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Research Guides@Tufts

Colophon: Home

What is a colophon? 

"Colophon, an inscription placed at the end of a book or manuscript and giving details of its publication—e.g., the name of the printer and the date of printing...In most countries, the colophon now appears on the page opposite the title page and consists of a one-sentence statement that the book was printed by a given printer at a given location. Colophons stating the typeface, paper, and other production details of fine editions are sometimes still placed on the last page, however." Colophon | Visual Arts | Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/art/colophon-visual-arts. Accessed 14 Jan. 2022.

What's in a colophon?  

  • Publisher

  • Place of publication  

  • Date of publication  

  • Book production information  

 

SMFA Research & Instruction Librarian

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Carrie Salazar
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Colophon Example

The paper in this book is handmade from prints exhibited in Robert Frank: Books and Films, 1947-2017, held at Tisch Library, Tufts University, October 6 – November 5, 2017. In keeping with Frank’s stipulation that the exhibition be destroyed after closing, the prints were torn and fed through a shredder, then pulped and formed into sheets in the paper studio at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University. Purely Robert Frank is a deconstructed and literal exhibition catalog. Honoring the ephemerality of the exhibition, it preserves none of the images displayed, but documents the materiality of the prints. The book contains, and consists of, the exhibition. Frank’s photographs have seeped into the vocabulary of subsequent generations of artists, who continue to quote, recreate, and respond to these images, sometimes unconsciously. This project also pays tribute to Frank’s influence, a poetic act of digesting his pictures into new work. Paper made by Michelle Samour, Tyler Villa, and Lauren Kimball-Brown Bound by Séphora Bergiste First edition of 20 copies 2018 This book is number _____ of 20 Special thanks to Bill Burke To everyone who helped destroy the prints: Serena August, Kira Baccari, Andy Caulfield, Menglan Chen, Austin Covell, Thomas Duncan, Angela Jones-OBrien, Dill Ma, Bruce Martin, and Keith Robitaille And to Harriet Chenkin, Darin Murphy, Julie Ables-Playl, Erika Sacks, and Gerhard Steidl