Jules McGee-Russell

A Graduate Trainee Project

With the casual air of business as usual, my supervisor plucked several archive envelopes from the shelf. ‘I’ll show you some of these, these are interesting,’ he said, laying out several Livres d’Artiste from the Strachan Collection. Opening this handful of items during my first day of work unknowingly set me on a path of complete focus and devotion, for my entire trainee year.

Seeing these beautiful special collection items including Mario Prassinos’ The Raven was, as Walter Strachan said of his first experience with Livres d’Artiste, ‘a revelation’. I was captivated by the fine details of each print, the typography, the layout of the pages, how the text and image seemed to speak to each other. I wanted nothing more but to sit, absorbed in technically perfect ‘good pages’, and create my own poetry and artwork in response. Do people know about these? I thought, eyeing the Picasso, the Matisse, the Dalí, and all the other artists I had no reference point for yet.

I’m someone who believes knowledge and beauty are for everyone: for the people, for the public. Libraries are custodians, not gatekeepers. But I was stood in a Bodleian library, an incredible library that only privileged few have access to, in a room that only certain staff could enter. A barrier within a barrier, a bubble within a bubble. All these incredible items were here, just waiting to be seen. I have to show these to more people, I decided.

The next year of my life would be almost completely absorbed in this collection. Auditing it, organising it, and creating events and exhibits to share it with students and the wider Oxford community of poets and artists.

Who was Walter Strachan?

Walter J Strachan was a poet, French translator, teacher of modern languages, critic, and art connoisseur. He described his first experience viewing Livres d’Artiste at an exhibition in 1945 as ‘overwhelming’ and he became their passionate champion for the rest of his life.

He spent the following 35 years gathering his own personal collection and building relationships with the artists, printers, and publishers of Livres d’Artiste in his yearly spring vacation to Paris. Part of this collection was gifted to the Taylor Institution in 1987 following two exhibitions of his collection in 1963 and 1978 at the Ashmolean Museum. Currently housed in the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library, it includes complete books, ‘bonnes feuilles’ (‘good pages’, identified by printer and artist as ‘perfect’), ‘suites’, and proofs – many signed by the artist friends who made them. He was also a fan of owls, and many of these artist friends would gift him with various owl illustrations!

What are Livres d’Artiste?

A Livre d’Artiste is a limited-edition illustrated book, considered a precursor to the Artist’s Book. Prominent in 20^th century Paris, they are not illustrated books in the way you would typically imagine them today. Rather than a coffee table art book with glossy pages of photography, or an illustrated novel printed in runs of thousands, each Livre d’Artiste is a piece of art in and of itself. Usually limited to 50-300 copies, each book is an ‘original’ directly overseen and executed by a painter, sculptor, or print-maker. Everything from the kind of paper to the colour of ink used is a creative decision made directly by the artist.

The artists who made Livre d’Artiste were not professional book illustrators either but influential, nationally or internationally-acclaimed artists in their fields. Most of the books are hand-set and use time-intensive meticulous techniques such as lithograph, etching, and mezzotint. Artists would create something completely their own, collaborate with their poet and book-maker friends to make them, or reimagine literature from past greats in their own way, often translating them into French.

Outreach Preparations

Many Bodleian libraries have a Graduate Trainee Library Assistant. During the yearlong post, we attend a series of training sessions together, write about our experiences on the trainee blog, and have the opportunity to undertake a project during the course of the year. Sometimes the project is set by the needs of the library, and sometimes, if you’re lucky, you can choose it for yourself as I did.

The centrepiece of my trainee project was the Myths, Beasts, Artist’s Books creative outreach day. After spending a few months getting acquainted with the collection, finding and fixing problems along the way, I started pulling together items I wanted to show.

After much excruciating shortlisting (my original “shortlist” was 150 items, around half the collection…), I eventually landed on 20 items including Livres d’Artiste from the Strachan Collection, Livres d’Artiste from other Taylorian special collections, and more modern Artist’s Books from the Weston’s special collections. The theme that revealed itself was fables, animals, beasts, and books that somehow muddied the waters of what it means to be a book or poem at all.

