The Kohler Art Library to Host the Eighth Annual Bernstein Book Arts Lecture Featuring Clifton Meador
The Kohler Art Library will be welcoming distinguished book artist Clif Meador for the eighth annual Bernstein Book Arts Lecture on Tuesday, October 7, 2025, at 5:00 PM in Room 150 of the Elvehjem Building (located downstairs from the Kohler Art Library). Meador will present the talk, “These Books are Reasonable Examples: Books as Media.”
Meador creates photo-based artists’ books that combine writing, printmaking, and graphic design into high-concept, high color art works. Heavily influenced by artists’ printing at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York, Meador also directed Nexus Press, an Atlanta-based fine arts press that produced experimental artists’ books and other printed materials. His work investigates how narratives of culture, history, and place shape personal and collective identities.
An influential educator and mentor, Meador is professor emeritus from Appalachian State University. He also led the MFA in Book and Paper program at Columbia College Chicago and co-founded the experimental Visual Research Laboratory at SUNY New Paltz. Before his academic career, he worked as a pressman for commercial and small press production facilities including Open Studio, Nexus Press, and J. B. Richards.
His work is held in major collections including the Library of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Yale Art of the Book Collection. He has received support from the Rubin Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Soros Foundation for Open Society, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Twice awarded a NYFA fellowship in Printmaking/Artist’s Books, he was also a Fulbright Scholar to the Republic of Georgia and the 2013 recipient of the MCBA Book Prize.
In conjunction with the lecture, the Kohler Art Library is hosting an exhibition, Haunted Histories: The Artists’ Books of Clif Meador, on view from September 2–December 20, 2025. The exhibition highlights Meador’s sustained inquiry into photography and image-making, probing how pictures—whether portraits, landscapes, or news images—produce meaning and conceal violence. Works on display draw attention to the extractive economies of colonialism, confront the enduring costs of warfare and technological progress, and question the ways media and images shape our understanding of the world.
Established in 2015, the Bernstein Book Arts Lecture Series invites master book artists to share insights into their creative practice and engage with students in the UW Book Arts program. The series, underwritten by the generous support of Tracy Honn and Mark Bernstein, offers a unique opportunity to highlight the Kohler Art Library’s nationally recognized Artists’ Book Collection. Previous speakers include Sarah Bryant, Gaylord Schanilec, Maureen Cummins, and Diane Fine.
Event Details:
Clif Meador
Eighth Annual Bernstein Book Arts Lecture
Tuesday, October 7, 2025 | 5:00 PM
Room L150, Elvehjem Building
A reception will follow in the library.
This event is free and open to the public.