake’s illuminated books in a number of contexts. Facsimiles made by the Trianon Press were featured heavily; student essays in the accompanying catalog, often discuss how the choices of binding material or the format of the reproduction affected their encounter with Blake’s work. Each essay addresses the overall themes or imagery of the selected book, some in relation to other works by Blake. Facsimiles from the Manchester Workshop and Granary Books were also on display.