by Kumi Korf, Ithaca, New York: Kumi Korf, 2004, signed by artist, intaglio plates on Akatogashi paper, in cloth lined clamshell case, binding designed and executed by the artist

Provenance: Private Collection, Asheville, North Carolina

Note: "Kumi Korf’s artists’ books are not only concerned with structure, but also with printmaking and the relationship of illustration to text. They are extremely complicated, very rich. I feel they are good representations of a certain kind of work that’s being done in America. So that’s why her particular books have been added to the Library of Congress.

"Her books have interesting elements of construction, questioning how a book operates, but more importantly and I think most expressively of Kumi is the intense quality of the prints. They are both an important aspect of her Japanese background, but they’re being done in a very modern American way. Her prints tell the story, but they also move you through the book. And because many of her prints are large, and broken up, they have an abstract level to them that reads as a very modern American book. They document the Book Arts movement in America on many different levels."

- Mark Dimunation, Chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress