BIO
Annette Friedrich (b. 1976) is a German bookbinder and artist renowned for her contemporary fine bindings. She began her training with a traditional two-year bookbinding apprenticeship in Leipzig, Germany, before refining her skills in the French technique during six years of study under Prof. Mechthild Lobisch in the Fine Bookbinding class at Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design, Halle/Saale.
After graduating in 2005, Annette moved to London, where she established her studio dedicated to creating unique fine bindings. Immersed in the study of historic British bindings, she was struck by the spontaneity and freedom of their decoration — a vivid contrast to the more restrained continental tradition.
Her current practice embodies an interplay between these influences: she employs centuries-old tools and techniques to create fluid designs that merge the discipline of craftsmanship with the expressive potential of the hand. For Annette, bookbinding is an act of translation: from language into structure, from idea into surface. Her bindings stand as modern relics of devotion — precise, poetic, and profoundly human. Each fine binding is conceived as a complete ensemble — encompassing the book, chemise, and slipcase — and becomes a conceptual space in which material, gesture, and meaning converge.
Annette was elected a Fellow of Designer Bookbinders in 2012 and is widely recognized for her contributions to the field. She frequently publishes and (occasionally) lectures on the art of fine binding.
In 2020, after fifteen years abroad, Annette moved her studio back to Germany and settled in Halle (Saale). She now happily splits her time on working on fine bindings, as well as breathing life back into old books, as she set up the ‘Goldene Esel’ (Golden donkeys) together with Rita Lass , a studio for book restoration and facsimiles. (www.goldene-esel.de)
Works by Annette are held in private and public collections alike,- including the British Library (UK), V&A National Art Library (UK), Bodleian Library (UK), National Library of Scotland (UK), John Rylands Library (UK), The Clothworkers’ Guild, (UK), Gutenberg Museum (GER), Deutsches Buchmuseum (GER), Duchess Anna-Amalia Library (GER), Staatsbibliothek Berlin (GER), and Morgan Library (USA)
Die Ringe des Saturn by W.G. Sebald
Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt a.M. 1995 (first edition)
217 x 128 x 34mm
Bound in 2023
Private collection, Germany
Photos by Matthias Ritzmann
‘The Rings of Saturn – an English Pilgrimage’ sees the narrator Max head off on a walk through Suffolk, in the hope to rid himself, so he days, from a rising emptiness within. Passing the barren marshes, walking the coastal line, he rests here and there, letting his mind take flight. The coastal scenery and wide views allow small observations to serve as prompts to freely insert historical events and other related train of thoughts in his narrative, spanning vast distances both in time as in space.
I was intrigued to explore how one element could serve as a starting point for various associations. Glittering small lines evoke – perhaps – the sea, reflecting light. Rising, they turn into clouds, then abstract shapes, a gentle rhythm in the back-ground, on which the other dots, curves, events come (and hum) to life. The business of the book’s design is juxtaposed with the calm of the three-part colour-block composition of the chemise and bord-à-bord sides.
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce
Faber & Faber, London 1939
First edition, First imprint
247 x 165 x 45 mm
Bound in 2024
Private collection, USA
Photos by Marco Warmuth
Finnegans Wake is the final work by James Joyce, written over the course of seventeen years. For this novel, Joyce developed an idiosyncratic language that fuses ‘legible’ words and sentences with invented syllables and neologisms. When read aloud, the spoken ‘words’ reveal phonetic links to other languages and puns, creating rhythm and pace. Yet, any fixed meaning remains tantalisingly obscure.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Durand Neveu, Amsterdam & Paris 1782 in 4 Vols.
First edition, imprint ‘F’
175 x 105 x 25mm
Chemise extended flat: 177 x 910 x 10mm
Slipcase: 188 x 113 x 90mm
Bound in 2023/24
Photos by Matthias Ritzmann
Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a French epistolary novel of the eighteenth century. Set amongst the sugar coated nobility shortly before the French Revolution is about to take off, it follows the malicious plotting of the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont. Lovers in the past, they are now united by their desire for avenge and moral destruction. Though starting out with a spirited exchange their relation turns sour as their interests collide. Turning against each other, devastation is in the cards all round.
This is not a ‘sexy’ book as one might be compelled to believe by the title, but rather a razor-sharp pitching against each other of characters, morals, and innocence,- spiralling out of control.
