BIO
After taking early retirement from the BBC, Richard continued his bookbinding training with Kathy Abbott for 5 years at City Lit and then with Mark Cockram at Studio Five. After winning third prize for Fine Binding in the Society of Bookbinders International Competition in 2013 he was elected as a Licentiate of Designer Bookbinders in 2016. In 2017 he won the Harmatan Leather Award for Finishing in the Society of Bookbinders International Competition and in 2017 The Clothworkers’ Prize for Open Choice Book in the Designer Bookbinders Annual Competition.
He spends his time making fine bindings for competitions and for commissions from private clients. He has exhibited at the British Library in London, The National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh, The Bodleian Library in Oxford, The Grolier Club in New York, The Grand Palais in Paris and the Duoyun Bookstore in Shanghai. He has bindings in public and private collections in Europe, USA, and China.
“My designs are very much text driven and I very much enjoy researching and working on designs which tend to be abstract and often incorporate gold tooling.”
Richard became a Fellow of Designer Bookbinders in 2022.
The Revelation of Saint John the Divine
Illustrated by Frances Clayton
Faber and Faber Ltd, London, 1931
Private Collection, UK
Bound with asymmetric boards in black goatskin with exposed core endbands. The endpapers and doublures, based on Durer’s ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’, are printed with added acrylic paint and collage. Carrying on the theme of the Apocalypse on to the covers there are four panels symbolising pestilence, famine, war, and death. Materials used include snakeskin, fish skin, vellum, eggshell, wood, locust wings, ball bearings, and 23.5 carat gold leaf.
Happy Abstract by William Blake
Illustrated by Richard Beadsmoore
Russell Maret, New York, 2019
220 x 165 x 17mm
Bound in 2019
Private collection, USA
The text of this letter was specially printed as the set book for the American Academy of Bookbinding Open/Set Competition, 2019.
A single line of the letter is printed on each double spread leaving space for the binder to create their own response to the text – the letter is an apology to a client for not finishing the commission as he keeps getting side-tracked by “happy abstractions”.
The text has been illustrated with watercolour pens then bound in the style of the French binder Jean de Gonet. The boards are covered in fair goatskin that has been airbrushed, as has the spine leather. The straps are yellow goatskin with red leather decoration. The tooling is 23.5ct gold, palladium, and black ink.
Awarded Highly Commendable for Tooling, Open/Set, 2019
A Shropshire Lad by A. E. Housman
Wood Engravings by Nicholas Parry
Tern Press, 1990
Number 138 of 225, signed by Nicholas and Mary Parry
Bound in 2016
Private Collection, UK
The book is untrimmed and bound in grey Harmatan goatskin. There are hand-sewn silk endbands and the top edge is treated with graphite. The endpapers and paper doublures are air-brushed with a leaf design.
The stylised trees are tooled in 23.5 carat gold and Caplain – an alloy of 80% gold, 4% silver and the remaining 16% a mixture of palladium and platinum. It won’t tarnish and is more expensive than gold! The ‘stones’ are irregular pieces of board covered with hand-dyed leather.
The design of the binding was inspired by the poem “Bredon Hill” with its landscape of oak trees and dry-stone walls. In the summer (the back board).
“My love and I would lie
And see the coloured counties
And hear the larks so high”
But then winter comes (the front board), and the writer’s lover dies
“They tolled the one bell only
Groom there was none to see
The mourners followed after
And so to church went she
and we are plunged into a world of grief.”
Winner of the Harmatan Leather Award for Finishing, Society of Bookbinders International Competition, 2017
The New House by David Mamet
Rebecca Press, 1989
69 x 56 x 12mm
Bound in 2017
Private collection, USA
This miniature binding was a commission for a private client in the USA. Inlays of various leathers and suedes with black line and gold tooling.
The New House is a poem reflecting on the way old houses are imbued with the spirit of those who have lived there and my design reflects how our lives are a series of doors that we pass through on our journey from birth to death.