I included one of the Livres first shown to me: Prassinos’ The Raven, a reimagining of Poe’s most famous piece including strikingly geometric and characterful ravens. Other linchpin items included Bestiaire fabuleux. by Jean Lurçat, a mythological bestiary of creatures complete with calligramme poems; This Westward, a collaborative piece that can be unfurled into a semi-globe shape and reimagines the first circumnavigation of the earth; XIV Fables, a Livre by engraver Abram Krol which illustrates Jean de la Fontaine’s classic fables; and Abanico para los toros, a collection of prose poems in praise of bullfighting by Michel Leiris, illustrated with lithographs, linocuts, etchings, and engravings in colour and black by Gabriel Paris.

Alongside all the practicalities of arranging an outreach day, I also had to decide who exactly this event was for, and how I could reach them. As someone who never studied at Oxford, who prior to this job was working in public libraries, it was important to me that my event would in some small way tackle the town/gown divide. I wanted to show the items to people who would not have been able to see them otherwise, in an event that was free of charge and included art materials and refreshments.

I decided I wanted to reach practicing, non-beginner poets and artists, based in and around Oxford. I also prioritised those who were not already Oxford University members. To reach them, I focused on targeting community and charity email newsletters, word of mouth, and physically going to places to meet artists. This ended up working almost too well, as I had double the number of sign-ups as places available!

Myths, Beasts, Artist’s Books Creative Outreach Day

Myths, Beasts, Artist’s Books was a creative outreach day in two parts. In the morning, myself and a Rare Books Curator from the Weston introduced the special collections to the attendees. In the afternoon, I took the 11 poets and artists to the Bodleian Bibliographical Press, where they used the space and materials provided to create pieces inspired by the collections they saw.

The poets and artists made 5 pieces altogether, in small groups of two or three. They were grouped primarily in pairs of one poet and one artist, so they had the experience of working with words and art together, as is common in Livres d’Artiste. Their names were pulled randomly from a hat, but each group chimed so well together that it was as if they had collaborated before. After an initial hour or so of discussion and planning, a wonderfully meditative silence descended on the room, as everyone brought their creative visions to fruition. Seeing visual motifs from the special collections items emerge through energetic and focused collaboration between creatives was so rewarding.

The creatives were also offered an additional evening working in the Taylorian to finish their pieces, a letterpress workshop with Printer-in-Residence James Freemantle to make colophons for their work, and the opportunity to talk to the public about their pieces during an exhibition for Oxfordshire Artweeks (an initiative where artists display their works across Oxfordshire, for the public to visit). The artists were all wonderful, and seemed to get a lot from the experience based on the lovely feedback I received – the most common suggestion for improvement was to make the day even longer!

Creative Responses to the Collection

Halfway through organising the event, someone asked ‘What will you do with the artwork attendees make?’ I had decided from the outset that I wanted to exhibit the pieces (more on that later!), but where should they go afterwards?

I imagined a future where this event structure was used regularly to engage the public with our special collections, and how helpful it would be to have examples of items previously made. I considered how important it is to preserve artwork and creativity, and how challenging it is to capture those ‘book art’ works produced outside the formats of traditional publishing. I also looked around and remembered the Bodleian will be here in hundreds of years. It is completely astonishing to work in an institution with such a legacy of longevity, I can barely wrap my head around it. What could it mean to an artist, to know their work would be preserved with that longevity?

So, each piece made was donated to the Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library under a Creative Commons license, and housed next to the Strachan Collection. This means the works are available to any reader or University member, to view and research, and they can be used to inspire further art in the future. I had support from our internal team at Osney to catalogue the items, and it was fascinating to learn more about cataloguing unusual bookish artworks.

If you’d like to see the works made in detail (and I hope you do!), I have created permanent online identifiers for each item, kindly hosted by the Sustainable Digital Scholarship online repository. There you will find a high-quality scanned pdf copy of each item, the artist statements in full, and a video of their pages being turned. Find the links to these below! Several of the book items made are very interactive, in particular Water, Water Everywhere and Whosebody, 68 Creaturely Pl. The physical items are also catalogued and requestable for use in library only via SOLO.

Whosebody, 68 Creaturely Pl.

