Werner Pfeiffer, a book artist, printmaker and sculptor, will discuss the history and practice of the book on Wednesday, March 29, at 7 p.m., in Burke Library’s All-Night Reading Room. The lecture, titled “Are Books Obsolete?,” is free and open to the public.
Pfeiffer was born in Germany and in 1961 he immigrated to the United States. He was first active as a designer and art director, and his design work has been widely published in international design literature in magazines such as Graphis, Gebrauchsgrafik, Print, Modern Publicity and Art Direction.
In 1969, Pfeiffer was appointed professor of art at Pratt Institute and director of Pratt Adlib Press, a publishing venture of the department of graphic art at Pratt. His books, collages, drawings, prints, paintings and sculptures have been shown internationally in more than 100 group exhibitions and in over 70 solo shows in locations around the world.
His work is currently held by, among other institutions, the Art Institute in Chicago, the Boston Museum of Fine Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Library of Congress and the 9/11 Memorial Museum. In addition, Pfeiffer has received public sculpture commissions from the States of Connecticut and Massachusetts and the Federal Republic of Germany.