FISAE Open Ex-Libris Competition
Report of the Jury

Members of Jury:
Prof Dr Martin R Baeyens, Anne Desmet RA RE, Andy English, Peter Ford RE RWA, Dr Wuon-Gean Ho

This has been an unusual year with many uncertainties. As a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic the 2020 FISAE Congress had to be cancelled and there could be no physical exhibition. Nevertheless images had been posted in good faith by 287 artists from 39 countries so it was agreed that the Jury should make a selection from these which could become an online exhibition.

Social distancing made it necessary to manage the selection online, so Jury members, who are all artists, had to base their selection on scanned images. This was not ideal. It was more challenging for the Jury to do this than to select from the original works, partly because the scale of the images was not immediately visible and the quality of the paper was not seen. Sometimes inappropriately thick paper was used. Also it is easier to check and identify technical processes from the original artworks. For example digital reproductions of watercolours were not valid submissions whilst original designs created digitally were within the rules. Sometimes artists did not describe their artworks accurately or in full.

The main purpose of this exhibition was to include and reward bookplate design specifically. I advised the Jury to assess the effectiveness of the submitted designs as bookplates. From my previous experience as a jury member and as an artist maker I recognise that it is common to be seduced by technical prowess. But a well-made small print with hidden minimal text does not fulfil the function of a bookplate and is not what the regulations for this competition asked for. The balance between design and legible text remains a challenge even in some of the works selected for this exhibition.

As the international submissions continued to arrive it seemed that, unfortunately, some artists had not understood the regulations or perhaps had submitted their work without having seen the regulations at all.

A consequence of online selection was that the time available to the Jury could be stretched beyond the usual time limit of one or two days. There were many works of good quality that appealed to different members of the Jury and it was a challenge to agree on the prizewinners. Five prizes have been awarded, each one of equal value. In addition one prize, as designated by the donor, was to be for an artist under 35 years of age. There were very few student submissions and of those many did not adhere to the rules so no student prizes could be awarded. Jury members took the view that it was appropriate to modify the prize structure announced in the Regulations, so that all six prizes were of equal value.

The regulations asked artists not to abbreviate Ex libris to Ex L. This short form is now habitually used by bookplate designers and it was frequently employed by artists submitting work to this competition. Because some of these high quality designs used Ex L or were without a clearly stated dedication I have decided to include, at the end of the slideshow, a number of examples of these despite the inadequate text element. By doing this we hope to make clear the idea of an ex-libris as primarily a label to assert the ownership of a book.

There is no plan to issue a catalogue. This would have included a listing of names of artists whose work was selected for exhibition, together with their country and email address (unless held back). This listing is available on request. Competition statistics are found here.

Peter Ford RE RWA
Chair of the Jury
12 August 2020

FISAE Open Ex-Libris Competition
with Awards by
the Keith Wingrove Memorial Trust