Sotheby's THE GEORGE ABRAMS COLLECTION

Published by Sothebys, 1980, auction catalogue, hardcover, large format, unpaginated, profusely illustrated (including many coloured plates, 238 lots, condition: new.

. "It is remarkable that a collector of not excessive means should have been able, over a relatively brief period, to have formed so fine and wide-ranging a collection of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century printed books, including so many volumes that from general freshness of condition and from quality of rubrication and decoration, would stand out in any of the world's major collections. The Abrams collection of early printing reveals in many ways that it was formed by a calligrapher and graphic designer of distinction - a recent example of his work being Abrams Venetian, the unusually readable and graceful typeface (with a beautiful accompanying italic) in which this catalogue is printed. Mr. Abrams' book collecting began with modern fine printing. Some fifteen years ago his focus shifted back in time to what may be considered the perennial source of the modern typographic movements: the earliest examples of European printing. Those who regularly handle early printed books are continuously if subliminally reminded of what William Morris was perhaps the first collector to grasp clearly: that many of the earliest printed books are not merely remarkable productions for their time; they are, in fact, highly successful solutions to a multitude of design problems, of a kind that the modern graphic artist or typographer encounters daily in only slightly variant forms. They are, or can be, important teaching tools, examples not to be copied, but absorbed. As exempla of excellence, the best printing of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-centuries is all the more effective for its lack of fuss, its willingness to let the result speak for itself.