Created by artists E West, Oakley Hirst, Joey Birch. A queer, trans and disabled response to myths and beasts through the lens of place. The pages can be swapped and reversed to give the creatures different body parts, in the style of an ‘exquisite corpse.’

Water, Water Everywhere

Created by poet Heer Nimavat and artist Claire Parker.

A visual and literary commentary on colonialism and its impact on ecologies. One page of poems and one double-sided reimagination of a map. One side representing the colourful perception of the sea, and the other representing the price paid by colonies.

Homage à DJT

Created by poet artists Deborah Jane Mason and Sarianne Durie.

6-page concertina booklet containing metaphors on Trump’s “destructive power and egotism”. Inspired by the artist’s book ‘American crow : report from quarantine’ by Gaylord Schanilec, and the Livre d’Artiste ‘XIV fables’ by Abram Krol.

Codex Bestiarius Draconis : The Beast Book of the Dragon

Created by artist Luca Hirst and poet Dr Joyce Datiles. A 16-page zine bestiary with 8 magical beast illustrations and poems.

Cat Arac The Art – Cataract Heart : in a state between reading and looking

Created collaboratively by poet Alexandra Muck and artist Helen Mary Ganly.

Exhibitions

Something I kept coming back to time and time again while organising this project, was the thought what do the artists get out of this?

Of course, the experience of meeting each other, seeing the collections, having fun, and creating something new, is always rewarding. But as I wanted to reach those who were in some way committed to poetry-writing or art-making (as a career or otherwise), it was especially important to me that the creatives themselves were getting uplifted through their participation.

With this in mind, I exhibited the work they made, first in the Bibliographical Press over two days of Artweeks, and then for a two-week exhibit in the Taylorian’s Voltaire Room. Some of the participating artists were more established, but for those who were earlier in their careers, I hope these exhibits also acted as a boost they can use to be exhibited again in the future.

During Artweeks, members of the public could see the work, turn pages, and speak to the artists who came along. I also used this opportunity to promote the poets and artists’ social media and websites. I wanted to give the attendees a chance to bring along friends and family to show off what they’d made, and to use this opportunity as another way to challenge the town/gown divide.

Then, after being enjoyably side-tracked researching how to safely display light-sensitive works in the Voltaire Room cases (including measuring the UV and lumen using a lux meter loaned from the Ashmolean), I put together the exhibition at the Taylorian. I placed the creative outcomes from the outreach event side-by-side with the special collections items that inspired them, including photos of the making in progress, artist statements, and photographs of the special collections I could not display physically. Several of the artists visited us to view this exhibition, and were thrilled to see their works on display.

A lovely side-effect of the event was that 83% of the attendees said they were interested in having a Bodleian Reader Card. If even one artist feels more welcome in the Bodleian due to my event, then that makes it a success in my eyes. I have even heard that one artist is potentially donating her Artist Books to the Bodleian, and I am so pleased to have made the Rare Books team aware of some fantastic local artists!

That’s all, folks!

All in all, I have thoroughly enjoyed working on my trainee project this year. Having the scope and freedom to design something like this myself, and the generous support of colleagues to make it a reality, has been incredible. I have learned about outreach, events planning, working with artists, cataloguing, conservation, and more. Perhaps in the future I will build my own collection of Artist’s Books, or even make one myself (with the extra benefit of finally justifying going on a bookbinding course). Regardless, this has been a year where I have proved how much I can achieve when I put my mind to it. I never would have anticipated that an off-the-cuff introduction to a handful of items would send me on such an interesting journey, but I am very glad they did.

Thank you to all the colleagues who gave me their time, expertise, and voluntary support. Thank you also to the poets and artists who gave me their open-hearted collaboration and skill, and to all the insightful and enthusiastic students who came along to my show-and-tell event. I couldn’t have done it without you!

Introduction to Le Livre d’Artiste 

This blog post features Mandy and Tiffany’s placements [for the MSc in Digital Scholarship] at the Taylor Editions, where they turn two remarkable examples of le livre d’artiste (the artist book) into digital editions. The making of the artist book is a uniquely French tradition where artists create original illustrations that accompany the texts. However, the illustrations are not merely reflective or decorative – they represent collaborative dialogues between literature and visual art as the artists interpret and visually respond to the literary content. 

