November 2013
Momentous for the Keough is their relationship with Yale University. Jae Rossman, Assistant Director for Special Collections, Robert B. Hass Family Arts Library, spent a week at the Keough home and studio earlier this year reviewing materials in stored in filing cabinets and boxes. Subsequently she wrote to the Keoughs that Yale is “honored to become the caretakers of your archive, providing access to researchers, artists, and students so that they can learn from your impressive careers.” She said that this is the “dream collection” inclusive of storyboards, drafts, production proofs, brass dies, correspondence, budgeting, accounting, media reviews and interviews etc. Thus far two shipments of heavy boxes of archived documents have been forwarded to Yale. The Keoughs had quite the time adding file notes, removing duplication etc, so that future academics/researchers have a complete picture of what has gone into the creation of their works over these past three decades. There is much more to put together, and this is a great start. The Keoughs are committed to continue to forward materials as long as they are involved with photography and the book arts – which likely will be for the rest of their lives. Of note, the Keoughs are the first (and to date the only) Canadians whose archives is maintained in Yale’s Arts Library archives.
A visit to Yale University in March 2014. Pat and Rosemarie Keough (left); Jae Rossman, Special Collections, Yale Arts Library (centre);
Barbara Slate, Graphic Novelist, and husband
Richard Minsky, book artist and scholar of bookbinding (right).
September 2013
Hillsdale College receives ANTARCTICA #58/950 from Collectors Phyllis and Jack Kalivoda. Broad smiles as Dan Knock, head librarian, Hillsdale College, Michigan, USA shows this weighty gift donated by the Kalivodas. Jack and Phyllis, who were among the first to acquire ANTARCTICA, write: “We are very satisfied with the place the book now resides.”
Grizzly bear, White-sided dolphin, Steller sea lions, Harbour seals, 800- and 2200-year old Western red cedar, mist, rainbow, sunshine.... all during a weekend of photography co-hosted by Pat & Rosemarie Keough for Sonora Resort Canada, a Relais & Chateaux property situated along British Columbia’s Inside Passage.
Grizzly sow eating chum salmon, Orford River, British Columbia
Photo Credit: Pat & Rosemarie Keough
Photo Credit: Pat & Rosemarie Keough
May 2013
From the Antarctic to the Amazon.... Keoughs join Seabourn Cruise Line to share their passion for photography with guests aboard luxurious Seabourn voyages. Excerpted from Seabourn’s blog:
Recently, Seabourn welcomed professional photographers Pat and Rosemarie Keough to its Seattle office. The Keoughs are part of our Antarctica expedition team and will serve as Digital Photography Coaches on the two Antarctica voyages aboard Seabourn Quest.
They are recipients of numerous awards for photographic excellence, including World’s Best Nature Photographers, World’s Best Photography Book and Outstanding Bookarts Craftsmanship, and the 2012 Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, a commemorative medal that serves to honor significant contributions and achievements by Canadians. Fellows of The Explorers Club, they have lectured worldwide and are medalists of the Royal Geographical Society. Featured in award-winning television specials and in periodicals such as Smithsonian and Forbes, their images have inspired eight books of their photography, including the renowned handcrafted tome ANTARCTICA.
In keeping with the spirit of our Seabourn Conversations, the Keoughs are not only experts in photography; they are people of many fascinating facets. Be sure to ask Pat about the house he built on Norfolk Island out of 40,000 beer bottles. And Rosemarie can tell you a lot about worldwide folk dancing, too.
Pat and Rosemarie Keough with Seabourn President Richard Meadows.
May 2013
Norway to the Russian Arctic are the focus of the Keoughs’ lenses, the artists being guests aboard M/V The World for the White Sea expedition. The experience begins in Oslo during the colourful 17th May celebrations, the highlight of which is the famed Children’s Parade, seen here from the vantage of the Grand Hotel.
17th May Children’s Parade, Oslo, Norway.
Photo Credit: Pat & Rosemarie Keough
Photo Credit: Pat & Rosemarie Keough
April 2013
Governor General of Canada receives Keoughs’ First Book
A special copy of Pat & Rosemarie Keoughs’ first book
THE OTTAWA VALLEY PORTFOLIO, published 1986 and long-out-of-print, was presented to Governor General David Johnston by County of Renfrew Warden Peter Emon. The occasion was His Excellency’s visit to Renfrew County to pay tribute to the many volunteers who devote countless hours to residents of Miramichi Lodge, a Seniors’ home.
Warden Emon and Governor General David Johnston, presentation of the Keoughs’ first book.
March 2013
Pat and Rosemarie Keough board Corinthian II for an African Grand Voyage
The Keoughs photograph coastal West Africa, Cape Town through Dakar, and onward to Spain aboard MV Corinthian II, as guest speakers, sharing their enthusiasm for photography with passengers aboard this lengthy Travel Dynamics voyage. Pat and Rosemarie enjoyed wonderful adventures and great photography in such places as Kolmanskop, a ghost town along Namibia’s Skeleton Coast. Where German overseers once lorded over native workers engaged to recover diamonds, abandoned homes fill with wind-blown sand as the desert reclaims the settlement.
