George Wittenborn Award:

Past Winners

By Year

• First: Aperture for Camera Work: A Critical Anthology edited with an introduction by Jonathan Green (New York: Aperture, 1973).
• Second: Watson-Guptill for Maxfield Parrish by Coy L. Ludwig (New York: Watson-Guptill, 1973).
• Special award: Dover Press for continued outstanding performance as a publisher of art book reprints.

• First: Eakins Press for Elie Nadelman by Lincoln Kirstein (New York: Eakins Press, 1973).
• Special citation: Pierpont Morgan Library in recognition of fifty years of unique contributions to books and bookmaking, noting particularly its fiftieth anniversary publication Major Acquisitions of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1924-1974, 4 vols. (1974).
• Honorable mention: Alfred A. Knopf, N.Y. for the outstanding color reproductions in The Book of Kells: Reproductions from the Manuscript in Trinity College, Dublin with a study of the manuscript by Françoise Henry, photography by John Kennedy (1974).

• First: The University of Chicago Press for The Prints of Rockwell Kent: A Catalogue Raisonné by Dan Burne Jones (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975).
• Honorable mention: Harry N. Abrams, acknowledging the remarkable improvement in production and design of the firm's 1975 art books, especially Brancusi: The Sculpture and Drawings by Sidney Geist.

• First: David R. Godine in collaboration with the International Museum of Photography for general excellence for The Spirit of Fact: The Daguerreotypes of Southworth & Hawes, 1843-1862 by Robert A. Sobieszek and Odette M. Appel, with research assistance by Charles R. Moore (1976).
• Special award: Aperture, Inc. for its continued efforts in support of the field of photography, its perceptive aesthetic choices, and the uniformly high quality of its publications.
• Special award: Edward Ruscha, who made books when that seemed an odd thing for an artist to do and whose style, wit, and energy encouraged other artists to use the inexpensive, self-published book as a form of expression.
• Honorable mention: Viking Press for Georgia O'Keeffe (1976), in recognition of the unique insight it affords into an artist's work.
• Honorable mention: Harry N. Abrams for The Art of the Print: Masterpieces, History, Techniques by Fritz Eichenberg (1976), in recognition of the contribution it makes to its field.
• Honorable mention: Sarah Campbell Blaffer Gallery, the University of Houston, for Edvard Munch by Peter W. Guenther (1976), in recognition of its exemplary scholarship.

• First: The St. Louis Art Museum and the Detroit Institute of Arts for Henri Matisse: Paper Cut-Outs by Jack Cowart ... [et al.] (1977).
• Award: The Museum of Modern Art for distinguished museum publishing, as exemplified in 1977 by The Architecture of the École des Beaux-Arts edited by Arthur Drexler (distributed by MIT Press, 1977).
• Award: E. Harold Hugo and the Meriden Gravure Company for setting the standard for reproduction of works of art in American books.

• The Princeton University Press for a distinguished and scholarly art history publication as evidenced by Sir Charles Eastlake and the Victorian Art World by David Allan Robertson (1978).
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art for a unique collaboration between an artist and a publisher resulting in Georgia O'Keeffe: A Portrait by Alfred Stieglitz, with an introduction by Georgia O'Keeffe (1978).
• The Architectural History Foundation, Inc. for a 20th century editio princeps which makes an important manuscript widely available: Sebastiano Serlio, On Domestic Architecture.
• The National Gallery of Canada for a continuing commitment to excellence in its diversified publishing program.
• George Braziller, Inc. for a continuing series devoted to an aspect of the visual arts as evidenced in their publications on illuminated manuscripts.

• University of California Press for the overall excellence of its publication The Plan of St. Gall: a Study of the Architecture & Economy of & Life in a Paradigmatic Carolingian Monastery by Walter Horn and Ernest Born, 3 vols. (1979).
• Indiana University Press and the National Gallery of Art for the thoughtful and original blending of form and content in their publication Prints and Related Drawings by the Carracci Family: A Catalogue Raisonné by Diane DeGrazia Bohlin (1979).
• New York Graphic Society for Imogen Cunningham: A Portrait by Judy Dater (1979), a fellow photographer's compelling treatment of an appealing subject.

• Monograph: University of Texas Press, publisher of Mexican Masks by Donald Cordry (1980), for a distinct contribution to a new area in art history.
• Exhibition catalog: Whitney Museum of American Art, publisher of Edward Hopper: The Art and the Artist by Gail Levin (published in association with W.W. Norton, 1980) and Marsden Hartley by Barbara Haskell (published in association with New York University Press, 1980) for uniform excellence in content and format in a difficult medium.
• Periodical: Coyne & Blanchard, Palo Alto, California, publishers of CA (Communication Arts Magazine) (1959- ) for twenty years of outstanding work in its field.