Our exhibition features Poèmes de Charles d’Orléans, transcribed and illustrated by Matisse and Le Satyricon by Petronius, with original engravings and ornamental designs by Derain. These works represent two approaches in le livre d’artiste tradition to reimagining book production: Matisse’s lithography creates a manuscript-like appearance that evokes handwritten texts, while Derain’s copper and wood engravings maintain a more conventional book format with printed typography. Both works depart from traditional bookmaking and painting through their reproducibility – le livre d’artiste exists as multiple identical copies, raising complex questions about authenticity and aura of art in the age of mechanical reproduction, like Walter Benjamin once explored in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. 

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) 

Edition at: https://editions.mml.ox.ac.uk/editions/matisse

Matisse’s illustrated and transcribed work of Poèmes de Charles d’Orléans, published in 1950. Working from his studio in occupied Nice (France) during World War II, Matisse found creative renewal and resistance in the poetry of Charles d’Orléans, a medieval French poet who was captured at the Battle of Agincourt and spent 25 years as a prisoner of war in England. Thus, the warrior poet was a symbol of French cultural (and political) resistance—a powerful reminder that was much needed. Matisse’ illustrated books also transformed the French Le Livre d’Artiste tradition. Rather than simply providing illustrations to printed poetry, Matisse integrated calligraphy, ornamental framings, symbolic fleur-de-lys motifs, and portraits into unified, organic compositions. Using lithography—a technique that transfers drawings from stone plates—the Mourlot Frères workshops, who completed the printing on 25 February 1950 under the direction of Matisse, were able to preserve the delicate quality of his crayon work. The exhibition features all of the lithographs that the University of Oxford currently holds. 

André Derain (1880–1954) 

Edition at: https://editions.mml.ox.ac.uk/editions/satyricon/

Derain’s illustrated and engraved work on Le Satyricon by Petronius, published in 1951 in Paris under the imprint Aux dépens d’un amateur, stands as a bold reinterpretation of the classical Roman text. Originally commissioned in 1934 by the renowned art dealer Ambroise Vollard, the project was delayed by Vollard’s untimely death and the disruptions of World War II. It was finally completed and published under Derain’s direction in the post-war period, at a time when artists and intellectuals were actively re-engaging with antiquity as a means of cultural renewal. Le Satyricon, with its satirical and unrestrained depiction of Roman society, provided Derain with a rich, transgressive subject. His approach was not to passively illustrate but to embody the chaotic, earthy spirit of the text through raw, expressive engravings. Derain created thirty-three burin engravings and forty-three woodcut ornamental designs, which were engraved by the artisan Paul Baudier. These elements were not mere decorations but formed an integral visual rhythm that complemented the unruly energy of Petronius’ narrative. Rather than adhering to the refined, polished aesthetic of traditional illustrated books, Derain’s work is strikingly physical. His jagged lines, primitive forms, and unfiltered emotional immediacy push against the conventions of the Livre d’Artiste, in much the same spirit that Matisse revolutionised the genre. The etchings were printed by Georges Leblanc, while Baudier executed the woodcut designs with remarkable fidelity to Derain’s forceful graphic language. Derain’s Le Satyricon is not just an artistic achievement but also a significant cultural artifact: an example of post-war French artists reclaiming the classical past on their own terms, embracing its vitality and irreverence as a pathway to creative freedom. 

Encoding Matisse – Mandy 

The research challenges I have encountered grew out of the intricate nature of the poems themselves. Since the warrior-poet became a symbol of French cultural and political resistance (Lalaurie 147-148), Matisse, working during WW2, kept the Middle French spellings in his transcriptions out of homage. Thus, my research question centred on balancing diplomatic transcription principles, which would allow for the preservation of these archaic spellings that symbolise the timeless spirit of resistance, while ensuring accessibility for the readers. 

My solution was to embed nearly 100 explanatory footnotes using the <note> element that appear as pop-up annotations. Originally, I was planning on using the elements <reg> and <orig> (regular and original spellings) to represent the Middle French and the more readable modern French. However, I noticed that Taylor Editions’ stylesheet automatically shows the regularised spelling in the main text with the archaic spelling in the pop-up window (Figure 1), which would lead to a less authentic reading experience. Thus, I pivoted to using <note> element, which gives the readers access to regularised spellings upon clicking. For example, when a user clicks on the asterisk next to the word “cueur,” they immediately see “cœur” (modern spelling), creating a layered, multifunctional reading experience. 

