Vincent FitzGerald & Company
A New York publisher specializing in handmade, limited-edition artist books, prints, and portfolios.
Last updated August 26, 2026
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Overview
Vincent FitzGerald & Company is a New York-based publishing house devoted to the production of handmade and limited-edition artist books, individual prints, and portfolios. Founded in 1980 by Vincent FitzGerald, the firm operates in the tradition of the French livre d’artiste, treating the book as a collaborative work of art rather than simply as a vehicle for reproducing literary content. Its projects bring together writers, poets, playwrights, visual artists, printmakers, translators, calligraphers, bookbinders, and paper artists, with the physical design and manufacture of each publication forming an important part of the artistic concept. The company has worked with more than 150 artists, artisans, poets, and playwrights. Its projects have drawn on literary sources and dramatic works associated with figures including Henrik Ibsen, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, and Gertrude Stein, while allowing artists to respond to texts through printmaking, painting, collage, papermaking, typography, and book construction. This approach has produced editions intended for close examination as objects: bindings, papers, typography, illustrations, and printing methods are integrated with the literary material. A notable aspect of the firm’s practice is its network of specialist collaborators. It has maintained a long relationship with Dieu Donné, the Brooklyn papermaking mill, and has also worked with printmaking workshops, independent binders, calligraphers, translators, and other craftspeople. The company’s publications therefore reflect a distributed studio model in which different participants contribute distinct technical and interpretive skills. Artists associated with its projects include Mark Beard, Joan Busing, Lena Cronqvist, Sandy Gellis, Elizabeth Harrington, Bernard Kirschenbaum, Ted Kurahara, Agnes Murray, James Nares, Dorothea Rockburne, Betye Saar, Annette Senneby, Michelle Stuart, Peter Thompson, Judith Turner, Susan Weil, Neil Welliver, Marjorie Van Dyke, and Joan Vennum. Craftspeople and collaborators have included Kelly Driscoll, Aleksander Duravcevic, Jerry Kelly, Priscilla Spitler, and Paul Wong, while literary contributors have included Lee Breuer, Michael Feingold, David Mamet, David Rattray, and Zahra Partovi. The firm’s 1996 publication Divan-e shams is widely identified as a particularly important project in its output. Developed with translator and bookbinder Zahra Partovi, it presented selected poems from the work of the thirteenth-century Persian poet Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi in an English translation and invited fifteen visual artists to respond to the poetry. The publication demonstrates the company’s interest in pairing historical or international literary material with contemporary visual interpretation and elaborate physical production. Its books and prints have entered collections in the United States and Europe. The collection has been represented at institutions and libraries including Columbia University, the University of Iowa, the Library of Congress, Lyrik-Kabinett in Munich, the Montana Museum of Arts and Culture at the University of Montana, and the Cary Graphic Arts Collection at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Exhibitions and public programs have helped contextualize the firm’s production history, including a 2000 Columbia University exhibition that surveyed 38 books, as well as presentations connected with Dieu Donné and later exhibitions of work by long-term collaborator Susan Weil. Available reference material does not establish the company’s current ownership, financial scale, distribution arrangements, or operating status beyond its documented publishing activity.
