Harriet Bart – Garment Register
A homage to the anonymous women who helped make modern American life
(Harriet Bart) Garment Register. An artist’s book by Harriet Bart. Minneapolis. MN 2001. 12” x 10”. Eighteen double-page spreads. Printed three-color throughout on Rives BFK in Monotype Univers 45 with 46. Each spread contains ledger pages scanned in Photoshop, then reassembled for printing of the red and blue rules by letterpress – a technique which preserved the steel-nibbed pen writing of the original ledger pages, which were then printed from magnesium plates. Each leaf consists of three sheets of paper glued together to allow for a recessed vintage found photograph, now reproduced, of a woman on the recto, and a recess containing appropriate vintage fabric on the verso. Black vintage fabric binding with open spine construction sewn with white and gray threads by Jill Jevne. Black relief title on front. Black cloth dropback box with paper title label recessed on front board. One in an edition of 25 signed and numbered copies, plus 5 Artist’s proofs. Fine.
Harriet Bart was born in Minnesota and raised in San Francisco. She returned to the Midwest to receive her BA from the University of Minnosota and did further study at Macalester College and California State University at Fullerton. She has exhibited and sold her work both nationally and internationally since 1975. She has also received many grants and fellowships, as well as major public commissions. Garment Register is based on an installation created by Harriet Bart.
“The installation pays homage to the anonymous women at the fabric of modern American life whose voices and life stories have been left out of the grand narratives of history. At the same time, it is a visual commentary on the nature of history and the cultural implications of the collection and preservation of knowledge.” – Deepali Dewan.
This book, [made] in collaboration with Philip Gallo at The Hermetic Press was inspired by that work. In this evocative book Harriet Bart commemorates the lives of generations of anonymous women at the heart of the fabric of modern America. It brings together pages of an old found anonymous ledger with its entries of women’s names and the dues they paid. Incorporated into the ledger pages are found photographs, vintage fabrics, and prose from women writers – Martha Graham, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Madeleine L’Engle, Lillian Hellman, Etty Hillesum, Kate Chopin, L.M. Montgomery, Colette, Doris Lessing, Anne Cameron, Willa Cather, Harriet A. Jacobs, Anya Seton, Nor Hall, Anne Frank, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. The artist, in her Colophon, gratefully acknowledges generous Fellowship support from The McKnight Foundation and the Bush Artist Fellows Program.
Related items: Artists' Books, Catalogue 38 Preview - Winter 2009/2010, Harriet Bart