Richard Minsky

Richard Minsky is an American scholar of bookbinding and a book artist. He is the founder of the Center for Book Arts in New York City.

Minsky was born in New York City in 1947. In 1960, Minsky obtained his first printing press at the age of 13. In 1968, he graduated cum laude in economics from Brooklyn College. Minsky was awarded a fellowship at Brown University, where he received his master’s degree in economics. He pursued a Ph.D. at The New School for Social Research, but left after two years to pursue bookbinding, art and music. He studied bookbinding while at Brown with the University’s master binder Daniel Gibson Knowlton.

He founded the Center for Book Arts in 1974 after fourteen years experience as both a bookbinder and printer. Minsky served as the Center’s Executive Director until 1977 and its President until 1978. He also served as the Director of Program Development and an instructor in hand bookbinding at the Center. Richard serves on the Book Art Theory subcommittee of the College Book Art Association. The Richard Minsky Archive is at Yale.

More about Richard Minsky:

• minsky.com
• Yale Arts Library Special Collections: Interviews with book artist Richard Minsky
• The Book Art of Richard Minsky: My Life in Book Art

Richard Minsky organized these exhibitions:

Open for Action: Political Book Art

Book Arts in the USA
an exhibition of work by 51 artists; a cultural presentation of the United States of America

The Effects of Time
an exhibition of books before 1600 with artwork by insects and rodents, mangled by bookbinders and dealers, etc.

Bookworks by Tom Phillips
A verse translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy by Tom Phillips with images and commentary

Book Artchitecture
an exhibition in which the structure of the book supports the metaphor of the content or is the content