Goethe : Poems
Edited by T J Reed
Gwas Gregynog, 2000
298 x 180 x 20mm
Bound 2022
For Sale: £1800.00
Sewn on five Pleister tapes which were then laced into the boards. Top edge rough gilt with other edges left with their natural deckle edges. Leather-jointed endpapers of printed facsimiles of Goethe’s handwriting. Hand-sewn, multi-coloured endbands. The covering leather is fair goat that has been dyed using Fiebings leather dyes. There are inlays, onlays, and 23.5 carat gold tooling. Doublures of red goatskin tooled with gold leaf and palladium.
The design of the covers is based on Goethe’s illustrations for his “Theory of Colours” published in 1810. The tooling on the doublures is a representation of the concept of ‘liebestod’ (love and death) in Goethe works and German Romanticism in general.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
Illustrated by Karen Klassen
Folio Society, 2013
230 x 150 x 20mm
Bound in 2013
For Sale: £960.00
The textblock has been sewn on five Pliester tapes with endpapers of red Mingeishi paper. The text is rounded only, as there are only eight, quite thick, sections. The text was then edge-gilded in Caplain leaf and hand-sewn silk endbands added. The text-block was then laced into paste-paper boards and covered in full black goatskin with red and white inlays and onlays. The tooling is done with Caplain leaf.
The design seeks to convey the gradual disintegration of Holly Golightly’s world as “the mean reds” take over and “pearls roll in the gutter”.
Pollen by Rob Kesseler amd Madeline Harley
Papadakis, UK, 2014
206 x 230 x 30
Private Collection, UK
Full linen attachment, endpapers black Satogami, multi-coloured silk endbands. Full, black goatskin with matching doublures. Tooled with 23.5 ct gold leaf and ten shades of metallic foil.
The design is based on the bizarre shapes of pollen grains with the metallic foil dots echoing the vibrant colouring of the photographs.
Tom Thumb by Anon
William Walker, Otley, West Yorkshire. C.1870
110 x 80 x 12mm
Bound 2022
For Sale: £800.00
The endpapers are of light- and dark-blue Moriki handmade Japanese paper. The cover is slate veneer tooled with 23.5ct gold leaf and palladium leaf. This is a ‘non-adhesive’ binding with the text-block being held in place by four 18ct gold staples.
The text is a juvenile chapbook of about 1870 with a number of woodcut illustrations. The design follows Tom’s wanderings through life surviving any number of disasters but, ultimately, he cannot escape “the spider’s poisonous breath” and dies.
Hokusai by David Burnett
Lino-cuts: Hui Fang Lee
71/140
Signed by author
Incline Press, 1996
267 x 165 x 12mm
For Sale: £1500.00
‘Hokusai’ is a poem by a British author so it seemed appropriate for a British binder to bind it in a Japanese style (Yamato Toji). It is also housed in a Japanese Hakochitsu box.
The single section book has endpapers of hand-made Moriki-Tozo paper. It is sewn on a stub which is then sandwiched between two boards covered in Hewit’s alum-tawed goat which are then held in place by ribbons. There are recessed inlays of dyed alum-tawed leather and tooling, both blind and in palladium leaf, using a tool especially made by the binder to reflect the shape of Mount Fuji.
The design was inspired by the lino-cuts on the cover of the book.
The binding was awarded second prize in the Clothworkers’ Prize for Open Choice section at the 2020 DB UK bookbinding competition.
A Casual Reader by the Waterside by Lu Hao
Dolphin Books, China
Bound in 2020
Private collection, China
This binding was a commission from the Purple Heron Book Club of Shanghai. As the text is in Mandarin my research was limited, however I knew that the clients were very fond of William Morris so the design is inspired by an 1861 embroidered panel by Morris. The design of sinuous flower stems was then interspersed with falling autumnal leaves to echo the falling water drops of the text.
The back-pared onlays are of dyed leather using leaves from my garden as stencils. The binding was then tooled in 23.5 carat gold.
GET IN TOUCH
Email: beady.1@virginmedia.com
Website: https://www.beadybookbinder.com
Instagram: @beadybookbinder
Accepts Commissions: Yes