• Yale University Press for The Paintings and Drawings of William Blake by Martin Butlin, 2 vols. (1981).
• The National Gallery of Art and Yale University Art Gallery for Hans Baldung Grien: Prints & Drawings (distributed by the University of Chicago Press, 1981).
• Special award for excellence: Abbeville Press for Alexander Liberman by Barbara Rose (1981), also commending the continuing influence of Harry N. Abrams on American art publishing.
• Special award for excellence: Department of Art, Brown University for its significant Graduate Student Exhibition Series catalogs as exemplified in 1981 by Edouard Manet and the Execution of Maximilian (1981).

• Smithsonian Institution Press for Arts in America: A Bibliography edited by Bernard Karpel, editor for the publisher Ruth W. Spiegel, 4 vols. (1979), a national bibliography whose publication represents a milestone in the history of scholarship in the American arts.
• New York Graphic Society for The Photograph Collector's Guide by Lee D. Witkin and Barbara London (1979), a convenient, authoritative, and moderately priced source of basic information on photography and photographers which fills a significant reference need.
• American Library Association for Guide to the Literature of Art History by Etta Arntzen and Robert Rainwater (1980), a comprehensive resource which is invaluable to art librarianship and a worthy successor to Mary Chamberlin's Guide to Art Reference Books (1959).
• Library of the Boston Athenaeum for The Boston Athenaeum Art Exhibition Index, 1827-1874 compiled and edited by Robert F. Perkins, Jr. and William J. Gavin III (1980), a most thoughtfully compiled, handsome aid to mid-nineteenth century American art scholarship.
• G.K. Hall for Collection of Exhibition Catalogs by the Archives of American Art (1979), a most welcome aid to researchers in quest of the essential, but often times elusive, American art exhibition catalog, thousands of which are indexed here and made available on microfilm by the Archives of American Art.
• Scholarly Resources, Inc. for The Card Catalog of the Manuscript Collections of the Archives of American Art, 10 vols. (1980), a convenient and easily understood reference work which provides access to the invaluable manuscript material gathered, cataloged, and made available on film by the Archives of American Art.

• The Cooper-Hewitt Museum and Harry N. Abrams for Scandinavian Modern Design, 1880-1980, general editor, David Revere McFadden (1982), an excellent treatment of a heretofore little studied area of the decorative arts.
• Macmillan Publishing Company for The Macmillan Encyclopedia of Architects, edited by Adolf K. Placzek, 4 vols. (1982), an outstanding work, welcome in an area which has long needed more substantial reference resources.
• Centre canadien d'architecture for Photography and Architecture, 1839-1939 edited by Richard Pare (1982), a catalog which combines superbly reproduced photographs with high standards of scholarship.
• University Press of New England for The Work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens by John H. Dryfhout (1982), an excellent monograph which makes available for the first time the entire artistic production of a great American artist.

• Yale University Press for such significant publications as The New Sculpture by Susan Beattie (1983); Muqarnas: An Annual on Islamic Art and Architecture; Fernand Léger by Peter De Francia (1983); The Cult of the Prince Consort by Elizabeth Darby and Nicola Smith (1983); and The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family edited by Lillian Miller, 3 vols. in 4 (v. 1, 1983).
• J.B. Speed Art Museum in association with Indiana University Press for the scholarly publication entitled Ingres: in Pursuit of Perfection: the Art of J.-A.-D. Ingres by Patricia Condon with Marjorie B. Cohn and Agnes Mongan (1983).
• University of California Press for French Gothic Architecture of the 12th and 13th Centuries by Jean Bony (1983), for this distinct contribution to the field of medieval architectural history.
• Harry N. Abrams in association with the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art for Design in America: The Cranbrook Vision, 1925-1950 by Robert Judson Clark ... [et al.] (1983). This publication, a well designed exhibition catalog, documents a major American design school.
• Kraus International Publications for the Print Council Index to Oeuvre-Catalogue of Prints by European and American Artists compiled by Timothy A. Riggs (1983) under the sponsorship of the Print Council of America. This reference tool will undoubtedly aid many researchers who were previously lacking the necessary index to relevant print literature.

