The Future of the Coffee-Table Art Book
The first actual “coffee tables” were built in England in the 1800’s, designed to accommodate a small tea party, a few crumpets, and little else. Yet, as the tradition of high tea began to wane, the functional necessity of a short and wide table in one’s parlor did not go away.
Rather it morphed into a display table of sorts, with photo albums, pretty bowls, and the latest TV Guide at center stage. The coffee table book is typically light on text, instead relying on its high-quality, stunning images to draw the reader in.
Before World War II, printing large books was quite expensive. As printing costs decreased and middle-class incomes rose, they became a quintessential prop in any bourgeois household. At this point in time, coffee table books are mostly produced in Asia. While the equipment costs are the same, the cost of materials and labor are a fraction of what they are domestically.
More visual than poetic, they tout pictures over prose. Typical topics include art, photography, fashion or natural splendor. Paul Steiner, the founder of Chanticleer Press, published the first popular coffee table book in the 1950’s.
In the 1960s, the Sierra Club’s David R. Bower is credited with the idea of the “modern coffee table art book,” as he envisioned books that could be similar to the best photography exhibits. The first book in his series was This is the American Earth, featuring the photography of Ansel Adams.
Like the ever-popular cookbook, coffee table books convey the image we want to give about our tastes and aspirations while we stuff our e-readers with more pedestrian works.
“When you have people over, you don’t show off your iPad library,” confides Josh Baker, art director at Taschen.
“There’s something about physical books that allows owners to make a statement about themselves and life.“
According to a Marketplace Business article, coffee table books are sales are up while the trade novel is trending towards the Nook, Kindle, and iPad.
Ellen Fisher, Dean of New York School of Interior Design states;
“There’s something about the level of detail, the color, the color rendition and the simple artistry of a really well-done coffee table book that can tie a whole room together and bring it to another place.”
Only the most visually stunning books will survive in the digital era. The latest Bookscan data suggests, for instance, that sales of art books were up 70 percent last year. A coffee table book can range from $40 to several hundred for a collector’s edition, as the art and craft of fine book printing becomes more “boutique” than mass produced.