Bridwell Library • Perkins School of Theology • Southern Methodist University

ABOUT THE COMPETITION

Bridwell Library’s triennial bookbinding competition is named for Helen Warren DeGolyer (†1995), a well-known supporter of the arts and education in Dallas, as well as a skilled devotee of design bookbinding. In 1996, following her testamentary wishes, her brother, Joseph Warren, and her children, Everett Lee DeGolyer and Edith DeGolyer, established an endowment to support a triennial bookbinding competition, exhibition, and conference on the contemporary book arts to be held at Bridwell Library.

The Helen Warren DeGolyer Exhibition and Award for American Bookbinding challenges bookbinders to submit their design proposals for a specific book in Bridwell’s collections, as well as a recent example of their work. While the DeGolyer Award winner receives a commission to bind the book according to his/her design proposal, the jury also selects award winners for outstanding technique and artistic design. The 2009 commission book is Helen Warren DeGolyer’s copy of the Book Club of Texas edition of John Grave’s Goodbye to a River: A Narrative. The competing designs and sample bookbindings, as well as the bindings commissioned during past competitions, are exhibited in the Elizabeth Perkins Prothro Galleries of Bridwell Library.

2009 Competition Jurors:

Michael Collins

Private Book Collector

Celia Warren Fowler

Niece of Mrs. Helen Warren DeGolyer

Daniel J. Slive

Head of Special Collections, Bridwell Library

James Tapley

Commission Winner: The Fourth Triennial Helen Warren DeGolyer Award, 2006

TomTaylor

Designer and Printer: Goodbye to a River, 1989 Book Club of Texas Edition