Fig.1. Taylor Editions’ pop-up window for original spelling 

Since I cannot find any critically acclaimed, modernised version of Charles d’Orléans’ poetry, I employed AI in the process of trying to capture the full extent of linguistic variations. First, I used my knowledge of French to detect irregular spellings. Then, I used Claude Sonnet 4.0 to conduct a comprehensive scan of the poems and found several more irregular spellings. These results were then double-checked by ChatGPT. I also added a note in my editorial declaration stating that if more spelling variations are found, the TEI file will be updated. 

I also added a translation page for all of the poems. For well-known pieces, I incorporated A.S. Kline’s freely available translations. For those without existing translations, I employed Claude Sonnet 4.0 to conduct the translations, which were then doubled-checked by myself and ChatGPT to ensure that there were no mistakes. The purpose of providing translations is to serve as a point of departure and reference for readers who might otherwise be excluded from engaging with medieval French text, rather than producing definitive translations. To conclude, by preserving the archaic spellings via the <note> element while providing layered interpretive support through annotations and translations, I managed to maintain cultural and political resonance while reaching contemporary audiences. 

Apart from ensuring content accessibility, I also attempted to make accessible the delicate illustrations Matisse created (high-resolution images are present on the edition’s website). I employed Claude Sonnet 4.0 to create detailed descriptions of Matisse’s illustrations to serve users with visual disabilities. I generated initial descriptions by asking Claude to only describe concrete, essential visual elements such as colours, textures, and spatial compositions to maximise objectivity. The generated descriptions were then refined by me and put under the <figDesc> element. 

To further enhance accessibility for the general public, I implemented “Iconclass”, a standard classification system that assigns numerical codes to visual subjects and motifs, to provide standardised, concise classifications for these illustrations, as I believe that consistent, clear terminology will be more accessible than art history jargon like “cartouche”. For example, the ornamental borders (similar to “cartouche”) present in various of Matisse’s illustrations are now all classified as “ornament ~ round and curved forms (+ framing decorations)” and encoded with their Iconclass numbers [e.g., 48A9813(+2)] in the TEI. Despite Iconclass’ convenience, I retained the AI-generated descriptions as they provide both accessible classification and more detailed visual descriptions (Figure 2). 

Fig. 2 Iconclass demonstration 

I placed the classifications at the end of the visual descriptions with corresponding links to the Iconclass website (coded with a <ref> attribute). For example, when a user clicks on the link embedded in the word “Fleur-de-lis”, they will be directed to the Iconclass website (Figure 3), where users can find many images containing fleur-de-lis. 

Fig. 3 Iconclass website for Fleur-de-lis 

Thus, the power of Iconclass extends beyond simple accessibility enhancement as it would enable users to explore how Matisse’s fleur-de-lis features as part of the French visual culture, connecting Matisse’s modernist interpretations to medieval manuscripts and inadvertently echoing the sense of the enduring French cultural identity that Matisse was already expressing through his preservation of archaic spellings. This digital edition thus becomes not merely a reproduction of Matisse’s work, but an accessible portal into the history of symbolic motifs in cultural expressions. What began as an effort to make the content more accessible to the public has created a powerful, convenient research tool. 

These accessibility principles extended beyond the digital edition itself into the accompanying parts of the placement. For example, my colleague and I provided comprehensive introductions, in our exhibition in the Taylorian that features the manuscripts, that contextualise both the Strachan Collection and Le Livre d’Artiste, and English translations, attempting to minimise scholarly barriers that might exclude general audiences. 

In conclusion, I gained insight into how accessibility can be ensured while preserving the authenticity of the materials. At physical, linguistic, and scholarly levels, AI-generated (human-refined) descriptions and translations can serve users with visual impairments, reduce language barriers, and replace exclusionary jargon with standardised terminology. Thus, Matisse’s wartime vision of cultural resistance finds a new digital expression through inclusive and authentic design. 

