Stanley Sherman
Washington, D.C.

B.S. City College of New York. M.Arch, Harvard University, Graduate School of Design. Assistant Professor of Architecture, University of Michigan. Employed as architect and urban planner for 36 years. Bookbinder since 1986, including training in the studio of Tom Albro, former Chief Rare Book Conservator at the Library of Congress. Solo exhibition “Interpretation by Design: Contemporary Bookbindings by Stanley M. Sherman,” at The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD, April 15 - July 16, 2006.

Website: shermanbookbinder.com

Life, A User's Manual, 2009

This book, translated from the French, has a number of constraints set by the author, Georges Perec. Each chapter is devoted to a different room in a Paris apartment house, and the combined stories fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. The analogy is deliberate, as such puzzles feature in the novel. In turn, they influence the approach to a design binding. Varied shaped forms, suggestive of building units in an undefined open setting -- a metaphor for horizon--are the basis for this interpretation.

Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 2.5 inches; 24 x 16.5 x 6.5 centimeters

Full leather tight-back binding, sewn on five recessed double cords, covered in crimson goatskin over built-up boards. Light blue goatskin onlay, front and back covers. Hand marbled endpapers. Title is made of painted cut-out boards and gold foil stamped letters.