The WunderCabinet

The American Printing History Association presents the 2015 J. Ben Lieberman Lecture

UCLA Charles E. Young Research Library Main Conference Room

Free and open to the public

Hosted by UCLA Library Special Collections

Reception to follow 

As collectors of knowledge & objects, writer and artist Barbara Hodgson and bookbinder Claudia Cohen yearned to possess their very own cabinets of curiosities. While accumulating specimens that would go into such cabinets, they pondered the organization of their collections into facsimiles of 16th-to-18th-century Wunderkammern. 

When one of them raised the seemingly impossible idea of creating an edition of thirty cabinets, the challenge was irresistible. The result is The WunderCabinet, with its collection of objects of curiosity that examines humankind’s passion for accumulation and display. Barbara Hodgson will speak about producing The WunderCabinet, from early discussions, to research and organization, to the fascinating practicalities of paper, printing, and binding.*A copy of The WunderCabinet will be on display.

Barbara Hodgson is a book designer and the author of over a dozen books. In addition to The WunderCabinet, her collaborations with bookbinder Claudia Cohen include The Temperamental Rose, After Image, Occupied by Colour, Around the World in Colour, Cutting Paper, Suminagashi, and Decorating Paper, all published by Heavenly Monkey Editions.