• Yale University Press for The Société Anonyme and the Dreier Bequest at Yale University: a Catalogue Raisonné, co-editors Robert L. Herbert, Eleanor S. Apter and Elise K. Kenney (1984), which combines erudition, discovery, seamless editorial work, and generous design in a catalogue raisonné which can be read straight through and which will be returned to again and again.
• University of Chicago Press and Dumbarton Oaks for The Mosaics of San Marco in Venice by Otto Demus, 2 vols. in 4 (1984), a life's work of the highest scholarship, as monumental and endearing as its subject.
• University of Nebraska Press and the Joslyn Art Museum for Karl Bodmer's America (1984), a superbly produced catalog of exploration transmuted into art, beautifully designed and durably presented.
• Kevin Osborn for Vector Rev (Arlington, Virginia: Osbornbook, 1983), an artist' s book of compressed spiral loading radii, offset on eleven colors of paper, and bound between decorated and jeweled aluminum. This colorful, inventive work beautifully suggests the palm leaf books of Southeast Asia.
• MIT Press for Herbert Bayer: the Complete Work by Arthur A. Cohen (1984), the result of a consuming passion on the part of the author for this artist and designer, sensitively and accurately translated into a book design in total sympathy with the creative credo of its subject.

Please note there were two separate committees presenting two separate awards at the 1987 conference, in order to standardize the year of publication being honored.

Seventh George Wittenborn Awards; 1985 committee presented at 1987 convocation
• Who Was Who in American Art: Compiled from the Original Thirty-four Volumes of American Art Annual: Who's Who in American Art, Biographies of American Artists Active from 1898-1947 edited by Peter Hastings Falk (Madison, Connecticut: Sound View Press, 1985), a labor of love and a reference work of enduring value.
• Dr. Claribel & Miss Etta: The Cone Collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art by Brenda Richardson with assistance of William C. Ameringer ... [et al.] (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1985), a sparkling combination of biography and art history, with readable text, precise notes, scholarly detail, and excellent production.
• European Post-Medieval Tapestries and Related Hangings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Edith Appleton Standen (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985) 2 vols., a work of careful, insightful scholarship and a lifetime of connoisseurship, respectfully and elegantly presented.


Eighth George Wittenborn Awards; 1986 committee presented at 1987 convocation
• Laura Gilpin, an Enduring Grace by Martha A. Sandweiss (Fort Worth: Amon Carter Museum, 1986), for its scholarship, sensitive interpretation, and elegance of design.
• Penumbra Press (John Flood, proprietor), for its ongoing commitment to the publishing of source documents in Canadian art history, together with excellence of design.

• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in association with Little, Brown & Company, an award of excellence for The Art That is Life: the Arts & Crafts Movement in America, 1875-1920 by Wendy Kaplan, with contributions by Eileen Boris ... [et al.] (1987), a finely crafted work on the Arts and Crafts Movement in America; an extraordinary blending of production and content.
• Philbrook Museum of Art in association with University of Washington Press, an award of excellence for The Eloquent Object: the Evolution of American Art in Craft Media Since 1945 edited by Marcia Manhart and Tom Manhart (1987), a finely crafted work on crafts since 1945, an extraordinary blending of production and content.

• The Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection, Detroit, Michigan in association with Harry N. Abrams for Fluxus Codex compiled by Jon Hendricks (1988). This elegantly designed book offers exhaustive visual documentation as well as a method for the organization of Fluxus and its objects which enable greater access to an important movement in twentieth-century art.
• Yale University Press for Bradbury Thompson: the Art of Graphic Design (1988). This award is presented for excellence in concept, design, and execution, celebrating the wide range of artistic production by Bradbury Thompson; an example of the rare publication which conveys to the designer and lay person alike the vitality and strength of work which has influenced a generation of graphic designers.
• The New York Graphic Society, Little, Brown & Company in association with Callaway editions for Issey Miyake, photographs by Irving Penn, edited by Nicholas Callaway (1988). This book is a poetically conceived statement of the work of two artists who have both transcended definitions of their art--and their cultures--to create a whole new way to look at the human figure and to think about our relationship to clothes. Irving Penn is no less the collaborator here, together with the designer, Kiyoshi Kanai, and the New York graphic Society and Callaway Editions, who have produced a stunning tribute to a modern design master, Issey Miyake.
• W.W. Norton & Company for A Winterthur Book entitled American Seating Furniture, 1630-1730: an Interpretive Catalogue by Benno M. Forman (1988). One of the most important books ever published on the subject of American furniture, Benno M. Forman's thorough examination of seventeenth-century chairs at Winterthur is more than a scholarly catalogue. It is a landmark in the study of American material culture that combines connoisseurship, social history and scientific investigation in an elegantly designed and illustrated volume.
• University of Washington Press for Symmetries of Culture: Theory and Practice of Plane Pattern Analysis by Dorothy K. Washburn and Donald Crowe (1988). This is a superb post-modern collaboration of mathematics and anthropology to produce a primary tool for artistic and cultural analysis. Following the highest standards of the book maker's art, this important work marries content to context in a virtuoso design of black, white and gray contained in silver patterned boards of brilliant red.