Liebesspiegel by Albert Oesch
With etchings (Kupferstiche) by Hans Erni
André & Pierre Gonin, Lausanne 1980
(Letterpress, limited edition. This is No. 27/ 135)
360 x 315 x 33mm
Bound in 2020
Private collection, CH
Photos by Matthias Ritzmann
‘Liebesspiegel’ (Love’s Mirror) is a collection of love poems by the Swiss sculptor and glass-artist Albert Oesch who died at the age of twenty-nine in 1936. In his fervent declarations of love and admiration, he often draws on comparison with nature: the gurgling of a brook, the dark depths of a lake, a tide, roses and forests, nymphs and fauns, snakes and swans… I drew inspiration of this whirlwind of impressions, but as he so ardently jumps from one to the other, I found it called for some cool, and so I juxtaposed this flurry with the unphased calm of passing clouds.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Olympia Press, Paris 1958
First edition, Second imprint
178 x 124 x 25 mm
Bound in 2022
Private collection, USA
“She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.”
As he puts down these words, narrator Humbert Humbert sits in confinement, awaiting his trial for murder. However, “had I come before myself, I would have given Humbert at least thirty-five years for rape, and dismissed the rest of the charges.” These two quotes bracket the text, where Humbert addresses an imaginary jury in preparation of his trial, carefully – and artfully – laying out his story.
His youth, a marriage, his partiality for ‘nymphets’. And then, later, in dazzling heat, his first glimpse of Lolita, lying on the lawn stretching her toes. Humbert Humbert can’t take his eyes off her. Partiality for nymphets turns into obsession, and Humbert Humbert into a relentless predator. The end of volume one sees Lolita uprooted and in his power.
On the road, in volume two, they criss-cross the country. Humbert tries his best to distract Lolita’s attention from her dismal life. However, it is only a matter of time that Lolita either grows up or escapes. She runs off and Humbert Humbert is devastated. His focus now shifts to the void Lolita has left, trying to find her once more.
Throughout his writings, the narrator Humbert addresses the reader directly. He does this skilfully und cunningly.
Vladimir Nabokov, the author, juxtaposes utmost beauty of form with abhorrent content.
It is quite extraordinary.
On Weaving by Anna Albers
Princeton University Press, Princeton & Oxford 2017
283 x 222 x 34mm
Bound in 2020
Clothworker’s Company Collection, UK
‘On Weaving’ is the passionate love-letter of a weaver to her craft. Anni Albers was not only a maker but also a thinker, educator and collector. It is a beautiful book, where she reflects on the art of weaving as the ‘event of the thread’, on pattern, on historic examples, and on its implications on modern design. And though she
loved the abstract figurative forms of Mexican and Peruvian pattern, she looked
with a wry eye on European renaissance tapestries, where they strove to translate paintings into tapestries.
She advised her fellow weavers: ‘Don’t pretend to be anything that you are not.’
This advice is true in a much broader context, too, for each artform has its very own language and realm of possibilities. I paired my design right back to dots and lines, and focused on the core elements of rhythm and repeat that arise when using the books spine as an axis for mirrored action.
A Satyr against Mankind by The Earl of Rochester
Broadside, 1679
310 x 214 x 9mm
Bound in 2021
Private Collection, UK
‘A Satyr Against Mankind’ is a raging letter against the rational creature of mankind, making a heated argument for the sensual approach to live life. John Wilmont, 2nd Earl of Rochester, was a poet known for his wit, his controversial verses, and his excessive immersive attitude to life. The poem is thrown at the reader with all the authors’ might and the broadside gives the impression of great speed and energy, as it’s printing is blotchy, the ‘S’ of Satyr is the wrong way up and the lines are not printed but drawn by hand! The broadside has clearly been put out there quickly, sure to be received eagerly and with glee. This prompted me to include a series of linear drawings that, following the dimensions of the textblock, only show the dividing lines between an imaginary argument with a quick and swift exchange, and of which the letter is part of. The bindings design takes the event one step further, for now the lines have exploded and fly as sharp shards over the sides, flashing in the light as they pass.
GET IN TOUCH
Email: ah_friedrich@web.de
Website: https://www.annette-friedrich.com
Instagram: @annettefriedrichbooks
Accepts Commissions: Yes