Encoding Derain – Tiffany 

The process of creating the digital edition of Derain’s Le Satyricon posed a set of editorial challenges distinct from those of Matisse, yet similarly anchored in questions of authenticity, materiality, and cultural continuity. Where Matisse’s project foregrounded the preservation of Middle French orthography as a quiet act of cultural resistance, Derain’s Le Satyricon demanded careful attention to the visual architecture of the livre d’artiste itself—a genre where the text, typography, and illustrations form an inseparable whole. 

I faced the challenge of preserving the physicality of a livre d’artiste, a book where the text, typography, and illustrations are inseparably bound. Derain’s Satyricon is not a conventional printed text; it is a visual object, where the layout, ornamental flourishes, and page structure are integral to its meaning. My editorial decisions therefore centred on diplomatic transcription, prioritising the faithful encoding of the book’s material features—line breaks, page breaks, italics, indentations, and even selected typographical ornaments. Initially, I considered simplifying the layout to improve readability, as many digital editions tend to privilege the fluidity of text over its original structure. However, I realised that such simplification would diminish the visual and rhythmic qualities that are fundamental to the livre d’artiste tradition. Derain’s modernist vision, much like Matisse’s, resists separation between form and content. To strip away the visual scaffolding would be to misrepresent the artwork. In this sense, the encoding process became a deliberate act of preserving Derain’s artistic choices, ensuring that the visual language of the book survives in the digital space. 

While Mandy’s project involved extensive annotation of Middle French spelling variations to support linguistic accessibility, the accessibility challenges I encountered were rooted in the Satyricon’s fragmented, episodic narrative. To assist readers in navigating this disjointed structure, I embedded interpretative scene summaries using the <note> element. These summaries act as navigational aids, helping users unfamiliar with the Satyricon’s abrupt shifts to locate and follow individual episodes without disrupting the original text’s material integrity. In addition, I encoded personal and place names using controlled vocabularies and referenced established authority files to enhance discoverability and interoperability with other digital resources, such as those within Taylor Editions. This parallels Mandy’s application of Iconclass classifications in the Matisse project, where controlled vocabularies support wider connections across collections and visual cultures. In my case, this approach anchors Derain’s Satyricon within broader networks of classical and modernist references. 

Throughout the edition, I chose to preserve original spelling, punctuation, and grammatical features without modernisation, in line with documentary editing principles. While this choice may pose challenges for casual readers, it safeguards the historical and philological value of the source text. Much like the preservation of Middle French orthography in the Matisse project, the decision to retain textual irregularities in Le Satyricon recognises that these details are not errors to be corrected but artefacts to be transmitted. 

Reflecting on the placement, I came to see encoding as a form of cultural stewardship. In fact, the act of encoding transforms into an act of respect: a commitment to carrying forward the artist’s gestures, their creative resistances, into new digital contexts without erasure or flattening. Ultimately, these decisions demonstrate that digital editions are not simply vessels for content, but portals that can preserve the material, visual, and cultural weight of the original artefacts, allowing them to speak to both scholarly and general audiences in meaningful ways. 

Sustainability: SDS at Oxford  

The long-term preservation and accessibility of the livre d’artiste collection data will be supported and sustained through the Sustainable Digital Scholarship (SDS) service at the University of Oxford. SDS will host the digitised images, descriptive metadata, and research data relating to the entire livre d’artiste collection, rather than the editions themselves, which will be hosted on the Taylor Editions. The SDS platform will provide stable, permanent access to the images and metadata, and will include direct links to both the Matisse and Derain digital editions hosted on Taylor Editions. By consolidating the collection’s metadata within SDS, the project not only ensures secure preservation but also creates an expandable framework for future scholarship. As additional works in the collection gradually enter the public domain—70 years after the death of each artist—this infrastructure will allow for the seamless development of new digital editions over time. 

Sustainability is critical for any digital project, as the value of digital editions depends on their long-term stability, accessibility, and integration within wider research networks. The collaboration with SDS directly addresses this need by providing robust infrastructure that supports continued access, scholarly reuse, and future growth. This forward-looking approach ensures that the livre d’artiste collection can evolve as a living digital resource for future researchers and readers.