Boreas Fine Art

Boreas Fine Art offers a carefully chosen selection of artists’ and fine press books from the Post-War and Contemporary eras. Our inventory includes books that have either become the iconic works of their medium or represent the best work by the most promising emerging artists working today.

The artist’s book by many accounts began in the 1960s, with works by Dieter Roth and Ed Ruscha, although the genre had clear antecedents in the late 18th century with the illuminated printing (as he called it) of William Blake, and, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, with the livres d’artistes created primarily in France by numerous artists, writers, and publishers, most notably Stéphen Mallarmé, Édouard Manet, André Derain, Ambroise Vollard, and Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler. The books offered here follow those earlier traditions, but in many cases fit neither model perfectly.

If you are in Chicago, please call or write to arrange a visit to our studio/showroom at 260 East Chestnut in the Gold Coast neighborhood. Located between Michigan Avenue and Lake Shore Drive, we are an easy walk from Sotheby’s, Christie’s, the Newberry Library, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the American Library Association, the Poetry Foundation, the John Hancock Building, and the Water Tower shopping district. We will be happy to show you, without obligation, any of the books on this website. Mere curiosity is sufficient reason for a visit.