BIO
Jeff was elected as a Fellow of The Guild of Contemporary Bookbinders in 1957, (later to become known as Designer Bookbinders) and was President of Designer Bookbinders from 1981-83. Jeff lived and worked in England up until 1988, at which point he moved over to Amsterdam where he has been since.
An artist bookbinder, painter, graphic designer he was an Art and Design Educationist from 1961-1988 and examiner to 2006. His fine bindings are usually bound in goatskin with inlays and more recently he has made extensive use of feathered onlays. The designs grow out of the text but invariably retain a strong vertical/horizontal and oblique stress relationship, sculptured boards can play an important role in the composition.
Jeff has exhibited regularly with Designer Bookbinders and in Europe, America and Japan. His bindings are in major public and private collections throughout the European Union and the USA.
In 2021 Jeff retired from being a Fellow of Designer Bookbinders after making more than a hundred and sixty contemporary fine bindings.
Rives by Josef Majault
Jean Baudry, Paris, 1970
328 x 257 x 22 mm
Bound in 2017
Bound in full orange French Alran goatskin with panels of blue Harmatan goatskin, upper boards with feathered white and grey goatskin and speckled gray goatskin onlay, with one black and one grey vertical rule towards the foredge, one vertical strip of grey goatskin inlay on the lower board along with feathered white goatskin onlay and a black vertical rule matching the upper board; pastedown endpapers of cork and flyleaves of mottled blue paste paper.
Cantiques des Cantiques
Translated into French by David Scheinert
Chez Krol, Paris, 1952
130 x 170 x 27 mm
Bound in 2016
Bound in full red Harmatan goatskin over deeply recessed boards, freely tooled black and grey rectilinear lines, feathered onlays of blue, grey and yellow goatskin traverse both boards and spine; board papers of natural cork on black paper and flyleaves lined with red suede, top edge trimmed by hand and coloured bright yellow, textblock sewn on braided tapes, endleaves are green ‘Veronese’ Fabriano 130gsc Roma handmade laid paper, endbands are blue linen thread over a double core of vellum and nylon.
Cantus Firmus by Aleksis Rannit
Illustrations from etchings by Edward Wiiralt
Translated into English from the Estonian by Henty Lyman
345 x 250 x 20mm
Bound in 2014
You Can Judge a Book by Its Cover: A Brief Survey of Materials by Bernard Chester Middleton
Published by Kater-Crafts Bookbinders, 1994
Made for an exhibition celebrating the variety and beauty of the art of book binding in the 20th century with 33 different interpretations of the same book by a group of distinguished and talented bookbinders. Mel Kavin, a publisher and collector with a keen interest in bookbinding, commissioned designer binder and author, Bernard Middleton, to write the text of You Can Judge a Book By Its Cover, with the goal to produce a miniature book.
Palladio’s Homes by Andrea Palladio, Published in 1745
Translation by Isaac Ware, Puublished in 1738
Illustrated by Carlo Rapp
The Old School Press, 2009
387 x 270 x 40mm
Bound in 2013
The Poems and Sonnets of William Shakespeare edited by Gwyn Jones
The Golden Cockerel Press, 1960
Copy Number 400 of 470
325 x 225 x 40mm
Bound in 2016
Taliesin and the Mockers by Vernon Watkins
With Afterword of Gwen Watkins
Illustrated with line block prints from collages by Glenys Cour, signed on the colophon by Gwen Watkins and Glenys Cour
336 x 356 x 22mm
Bound in 2008
The Deluge of Time, An Illustrated History of The Clothworker’s Company by David E. Wickham, 2001
Volume Two of Two
325 x 325 x 40mm
Bound in 2009
Two volumes bound in grey, blue, terra cotta and beige goatskin over sculptured boards, and tooled in grey and black. Endleaves of blue/grey suede and doublures of beige/brown Fabriano Roma handmade paper. Each volume housed in a linen covered box lined with acid free felt.
Explanatory note on design: the scultured lines on vol 1 relate to shears and on vol 2 teasels. Each vertical black tooled line – six over both volumes – represents one of the Company’s past Halls. The thinner curved tooling is abstract. The triangular beige leather inlays represent the shape of the cloth seen between a shearman’s shears. The bold colour scheme is inspired by the Company’s role and status.
Fungus and Curmudgeonly by Simon Meyerson
NdA Press, London NW1 9AL, 1980
Copy 4 of 10
316 x 138 x 24mm
Bound in 1981
