Bridwell Library at SMU’s Perkins School of Theology announces the 2015 Helen Warren DeGolyer American Bookbinding Awards

DALLAS (SMU) – Bridwell Library at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University has named award winners from The Seventh Helen Warren DeGolyer Triennial Exhibition and Competition for American Bookbinding.

Winning proposal by Priscilla Spitler

Priscilla Spitler is the winner of the 2015 DeGolyer Award for American Bookbinding, which honors the entry that demonstrates the best of creativity and craftsmanship in the art of fine bookbinding. The award includes a $6,000 commission to realize her bookbinding design for the 2015 commission book, Ms. DeGolyer’s unbound copy of Bernard C. Middleton’s The Restoration of Leather Bindings, published in Chicago by the American Library Association in 1976.

The award also includes an invitation to serve on the jury for the 2018 DeGolyer competition jury and to present her work at the 2018 DeGolyer conference. Spitler, who also received the award in 2009, studied printmaking at the California College of Arts and Crafts and studied hand bookbinding at the London College of Printing. She was edition bookbinder at the Palace Press of the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe and at BookLab, Inc. in Austin, Texas before establishing her own Hands On Bookbinding studio in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico in 2007. Spitler’s unique leather bindings and artist books have been exhibited internationally.

Jana Pullman received the 2015 Award for Excellence in Fine Binding, which recognizes a completed binding that demonstrates excellence in structure, technique, and selection and/or use of materials. The award comes with a $2,000 prize. Pullman has been involved in the book arts since 1983 as a book artist, binder, and conservator. Following positions at the Marriott Library at the University of Utah and the Oakdale Paper Facility at the University of Iowa, she has been based in Minneapolis since 1997.  She is the proprietor there of Western Slope Bindery, specializing in custom binding and book repair.

Samuel Feinstein received the 2015 Award for Design for his proposal. The award, which includes a $1,000 prize, is given for a design that demonstrates originality, effectiveness, and appropriateness to the selected book. Feinstein trained at the North Bennet School in Boston and has been in private practice since graduating in June 2012. Based in Chicago, he specializes in fine bindings, gold finishing, new bindings in period style, and luxury clamshell boxes. 

Competition winners were announced June 5, 2015, at the opening of the Helen Warren DeGolyer Exhibition for American Bookbinding. The exhibition will remain open to the public at Bridwell Library through July 17. There is no cost for admission.

Bridwell Library’s bookbinding competition is named for Helen Warren DeGolyer (†1995), a long-time supporter of the arts and education in Dallas, as well as a skilled devotee of design bookbinding. In 1996, following her testamentary wishes, her brother, Joseph Warren, and her children, Everett Lee DeGolyer and Edith DeGolyer, established an endowment to support a triennial bookbinding competition, exhibition, and conference on the contemporary book arts to be held at Bridwell Library.

More information about the Helen Warren DeGolyer Triennial Exhibition and Competition for American Bookbinding: www.smu.edu/Bridwell/About/DeGolyer. More information about Bridwell Library: www.smu.edu/bridwell, 214-768-3483, bridadmin@smu.edu.

For additional information about the exhibition, contact Bridwell Library or the Perkins School of Theology Office of Public Affairs and Alumni Relations, 214-768-2335, perkins@smu.edu.

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Perkins School of Theology, founded in 1911, is one of five official University-related schools of theology of The United Methodist Church. Degree programs include the Master of Divinity, Master of Sacred Music, Master of Theological Studies, Master of Arts in Ministry, Master of Theology, and Doctor of Ministry, as well as the Ph.D., in cooperation with The Graduate Program in Religious Studies at SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences.