09/16/2024
At Abbeville Press, we love art—that’s no secret. But perhaps not all of our readers know that this appreciation stems from the dual passions of our founders, Harry N. Abrams and his son Robert E. Abrams, for art book publishing and art collecting. Their deeply personal engagement with art, and often, the artist, is reflected in the Abbeville catalogue and the breadth of their multi-generational collection. Later this month, Sotheby’s will offer a selection of works from the Abrams Family Collection which embodies the ethos “Art Without Boundaries,” a guiding principle handed down from father to son.
As current publisher David Fabricant, who worked with Bob Abrams for almost twenty years, notes in his essay, there are inherent parallels in the language of the art collector and the publisher: both “acquire” new works. A keen eye is a must. The publisher must both seek out the best that is available, but—like a patron of the arts—also discover and encourage new talent, even commissioning projects to fill lacunae in a field. He recalls a particularly telling refrain of his mentor:
“Clearly the Abbeville list reflects the same drive to explore art in all its variety— “without boundaries”—as we see in the Abrams Family Collection. To range this deeply through art requires a certain experience and maturity; Bob, like his father before him, had lived with enough art and learned enough about art history to come to the simple conclusion that great art has taken many forms, in many contexts. One thing I heard Bob say on several occasions—usually in a tone of wonderment before a new discovery—was, ‘There’s a lot of good art out there!’”
To learn more, see the link 🔝
