Paper Engineering: Fold, Pull, Pop & Turn

NEW: Cell Phone Audio Tours LIVE in Libraries' Gallery

The Libraries has been able to add a wonderful new feature to its exhibition gallery in the National Museum of American History. To try out the new tours for our current exhibition, Paper Engineering: Fold, Pull, Pop & Turn, dial the following phone numbers on your personal cell phone while strolling through the exhibition:

Dial 202-633-8000 #103 to hear an introduction to the exhibition

Dial 202-633-8000 #104 to hear commentary on Neue lebende Bilder: ein Ziehbilderbuch or New Living Pictures: A Pull-Picture Book

Dial 202-633-8000 #105 to hear commentary on The Falsehood of External Appearances, 1790

Dial 202-633-8000 #106 to hear commentary on Astronomicum Caesareum

Neue lebende Bilder: ein Ziehbilderbuch [New living pictures: A pull-picture-book]. Illustrations
and paper engineering by Lothar Meggendorfer. Verlag von Braun & Schneider, c.1880.

Come visit the museum and check out this great new feature!

—Susan Frampton

Related: Paper Engineering: Fold, Pull, Pop & Turn

Have You Seen it Yet?

The Libraries exhibition, Paper Engineering: Fold, Pull, Pop & Turn is still on display in the National Museum of American History. Stop by and see some fabulous examples of pop-up and movable books, from the 1600s to today.

—Elizabeth Periale, photo by Liz O'Brien

 

Featuring: The first Noël: a Christmas carousel

Featuring a title from the Libraries' pop-up book collection and current exhibition, Paper Engineering: Fold, Pull, Pop & Turn.

The first Noël, like many pop-up and movable books, was created to celebrate the holiday season. Jan Pieńkowski, Polish born illustrator and paper engineer working in England, designed this carousel book (book that unfolds to 360 degrees) containing five stage-like scenes depicting the nativity story. The white cut-paper figures are silhouetted and layered in snowflake-like patterns atop bright red backdrops.—Stephen Van Dyk

The first Noël: a Christmas carousel. Jan Pieńkowski; assistant illustrator, David Walser. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press, 2004.

Related:

Have a Holly, Jolly...September!

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Featuring: Ricky the Rabbit

Featuring a title from the Libraries' pop-up book collection and current exhibition, Paper Engineering: Fold, Pull, Pop & Turn.

Vojtěch Kubašta was born in Austria and was raised in Prague where he first studied architecture before pursuing a career as an illustrator and paper engineer. Working with Artia, a state run publishing company, he created a series on boldly colored pop-ups many that were later market by Bancroft in London. Ricky the Rabbit consists of a page or two of narrative and one large, intricate, v-fold pop-up featuring a rabbit named Ricky and his world. Kubašta’s images, reminiscent of folk art—the lay-out and design of forms—and his stories featuring animals and children—inspired many later paper engineers in America.—Stephen Van Dyk

Ricky the Rabbit. Illustrations by Vojtěch Kubašta. London: Bancroft, 1961.

In Case You Missed It ...

Recent lecture by "Pop-Up Lady" Ellen Rubin is now available:

 

—Elizabeth Periale

Featuring: Numbers

Featuring a title from the Libraries' pop-up book collection and current exhibition, Paper Engineering: Fold, Pull, Pop & Turn.

Numbers or Roly Poly Numbers is a pop-up version of a leporello (a book that folds out in an accordion-like manner). A small brightly-colored cube is opened by pulling apart one side to reveal a small pop-up figure in a smaller cube. The process continues as ten cubes— each with a number of figures ranging from one to ten— are exposed. Kees Moerbeek, a Dutch paper engineer and maker of many pop-up books, has created a delightful way for young children to discover numbers.

—Stephen Van Dyk

Numbers. Kees Moerbeek. Wiltshire, England. Child’s Play(International) Ltd, 2000.

Chuck Fischer Lecture Today!

The Libraries presents the second lecture in a new series that explores the history, artistry, design and construction of pop-up and movable books.

Held in conjunction with Paper Engineering: Fold, Pull, Pop & Turn, our ongoing exhibition in the Libraries' gallery located in the National Museum of American History, the series features movable book historians, pop-up artists and designers, and paper engineers.

