Gintautas Vezys Bookplate Collection
Scope and Content of the Collection
Collection of over 4,700 bookplates, primarily by Lithuanian artists. The collection includes artists from other primarily European countries including the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Russia, Latvia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, the United States, and Switzerland. Japan, Kazakhstan, and Brazil are also represented. The work of Vincas Kisarauskis, Vytautas O. Virkau, Henrietta Vepstas, Kazys Rimtas Taraibilda, Domicele Tarabildiene, and Antanas Kmieliauskis are especially well represented. Media include letterpress, etching, engraving, and woodcut.
In addition to bookplates, the collection includes exhibitions catalogs, posters, documentation, and ephemera from bookplate exhibitions, including those that contained material from the Vezys collection. Exhibits in the Chicago area are well represented. Other ephemera in the collection include articles and clippings related to bookplates and ex libris organizations as well as correspondence and greeting cards.
Dates
- Creation: approximately 1958-approximately 2006
Creator
- Vezys, Gintautas, 1926-2006 (Person)
Language
Materials are in English and Lithuanian.
Conditions Governing Access
The Gintautas Vezys Bookplate Collection is open for research in the Special Collections Reading Room; 1 box at a time (Priority III).
Ownership and Literary Rights
The Gintautas Vezys Bookplate Collection is the physical property of the Newberry Library. Copyright may belong to the authors or their legal heirs or assigns. For permission to publish or reproduce any materials from this collection, contact the Roger and Julie Baskes Department of Special Collections.
Biography of Gintautas Vezys
Gintautas Vezys as born in 1926 in Kaunas, Lithuania. In 1944 his family was forced to move to Germany where they lived in several refugee camps until 1949 when the family moved to Chicago. In 1965 he became president of AM&M Publications, a non-profit publisher that provided a voice to Lithuanian authors outside the censorship of the USSR. Under his leadership, 88 books were published over the next four decades. In 1969, Vezys visited Lithuania and met several artists that inspired his life-long interest in bookplates as an art form.
Extent
9.2 Linear Feet (23 boxes)
Abstract
Collection of more than 4700 bookplates and related ephemera assembled by Lithuanian–American publisher and scholar, Gintautas Vezys. Bookplates were individually designed and hand-printed, and were executed by primarily Lithuanian artists.
Organization
Papers are organized in the following series
- Series 1: Lithuanian artists, 1958-2003
- Boxes 1-11
- Series 2: Non-Lithuanian artists, 1980-2005
- Boxes 11-15
- Series 3: Exhibits, 1973-2006
- Boxes 16-17
- Series 4: Ephemera, 1968-2000
- Boxes 17-18
- Series 5: Greeting Cards, 1968-2005
- Boxes 19-21
Collection Stack Location
4a 30 2
Provenance
Gift of Bridget and Vaiva Vezys, 2008.
Processed by
Adrian Alexander, 2011.
Acknowledgements
This inventory was created with the generous support of the Council on Library and Information Services, which is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Subject
- Tarabilda, Kazys Rimtas (Person)
- Tarabildienė, Domicelė, 1912-1985 (Person)
- Vepstas, Henrietta (Person)
- Virkau, Vytautas O. (Vytautas Osvaldas), 1930-2017 (Person)
- Vezys, Gintautas, 1926-2006 (Person)
- Kisarauskis, Vincas (Person)
- Kmieliauskis, Antanas (Person)
- Title
- Inventory of the Gintautas Vezys Bookplate Collection, approximately 1958-approximately 2006
- Status
- Completed
- Author
- Processed by Adrian Alexander, 2011
- Date
- ©2016.
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the The Newberry Library - Modern Manuscripts and Archives Repository
60 West Walton Street
Chicago Illinois 60610 United States
312-255-3512
reference@newberry.org