Richard Smart | OLD ENGLISH BINDERY
A look at selected fine & period bindings by thirdgeneration Master Bookbinder, Richard Smart. C. 2017
Old English Bindery | 1455 Crown St., North Vancouver, B.C. | V7J 1G4, Canada
http://www.oldenglishbindery.com | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604-971-1716
RICHARD SMART Old English Bindery 1455 Crown St. | North Vancouver, BC V7J 1G4 | Canada 604.971.1716 info@oldenglishbindery.com
BIOGRAPHY Richard Smart is a third-generation bookbinder from the UK, with an extensive background in traditional bookbinding, restoration and conservation. His work is held in institutions and private collections worldwide. Studying under his father, John Smart, Richard’s accomplished craftsmanship is sought out by rare book dealers, collectors, museums and archives. With extended studies is gold-finishing via Sangorski & Sutcliffe in London, UK, his expertise lies in creating fine and period bindings. Richard’s skill set has afforded him opportunities of a wide range, including original, handcrafted designer bindings for clients such as Charlton Heston, Hunter S. Thompson, and Mark Mothersbaugh. In 2005, he was commissioned by the Government of Canada and the Department of Veteran’s Affairs to bind the Seventh Book of Remembrance, commemorating Canadian Service men and women whose deaths are attributable to military service.
BOOKBINDER’S CURRICULUM VITAE Selected Work Experience Founder & Owner of Old English Bindery. North Vancouver, BC, Canada John Smart Bookbinders; Restorers of Antique Books and Documents. Wiltshire, UK Sangorski & Sutcliffe Fine Bookbinders and Booksellers. London, UK H.M. Fletcher; Dealer in Rare Books. London, UK Colin Page; Antiquarian, Rare and Secondhand Books. Sussex, UK Hesketh and Ward Booksellers. London, UK Christopher Edwards; Antiquarian Books & Manuscripts. London, UK Pickering & Chatto; Antiquarian Booksellers. London, UK Reg and Philip Remington; Antiquarian and Second-Hand Booksellers. London, UK Heritage Bookshop. Beverly Hills, California, USA David Brass Rare Books. Calabasas, California, USA L. Weinstein Consultants; Antiquarian Bookseller. Wailea, Hawaii, USA Bauman’s Rare Books. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Richard Smart; OLD ENGLISH BINDERY | North Vancouver, British Columbia | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604.971.1716
Selected Designer Bindings, Period Bindings and Restoration Commissions Seventh Book of Remembrance, bound for the Government of Canada & the Department of Veterans Affairs The Codex Sinaiticus, full restoration under the approval of the British Library Cook’s Last Voyage, Presentation Copy from the Estate of Captain Cook, restored for the Cook Society & the British Museum Fear and Loathing Letters Vols. I & II, by Hunter S. Thompson, bound for Hunter S. Thompson Ben Hur, by Lew Wallace, bound for Charleton Heston The Mirage, by Matt Ruff, designer binding commissioned by Ed Smith for the author Bad Monkeys, by Matt Ruff, designer binding commissioned by Ed Smith for the author Lovecraft Country, by Matt Ruff, designer binding commissioned by Ed Smith for the author Various designer & period bindings for author & illustrator, Charles Van Sandwyk Designer binding of the original music scores and drawings for the movies, Vacation, Ice Age, Hotel Transylvania and Alvin and the Chipmunks, by Mark Mothersbaugh, bound for Mark Mothersbaugh & Mutato Muzika Studios
Selected Published References & Media “Binding Tradition”, 2015. Video feature by TELUS Optik Local. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OC0LNXujHU “By the Book: Profile of Richard Smart”, 2008. North Shore News. North, Vancouver, BC, Canada. “News Release: Seventh Book of Remembrance Dedicated”, 2005. Veterans Affairs Canada. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. “Bound by Richard Smart: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam – Solander Box”. J. Hewit & Sons Leather Manufacturers. http://www.hewit.com/showcase/view/?item=40 ”Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes; A Binding by Richard Smart”. J. Hewit & Sons Leather Manufacturers. http://www.hewit.com/download/sd12.pdf “The Seventh Book of Remembrance – By Richard Smart”. J. Hewit & Sons Leather Manufacturers. http://www.hewit.com/skin_deep/?volume=21&article=1 “Tree Marbling: Challenges and Secrets – By Richard Smart”. J. Hewit & Sons Leather Manufacturers. http://www.hewit.com/skin_deep/?volume=15&article=1
Richard Smart; OLD ENGLISH BINDERY | North Vancouver, British Columbia | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604.971.1716
SELECTED FINE & PERIOD BINDINGS
Richard Smart; OLD ENGLISH BINDERY | North Vancouver, British Columbia | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604.971.1716
84, CHARING CROSS ROAD Hanff, Helene First Edition; Andre Deutsch London:1971
Bound for a long-time customer, this fine binding is full red Morocco leather with several leather on-lays. The boards are hand-carved underneath to give the binding more depth and dimension. Full gilt with tiny, hand-painted books in the window.
Richard Smart; OLD ENGLISH BINDERY | North Vancouver, British Columbia | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604.971.1716
COSWAY-STYLE BINDING OF ANNA KARENINA BY LEO TOLSTOY Vladimir Nabokov called Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina "One of the greatest love stories in world literature." Matthew Arnold claimed it was not so much a work of art as "a piece of life." Set in imperial Russia, Anna Karenina is a rich and complex meditation on passionate love and disastrous infidelity. First issued serially in1873; first published in book form in Moscow in1878. Originally in the first edition brown cloth. This is now in a stunning Cosway-style binding in genuine brown crushed Levant Morocco, by Old English Bindery, with two miniatures behind convex glass as per Cosway-style, with the portraits of Leo Tolstoi and Anna Karenina, by artist Emilie Crewe.
