17th
Belgian ex-libris portfolios in Helsinki
The Suomen Exlibrisyhdistys/Finnish Exlibris Association is presenting an exhibition of Belgian bookplate portofolios at the gallery of the city library of Helsinki in Itä-Pasila. The vernissage will be at the 8th of January 2010 and the exhibition will be open until the end of January. It was conceived by Arja Laakkonen (secretary of Finnish Exlibris Association) and Niklas Bengtsson (vice president of the association).
The exhibition is based on bookplate portfolios published by the Antwerpsche ex-libriskring. This Belgian association was founded in 1937 and according to the catalogues of the Belgian Royal Library it published portfolios until 1960. In the archives of the Finnish Exlibris Association there are portfolios from 1948 to 1960. The exhibition will be based on these portfolios.
These portfolios include bookplates and other graphic works by Belgian and foreign artists, for example by Dutch Cor de Wolff (1889-1963), Belgian Victor Stuyvaert (1897-1974) and Gerard Gauden (1927-2003). Artists presented in the portfolios were not important only in Belgium but also at an international level – for example in 2003 Frank-Ivo van Damme (1932-) was awarded an Albin Brunovsky Certificate by FISAE, which shows his international excellence in bookplate design.
At the opening seremony, a new book on ex-libris will be presented, called Exlibris- ja kuvasalkkujen elämäkertoja (Biographies of bookplate and art portfolios), which also has a chapter concerning the portfolios of the Antwerpsche ex-libriskring. This book is written by Niklas Bengtsson and published by the Finnish Exlibris Association.