History
Vincent FitzGerald & Company was established in New York in 1980 by Vincent FitzGerald. From its beginning, the firm focused on a form of publishing in which the book is conceived as a crafted and limited artistic object. Its work is connected to the French tradition of the livre d’artiste, but the company’s projects also depend on American printmaking, papermaking, bookbinding, and independent studio practices. Rather than separating editorial work from manufacture, the firm assembles teams whose members contribute specialized skills to a single edition. The company’s publishing program has included literary and dramatic texts interpreted through original visual work. Authors and source materials associated with its projects include Henrik Ibsen, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Gertrude Stein, and other writers, while artists have used lithography, etching, painting, collage, and related media to create responses to the texts. This method gives each publication an interpretive dimension as well as a material one: the selection of paper, the printing process, the binding, and the presentation of images are all part of the finished work. A major part of the firm’s history has been its collaboration with external workshops and craftspeople. Its relationship with Dieu Donné, a Brooklyn papermaking mill, supported projects and later exhibitions focused on the making of artist books. The company also developed connections with Robert Blackburn’s Printmaking Workshop and with independent binders, calligraphers, translators, and paper artists. These relationships enabled the firm to produce editions that could not have been made through conventional commercial publishing processes. In 1985, the company’s book The Côte d’Azur Triangle was presented in a major exhibition and panel at Harcus Gallery in Boston. The project combined lithographs and etchings by Mark Beard with the play by Henry Kondoleon. The exhibition included the book as well as binding and printing tools, emphasizing the processes behind the edition. David Becker of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, moderated the opening panel, and Robert Blackburn’s workshop was involved in producing the prints. The firm’s 1996 edition Divan-e shams became one of its most significant publications. Created in collaboration with Zahra Partovi, who translated the selected poems and also worked as a bookbinder, the project brought together responses by fifteen visual artists to poems from the Divan of Rumi. The work exemplifies the company’s preference for collaborative interpretation and for combining literary translation with original visual and physical design. By 2000, Vincent FitzGerald & Company had produced 38 books. Columbia University presented Themes and Variations: The Publications of Vincent FitzGerald & Company that year, documenting the firm’s output and its place within the field of contemporary artists’ books. Its publications have subsequently been held or represented in collections at Columbia University, the University of Iowa, the Library of Congress, Lyrik-Kabinett in Munich, the Montana Museum of Arts and Culture, and the Cary Collection at the Rochester Institute of Technology. The company’s work continued to appear in exhibition contexts. In 2021, books and prints published by the firm were included in an exhibition of Susan Weil’s work at JDJ The Ice House in Garrison, New York. Weil was a long-term collaborator, and the presentation connected the publisher’s editions with the broader careers of the artists involved. Publicly available reference material does not provide reliable information on later organizational changes, ownership, revenue, distribution, or the company’s current operating status.
- 2021
Susan Weil exhibition presentation
[1]Selected books and prints published by the company were shown in an exhibition of Susan Weil’s work at JDJ The Ice House in Garrison, New York.
- 2000
Columbia University retrospective
[1]Themes and Variations: The Publications of Vincent FitzGerald & Company surveyed the firm’s output, which then comprised 38 books.
- 1996
Publication of Divan-e shams
[1]The company published a collaborative edition of selected Rumi poems translated by Zahra Partovi and interpreted by fifteen visual artists.
- 1985
The Côte d’Azur Triangle exhibition
[1]Harcus Gallery in Boston exhibited the book, its binding and printing tools, and hosted an opening panel about the project and art-book production.
- 1980
Company founded in New York
[1]Vincent FitzGerald established the publishing house with a focus on handmade and limited-edition artist books, prints, and portfolios.
Products and positioning
A specialist fine-art publisher positioned at the intersection of artists’ books, literary interpretation, printmaking, papermaking, and hand bookbinding.
Artist books · 1980
Handmade artist books
The firm’s central product is the handmade artist book: a limited publication in which literary material, original visual art, paper, printing, typography, and binding are developed as a unified work. Editions are produced through collaboration among artists, writers, translators, printmakers, papermakers, and binders.
Collaborative literary-art edition · 1996
Divan-e shams
Published in 1996, this edition presents selected poems from Rumi’s Divan-e shams in an English translation by Zahra Partovi. Fifteen visual artists contributed responses, making the book a multi-artist interpretation of Persian literary material and a major example of the company’s collaborative production model.
Illustrated artist book · 1985
The Côte d’Azur Triangle
This project interpreted Henry Kondoleon’s play through lithographs and etchings by Mark Beard. Its 1985 exhibition at Harcus Gallery also displayed the tools and physical components used in binding and printing the edition.
Fine-art prints
Individual prints and portfolios
Alongside books, the company publishes individual prints and portfolios developed with artists and printmaking specialists. These works extend the firm’s collaborative approach beyond bound volumes and are represented in institutional collections and exhibitions.
Marketing campaigns
- 2021JDJ The Ice House Susan Weil exhibition
United States
Selected books and prints from the company were included in an exhibition of Susan Weil’s work at JDJ The Ice House in Garrison, New York.
Outcome. The presentation highlighted the publisher’s continuing association with Weil and its role in disseminating collaborative artist-book projects.
- 2000Themes and Variations: The Publications of Vincent FitzGerald & Company
United States
Columbia University organized an exhibition devoted to the company’s publications and presented its collection of 38 books at that time.
Outcome. The exhibition documented the publisher’s first two decades of activity within an academic and library setting.
- 1985The Côte d’Azur Triangle at Harcus Gallery
United States
A Boston exhibition presented the company’s illustrated edition alongside its binding and printing tools, with a panel discussion introducing the project and the craft of making artists’ books.
Outcome. The exhibition publicly framed the publication as both an art object and a record of collaborative production.
Sources1 sources
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