• From the American Revolution to World War I by Hugh Honour, The Image of the Black in Western Art vols. 4 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Menil Foundation, Inc., distributed by Harvard University Press, 1989).
• The New Vision, Photography Between the World Wars: Ford Motor Company Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Maria Morris Hambourg and Christopher Phillips (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989).
• Eames Design: the Work of the Office of Charles and Ray Eames by John Neuhart, Marilyn Neuhart, Ray Eames (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1989).
• Minor White: the Eye that Shapes by Peter C. Bunnell with Maria B. Pellerano and Joseph B. Rauch (Princeton: The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1989).
• The Mad Potter of Biloxi: the Art & Life of George E. Ohr by Garth Clark, Robert A. Ellison, Jr., Eugene Hecht, photography by John White, special consultant, Martin Shack (New York: Abbeville Press, 1989).

• Art Across America: Two Centuries of Regional Painting by William H. Gerdts (New York: Abbeville Press, 1990).
• Facing History: the Black Image in American Art 1710-1940 by Guy McElroy with an essay by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (San Francisco: Bedford Arts; Washington, D.C.: Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1990).
• Envisioning Information by Edward R. Tufte (Cheshire, Connecticut: Graphics Press, 1990).
• Lisette Model by Ann Thomas (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1990).
• Greek Sculpture: an Exploration by Andrew Stewart (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).

• Los Angeles County Museum of Art for the exhibition catalogue, Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany edited by Stephanie Barron (1991) which includes a room-by-room photographic survey of the original show.
• Garland Publishing for Holabird & Roche and Holabird & Root: An Illustrated Catalog of Works by Robert Bruegmann (1991). A three-volume catalog of the Chicago Historical Society's architectural archives.
• Random House for A Life of Picasso by John Richardson, v.1 (1991) with the collaboration of Marilyn McCully. The first of a projected four volumes, it examines Picasso's first 25 years.
• Harry N. Abrams for Design 1935-1965: What Modern Was (1991) which focuses on 200 objects in the decorative arts from the Liliane and David Stewart Collection exhibited at the Musée des arts décoratifs de Montréal.
• University of Toronto Press for Art and Architecture in Canada: a Bibliography and Guide to the Literature to 1981 [Art et Architecture au Canada: Bibliographie et Guide de la Documentation jusq'en 1981] by Loren R. Lerner and Mary F. Williamson, 2 vols. (1991).

• The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art for The Century of Tung Ch'i'ch'ang edited by Wai-Kam Ho (Kansas City, Missouri: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992).
• The American Institute of Architects Press for Fay Jones: the Architecture of E. Fay Jones, FAIA by Robert Adams Ivy (Washington, D.C.: AIA Press, 1992).
• The Minneapolis Institute of Arts for Visions of the People: a Pictorial History of Plains Indian Life by Evan M. Maurer ... [et al.] (Minneapolis: M.I.A., 1992).
• Rizzoli International Publications for Puerto Rico 1900: Turn-of-the-Century Architecture in the Hispanic Caribbean, 1890-1930 by Jorge Rigau (New York: Rizzoli, 1992).
• Grupo Azabache for Pintura y escultura en Nueva España (1557-1640) by Guillermo Tovar de Teresa (Mexico City: Grupo Azabache, 1992).
• Special mention: MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Beacon Press, Boston, for the co-publication of Corporal Politics by Donald Hall (1992).
• Special letters: Gibbs Smith, publisher of Peregrine Smith Books of Layton, Utah and Watson-Guptill, for of commendation: filling a gap in the literature by publishing respectively, Angry Graphics: Protest Posters of the Reagan/Bush Era, edited by Karrie Jacobs and Steven Heller (1992), and The Savage Mirror: The Art of Contemporary Caricature by Steven Heller and Gail Anderson (1992).

