A window into the past for both the curious and the collector — find rare, unusual and historic paper items, priced from £2 to over £2000. A huge range of ephemera will be on display. The fairs will be on for one day only so make a note in your diary now, we look forward to seeing you there!
Holiday Inn London Bloomsbury
Coram Street
London WC1N 1HT
United Kingdom
Entry £3 · 11am - 4pm · All welcome
Members from 10am with membership cards
Interested in booking a table for the fair? Reserve your space - download the booking form
For more details call 01923 829079 or email
Join us! The Ephemera Society is always pleased to welcome new members. Payment can now be made online via PayPal.
Bloomsbury Ephemera Fair
26 May 2019 · 9.30am - 3pm
The fair will include all of the following: books, ephemera, maps, prints, posters, postcards, photographs and many unusual printed items across the whole of the Galleon Suite.
The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Association’s (ABA) annual flagship event Firsts – London’s Rare Book Fair returns for its 62nd year this summer and will be opened by actor, writer and book collector Stephen Fry.
More than 150 dealers from the UK and around the world gather to offer rare and beautiful works including books, maps, ephemera, manuscripts and art.
One of the largest premier antiquarian book fairs featuring more than 100 UK and International booksellers showcasing rare books, maps, prints, ephemera, collector items and more to suit all pockets!
During the dark days of the 1930s and 40s, many artists and designers fled Nazi Europe and settled in the UK.
The Vice Chairman of London Transport, Frank Pick, commissioned these talented designers to produce distinctive posters for the transport network.
Here we celebrate five decades of émigré work, featuring well-known artists such as Hans Schleger (Zero), Hans Unger and László Moholy-Nagy.
This display is part of the ‘Insiders Outsiders Festival’, a nationwide arts festival celebrating the contribution made to British culture by émigré artists.
Vanishing Acts is an exhibition taking place at Peckham Pelican celebrating the timeless glory of theatrical programmes, posters and flyers from the 20th Century.
Each piece is a work of art in itself, uniquely designed to stir excitement until the curtain rises. Some feature names that have stood the test of time, others that shone brightly in their own era.
Some hits, some flops but each piece is a portal into the world in which they played. A true celebration of those who have honed their craft in a time when fame was hard won.
The design and typography of these pieces truly encapsulates the artistry of the designers and illustrators of their day.
This exhibition is an adventure through the history of conjuring and magic as entertainment, a centuries-long fascination that still excites and inspires today.
It features over 60 stories which focus on magic in the form of
sleight-of-hand (legerdemain) and stage illusions, from 16th century court
jugglers to the great masters of the golden age of magic in the 19th and
early 20th centuries.
These stories are told through the books, manuscripts
and ephemera of the Harry Price Library of Magical Literature.
Cut and Paste: 400 Years of Collage is the first survey exhibition of collage ever to take place anywhere in the world. Collage is often described as a twentieth-century invention, but this show spans a period of more than 400 years and includes more than 250 works.
A huge range of approaches is on show, from sixteenth-century anatomical ‘flap prints’, to computer-based images; work by amateur, professional and unknown artists; collages by children and revolutionary cubist masterpieces by Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris; from nineteenth century do-it-yourself collage kits to collage films of the 1960s.
Highlights include a three-metre-long folding collage screen, purportedly made in part by Charles Dickens; a major group of Dada and Surrealist collages, by artists such as Kurt Schwitters, Joan Miró, Hannah Höch and Max Ernst; and major postwar works by Henri Matisse, Robert Rauschenberg, and Peter Blake, including the only surviving original source photographs for Blake’s and Jann Haworth's iconic, collaged cover for the Beatles’ album Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Owing to the fragility of much of the work, the exhibition will not tour: it can only be seen at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh.
Scottish National Gallery Of Modern Art (Modern Two)
In 1942 Chairman Mao Zedong declared that all art should serve the worker, peasant and soldier. During the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-76) this policy was vigorously implemented.
Images of the leader appeared everywhere: bold, colourful posters combined text and image to promote political messages. The predominant colour was red – colour of the revolution – and when Mao was shown it was always amid a glowing light.
Traditional landscape styles were reimagined and now incorporated symbols of modern and industrial achievement. Even the traditional folk art of the delicate papercut, used to decorate windows at home, promoted ‘Mao Zedong Thought’.
This exhibition is a touring exhibition organised by the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford; it displays a selection of Cultural Revolution propaganda posters, revolutionary landscapes, images of the leader and intricate papercuts all of which were collected in China during the 1970s.
This major exhibition explores the life and legacy of the iconic designer Abram Games, focusing on his time as 'Official War Poster Artist' during the Second World War.
Always direct, and occasionally controversial, Games's wartime posters have left a legacy that continues to influence the art of persuasion employed by visual designers today.
Inspired by his Jewish heritage, his experiences as a soldier, and the turbulent politics of the time, Games used his talent for visual communication to recruit, educate and influence soldiers and civilians alike.
In helping to transform new conscripts into trained soldiers, encouraging support for the war effort and presenting an idealistic vision of post-war Britain, Games's work offers a fascinating picture of a nation at war.
The art of persuasion examines the techniques Games used to communicate his messages effectively. From stark imagery and visual puns to innovative use of the airbrush, his unique artistic approach changed the face of British graphic design.
The exhibition includes posters from the National Army Museum’s collection alongside objects on loan from the family of Abram Games.
Instruction and Delight: Children’s Games from the Ellen and Arthur Liman Collection
Until 23 May 2019
By the beginning of the eighteenth century in Britain, parents and teachers had begun to embrace wholeheartedly a suggestion from the philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) that “Learning might be made a Play and Recreation to Children.”
The material culture of this period, and the subsequent generation, reveals a significant shift in thinking, as adults found fresh value in childhood and in play for its own sake. British publishers leapt at the chance to design books and games for both instruction and delight.
This small display celebrates the recent gift of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century children’s games and books to the Center by Ellen and Arthur Liman, Yale JD 1957.
Image: The Majestic Game of the Asiatic Ostrich. London: William Darton,1822.
Women’s work. The phrase usually conjures up domestic duties or occupations traditionally associated with women—such as teaching, nursing, or housekeeping.
The Lisa Unger Baskin Collection upends those assumptions and makes the true breadth of women’s contributions visible. By bringing together materials from across the centuries, Baskin reveals what has been hidden—that women have long pursued a startling range of careers and vocations and that through their work they have supported themselves, their families, and the causes they believed in.
Over the course of forty-five years, Baskin acquired more than 11,000 printed books, thousands of manuscripts and photographs, and artifacts ranging from an anti-slavery token to Virginia Woolf’s writing desk.
In 2015, Baskin placed her collection at the Sallie Bingham Center for Women’s History & Culture in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University so that it might be used by scholars, students, and members of the public. This exhibition and accompanying catalogue provide a first glimpse of the diversity and depth of the collection, revealing the lives of women both famous and forgotten and paying tribute to their accomplishments.
This exhibition is an adventure through the history of conjuring and magic as entertainment, a centuries-long fascination that still excites and inspires today.
Cut and Paste: 400 Years of Collage is the first survey exhibition of collage ever to take place anywhere in the world. Collage is often described as a twentieth-century invention, but this show spans a period of more than 400 years and includes more than 250 works.
