Poetic Science is the first solo exhibition in New England featuring the work of Easthampton-based artist and binder Daniel E. Kelm. Approximately twenty-four of Kelm’s bookbindings—from the Mortimer Rare Book Room or on loan from the binder and other collectors—are displayed in Neilson Library, along with some preliminary designs and structural models. There are outstanding examples of deluxe leather bindings, cast paper, wire-edge and metal bindings, and other innovative and unusual approaches to traditional bookbinding by Kelm, who has collaborated during the past 25 years with many publishers, printers, artists, papermakers, and other book workers.

A concurrent exhibition, Poetic Science: Bookworks by Daniel E. Kelm, will be on view from October 12, 2007-February 20, 2008 in the Smith College Museum of Art. This section of the exhibition features Kelm’s sculptural and kinetic bookworks, accompanied by video and web publications.

Full leather binding with leather onlays by Daniel Kelm, produced in 1984, an example of Kelm’s impeccable workmanship using traditional bookbinding techniques. The binding is on a copy of book designer Jan Tschichold’s Asymmetric Typography, an English translation published in New York in 1967