Richard Smart; OLD ENGLISH BINDERY | North Vancouver, British Columbia | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604.971.1716
Richard Smart; OLD ENGLISH BINDERY | North Vancouver, British Columbia | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604.971.1716
PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS By J.M. Barrie (American Edition) Bound in green Morocco leather with handpainted leather on-lays. Full gilt, hand-tooled with gold vines.
Richard Smart; OLD ENGLISH BINDERY | North Vancouver, British Columbia | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604.971.1716
MOBY DICK, OR ‘THE WHALE’ Melville, Herman Harper and Brothers New York, 1851; First Edition.
Bound in full grey Morocco. Simple leather relief on-lay. Blind and gold tooling.
Richard Smart; OLD ENGLISH BINDERY | North Vancouver, British Columbia | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604.971.1716
WALDEN BY HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Richard Smart; OLD ENGLISH BINDERY | North Vancouver, British Columbia | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604.971.1716
WALDEN, OR ‘LIFE IN THE WOODS’, by Henry David Thoreau, 1854 Boston: Ticknor And Fields, 1854. First Edition. First Edition of this profoundly influential philosophical work on the experience of wilderness, the foundational document of ecocriticism. One of only 2,000 copies printed. Eight pages of ads dated June 1854, bound at the rear mark, this as an early copy. Bound in full green Morocco with extra gilt. Cosway-style with terracotta Morocco deblures, front deblure tooled with the map of Walden Pond as per engraved plate at page 307, rear deblure tooled boarders with a quote from Henry Thoreau... “Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” - Henry David Thoreau Silk ends facing leather deblures. Spine tooled in 6 panels gilt corner tools and centre tooling, front and rear cover tooled in panels with extra gilt to match period and style of the time for this type of binding. Cosway-style miniature painting by Emilie Crewe on thick Vellum paper to match the same texture as ivory, painting taken from the wood-engraved title-page vignette of Thoreau's hut. Publisher's catalogue dated June 1854. First edition. Following the failure of his first book, A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers, Walden was not a runaway success. The edition of 2,000 took five years to sell through, but it was from the very first an immensely influential text, and remains so today: "For almost a hundred years an inspiration to nature lovers, to philosophers, to sociologists and to persons who love to read the English language written with clarity" (Grolier). Most copies have publisher's advertisements inserted at the back with varying dates of no known bibliographical significance.
Richard Smart; OLD ENGLISH BINDERY | North Vancouver, British Columbia | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604.971.1716
PERIOD BINDING OF DAUMIER’S CARICATURE PORTRAITS Bound in period French-style, blue straight grain Morocco, extra gilt with marbled end papers. DAUMIER, Honoré. TRAVIÈS, (Charles Joseph Traviés De Villers). A group of eleven caricature portraits from the 'Types Français' series. Paris: Au Bureau Chez Aubert, ca. 1836. Folio (13 5/8 x 10 1/4 inches; 345 x 260 mm.). A group of nine superb lithographs, seven by Daumier and two by Traviés. WATCH A VIDEO OF RICHARD SMART TOOLING THE BOOK HERE: https://www.facebook.com/oldenglishbindery/videos/vl.1012701282166675/1421992231198375/?type=1&theater
Richard Smart; OLD ENGLISH BINDERY | North Vancouver, British Columbia | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604.971.1716
ASSORTMENT OF SOLANDER (CLAMSHELL) BOXES
Richard Smart; OLD ENGLISH BINDERY | North Vancouver, British Columbia | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604.971.1716
Richard Smart; OLD ENGLISH BINDERY | North Vancouver, British Columbia | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604.971.1716
SOLANDER BOX FOR ‘BARFLY’ BY CHARLES BUKOWSKI (FIRST EDITION; SIGNED & INSCRIBED) Full black Morocco with red and yellow leather onlays, gilt, and black tooling, with hand-made marbled paper to match spine & felt lining.
Richard Smart; OLD ENGLISH BINDERY | North Vancouver, British Columbia | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604.971.1716
SOLANDER BOX In Powder and Crinoline Fairy Tales Retold by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch With Illustrations by Kay Nielsen, 1913 Full green Morocco with blue leather on-lays. Full gilt to compliment the Art Nouveau-style binding, and felt interior lining.
Richard Smart; OLD ENGLISH BINDERY | North Vancouver, British Columbia | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604.971.1716
RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYĂƒM - SOLANDER BOX The book itself is one of twenty-five copies printed on Japanese vellum; Signed by Francis Sangorski & George Sutcliffe. Bound in full blue straight grain Morocco, using Grolieresque style on-lays of red and green leather, in a slightly Middle Eastern design, with gold tooling representative of the design of the book. Richard Smart; OLD ENGLISH BINDERY | North Vancouver, British Columbia | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604.971.1716
WATCH A SHORT DOCUMENTARY ABOUT RICHARD SMART & OLD ENGLISH BINDERY HERE:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OC0LNXujHU&t=3s Richard Smart; OLD ENGLISH BINDERY | North Vancouver, British Columbia | info@oldenglishbindery.com | 604.971.1716