Please watch our Fold, Pull, Pop & Turn blog for future announcements. Join us TODAY for:

Chuck Fischer

Creating a Pop-Up Book and The Enduring Appeal Of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol

December 1, 2010

12:00pm-1:00pm

Carmichael Auditorium

National Museum of American History

Washington, D.C.

Chuck Fischer (top) is a leading author and designer who has taken his unique painting style and effortlessly transferred his signature look to various home furnishings, products, and books, making his remarkable artistry available to a wide audience. Fischer’s work is in the permanent collection of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City and in the Libraries' exhibition, Paper Engineering: Fold, Pull, Pop, & Turn at the National Museum of American History.

On November 10, 2010, Fischer’s latest pop-up book, Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol: A Pop-Up by Chuck Fischer was published by Little, Brown and Company. Along with the book, Fischer launched interactive apps for the iPad: A Christmas Carol and Twas the Night Before Christmas.

Fischer's book, Christmas in New York: A Pop-Up Book has become a perennial holiday favorite, chosen as one of USA Today’s Top Ten holiday books for 2007. In The Beginning: The Art of Genesis was published in 2008, and Angels: A Pop-Up Book (bottom) was chosen by the Metropolitan Museum of Art to be featured in their Holiday 2010 catalog. 2010 marks the fourth year Fischer has been honored with the commission to create the annual holiday card for The White House Historical Association.

The lecture on this afternoon will be followed by a book signing event for Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol: A Pop-Up by Chuck Fischer.

For event inquiries, contact Susan Frampton, framptons@si.edu.

—Liz O'Brien and Elizabeth Periale

 

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• First edition of Christmas Carol to fetch £200,000 at auction (telegraph.co.uk)

Featuring: Animal life in fact, fancy and fun

Featuring a title from the Libraries' pop-up book collection and current exhibition, Paper Engineering: Fold, Pull, Pop & Turn.

S. Louis Giraud, initially created annual pop-up books while he was editor of children’s books for the London newspaper, Daily Express. In collaboration with paper engineer Theodore Brown, Giraud, after leaving the newspaper, created a series of sixteen annual pop-ups from 1929-1949 under the title Bookano Stories. As we can see in Animal life in fact, fancy and fun, Giraud was a master at creating colorful animal figures that pop-up and can be viewed from multiple angles when the page is opened.—Stephen Van Dyk

Animal life in fact, fancy and fun. edited and produced by S. Louis Giraud. [England]: Daily Sketch & Sunday Graphic, [193-?] Bookano living models series.

Featuring: Robot

Featuring a title from the Libraries' pop-up book collection and current exhibition, Paper Engineering: Fold, Pull, Pop & Turn.

 Robot is a wonderful example of a multi-action pop-up/movable book where each illustrated, brightly colored page includes flaps, pull-tabs, and other mechanisms. Jan Pieńkowski, born in Poland, worked in England as an illustrator, children’s author, and creator of greeting cards. He has designed more than 17 pop-up books working with some of the most innovative paper engineers of the day—in this case James Roger Diaz, Tor Lokvig, Marcin Stajewski. These engineers and Pieńkowski worked regularly with Wally Hunt at Intervisual Communications—a major producer of pop-ups in the 1980s. Here the robot dramatically lifts off the page surface as the tab is pulled.

—Stephen Van Dyk

Robot. Written and illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski. Paper engineering by James Roger Diaz, Tor Lokvig and Marcin Stajewski New York: Delacorte Press, 1981.

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Featuring: ABC—3D

Featuring a title from the Libraries' pop-up book collection and current exhibition, Paper Engineering: Fold, Pull, Pop & Turn.

Marion Bataille, a French graphic artist and illustrator who works for the Pompidou Centre and Le Monde, has crafted this clever pop-up/movable book alphabet book. Each letter is represented in diverse ways— a mirror situated on an adjacent page transforms a “v” into a “w”, and a translucent screen superimposed over a page makes an “O" into a “Q”, a “P” into an “R”, an “I” and a “J” share a dot, and many letters pop-up into 3-dimensional forms.—Stephen Van Dyk

ABC—3D. Marion Bataille. New York : Roaring Brook Press, 2008.