• Amigos del Museo Nacional de Arte for its José Mariá Velasco (1840-1912): National Homage, by Mariá Elena Altamirano Piolle (1993), a two-volume study documenting the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of works by Velasco, one of Mexico's greatest painters, drawn from the collections of twenty institutions in Mexico, the United States, and Europe. Published in both Spanish- and English-language editions, the work includes new research on the painter and is perhaps the most complete publication written about a Mexican artist.
• University of Chicago Press for The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art by Joseph Leo Koerner (1993). Focusing his argument on Albrecht Durer's Self-Portrait of 1500, Koerner weaves a complex narrative around the nature of the artist, self-portraiture, and its relationship to the viewer. His wide-ranging text gracefully combines traditional art historical methodology, information about economic and legal conditions of the time, and contemporary theory about audience and spectacle to support his thesis and make an intelligent, readable book.
• The University of California Press for its centennial book, Bronzino's Chapel of Eleonora in the Palazzo Vecchio by Janet Cox-Rearick (1993), part of the California Studies in the History of Art series, this work examines the abundantly decorated chapel not only as a tour-de-force of sacred painting but also as a statement within the social and political discourses of mid-sixteenth century Florence. In addition to extensive notes, bibliography, and index, the book includes an appendix of documents about the chapel commission in both the original and in an English translation.
• Oxford University Press for The Oxford Guide to Classical Mythology in the Arts, 1300-1990's by Jane Davidson Reid (1993). The guide classifies over 30,000 art works by themes from Greek and Roman mythology. Unlike other sources that have attempted this, the author includes painting, sculpture, music, dance, opera, drama, and literature, thus gathering information heretofore segregated by discipline or time period.
• Yale University Press for the consistently high quality of all of Yale's 1993 publications in the visual arts, including: Fra Angelico at San Marco by William Hood; The Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice by Peter Humfrey; The Last Descendant of Aeneas: the Hapsburgs and the Mythic Image of the Emperor by Marie Tanner; Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth-Century England by Marcia Pointon; History and Its Images: Art and the Interpretation of the Past by Francis Haskell; Rodin: the Shape of Genius by Ruth Butler; Cut with the Kitchen Knife: the Weimar Photomontages of Hannah Höch by Maud Lavin; The Modernist Garden in France by Dorothée Imbert; Degas Landscapes by Richard Kendall.

• Eakins and the Photograph: Works by Thomas Eakins and His Circle in the Collection of the Pennsylvania Academy by Susan Danly and Cheryl Leibold (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press for the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1994). This book includes three-fourths of Eakins' photographic out-put; describes 648 images of the Bregler Collection; and places Eakins' photographic works within the transitional context, between 1880-1900, when photography moved from the realm of commerce to that of art.
• Mining the Museum: an Installation by Fred Wilson, edited by Lisa G. Corrin (New York: The New Press, 1994). Exhibitions are informed by curatorial biases and acquisition histories of particular institutions, which often, intentionally or not, exclude the viewpoints of minorities. This book looks at how museums view people of color and how people of color view museums. It is provocative. It is in many ways the exhibition catalogue of the future.
• A Century of Artists Books by Riva Castleman (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1994). This book accompanied a thrilling exhibition at MOMA; however, the book is more than an exhibition catalogue. It joins Eleanor Garvey and Philip Hofer's The Artist and the Book, 1860-1960 and Carole Hogben and Rowan Watson's From Manet to Hockney as a great reference book and contribution to the field of artist's books.
• Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams, 1840-1916 by Douglas W. Druick ... [et al.] (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1994). This book is the result of years of research. It is that rare example of superb scholarship, readability, and visual appeal.
• Japanese Design: a Survey Since 1950 by Kathryn B. Hiesinger and Felice Fischer (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1994). Here is a beautifully designed catalogue about design. The editor was George Marcus and the designer, Matsuo Katsui. It is an amazingly beautiful book.
• Special mention: Blast 1994. Think basic, local, alignment, search, tool: think deconstructing force. Blast is a hybrid form of journal and artist book, and the 1994 issue, fourth in the series, contains contributions from 60 artists, everything from a blue rubber glove to video and computer programs. We salute the energy, creativity, and vision of the editor, Jordan Crandall, and the X-Art Foundation of New York.
• Special mention: The Bibliography of Gay and Lesbian Artists (1994), because it is a long overdue reference and collection development tool for an area in art history that has been neglected and ignored. Published by the Gay and Lesbian Caucus of the College Art Association, the bibliography was edited by James Saslow. Three of the contributing editors--Sherman Clarke, Alfred Willis, and Jim Van Buskirk--are current/former members of ARLIS/NA.