Barbara Tetenbaum and Phyllis McGibbon
Barbara Tetenbaum, American, b. 1957; BS 1979
Lives and works in Portland, Oregon
Phyllis McGibbon, American, b. 1961; MFA 1989
Lives and works in Wellesley, Massachusetts
Chronology of Important Events: As Originally Published in the Hill’s Manual, Chicago, IL 1876, 1989
Text by Thomas E. Hill
Letterpress and lithography with leporello-accordion binding
Triangular Press and Isolde Press, Madison, Wisconsin
Edition of 50
Born in Cincinnati, Barb Tetenbaum grew up in the Chicago area in a family of scientists. Though she studied art in high school, she planned to major in psychology in the Integrated Liberal Studies program at UW-Madison. She switched her major to art and spent a semester in London, where she became interested in making books. When she returned to Madison, she took lettering, papermaking, and typography courses with Walter Hamady. She wanted readers to feel complicit in the book experience, and so she created unexpected books that became experiments in cognitive theory. Tetenbaum graduated in 1979 with a BS in art, and then moved to Indiana to become printer-in-residence at Twinrocker Handmade Paper, where she helped establish its press. After earning her MFA in printmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she worked for seven years as the printer/curator of the Silver Buckle Press at the UW. She revamped the book arts program at the Oregon College of Art and Craft in Portland, Oregon, and taught there for 14 years. The proprietor of Triangular Press, she has collaborated on books with artists including Kathy Kuehn, Walter Tisdale, and Julie Chen. Tetenbaum’s work is influenced by music and, more recently, the fiction of Willa Cather.