Patterns of light and shadow mark an abandoned home, former diamond town, Kolmanskop, Namibia
Photo Credit: Pat & Rosemarie Keough
Photo Credit: Pat & Rosemarie Keough
December 2012
Pat and Rosemarie Keough are presented with Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medals
at a special ceremony which took place December 17th at the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia. This commemorative medal serves to honour significant contributions and achievements of Canadians.
“On behalf of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, I am pleased to award you the Queen Elizabeth II
Diamond
Jubilee Medal, created to mark the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty’s accession to the Throne.
In granting you this honour, I thank you for your dedicated serviced to your peers, to your community
and to Canada. The contributions you have made to our nation are most commendable and deserve
our praise and admiration.”
— David Johnston, Governor General of Canada
RCMP Corporal Chouinard, Medalists Pat and Rosemarie Keough, and MPP Murray Coell.
Photo Credit: Christine Harker
Photo Credit: Christine Harker
November 2012
More GREAT PRESS for LABYRINTH SUBLIME
Three Sheets Northwest posts the article $5000 photo book, a quest for perfection.
Outdoor Photography Canada publishes A Picture of Beauty and an interview with the Keoughs.
A selection of press for both Keough tomes is linked from REVIEWS AND ARTICLES.
THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE Pat and Rosemarie Keough photographed the high Arctic as guests aboard M/V The World. This transit of the Northwest Passage, mid-August through September during the period of minimum sea ice, is a historic first. The World is the largest passenger vessel and the largest ship ever to have crossed from Pacific to Atlantic via the Arctic. The many wonderful images that the Keoughs have taken during this expedition augument their growing polar portfolio. Pat and Rosemarie hope one day to create a limited-edition ARCTIC tome as a companion to ANTARCTICA.
M/V THE WORLD anchored at Pond Inlet, Baffin Island, Canada.
Photo Credit: Pat & Rosemarie Keough
Photo Credit: Pat & Rosemarie Keough
SPECIAL COLLECTIONS Yale University, Washington State Library and Australia’s University of Melbourne have recently acquired LABYRINTH SUBLIME: THE INSIDE PASSAGE joining Canada’s Banff Centre for the Arts and York University as collectors of this new tome. North Carolina State University and Emily Carr University of the Arts have also made recent acquisitions of ANTARCTICA. The names of libraries and museums from four continents that have one or both of the Keoughs’ tomes in their Special Collections, can be viewed at COLLECTIONS.
October 2012
AND MORE GOLD!! A Gold Medal in The Gold Ink Awards
LABYRINTH SUBLIME: THE INSIDE PASSAGE is honoured once again with a Gold Medal for “Fine Edition Books” in the in the Gold Ink Awards 2012. This international competition is considered by many to be the Oscar of the Printing Industry.
June 2012
GOLD!! Outstanding Book of the Year — Best Book Arts Craftsmanship
Raise your tripods to Pat and Rosemarie Keough!
LABYRINTH SUBLIME: THE INSIDE PASSAGE has been honoured with the Gold Medal for
“Outstanding Book of the Year — Best Book Arts Craftsmanship” in the Independent
Publisher Book Awards competition.
Their tome went cover-to-cover with over 5,200 titles
including those submitted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Carnegie and the
Getty in this international competition.
In other news, ANTARCTICA #1/950, the first in their series, was sold in
March through an antiquarian dealer in New York for $60,000 to an overseas client.
Hell, one of my hardbounds was up in the stratosphere too, on Amazon for $160.
I can’t understand why Pat always gets visibly uncomfortable and speechless
whenever I bring up the subject of trading books ... Authors do this all the time ... .
As reported by Jason Schoonover, Writer and Ethnological Field Collector, to The Explorers Club.
The Times Colonist Victoria, BC publishes an extensive feature on LABYRINTH SUBLIME: THE INSIDE PASSAGE — front page news plus three full pages with article, photos and excerpt. Here’s the link to Salt Spring Couple captures the Beauty of The Inside Passage in a Book that’s a Work of Art.
The Answer to a Fine Book Collector’s Dream — another excellent article about the Keoughs and LABYRINTH SUBLIME — is published in The Driftwood Salt Spring Island, BC.
May 2012
Alex Tilley — Hats off to Pat and Rosemarie!
Alex Tilley doffs his famous hat in salute of Pat and Rosemarie’s masterpiece LABYRINTH SUBLIME: THE INSIDE PASSAGE during a recent visit at their home. “Truly a book sublime and a joy to experience. LABYRINTH SUBLIME is the precious world in your hands.” Alex is a close family friend who has shared many adventures with the Keoughs. He’s been a collector of their books since 1986. Alex’s superb travel clothing, including the World’s Best Hat, can be viewed at Tilley Endurables.
Alex Tilley enjoying LABYRINTH SUBLIME
March 2012
New York City — Presentations, Arader Galleries and representing Canada at The Explorers Club
Rosemarie Keough, renowned photographer and explorer was in New York City March 13-19, 2011 to present works that have been hailed to be among the world’s finest contemporary art books. A private viewing of LABYRINTH SUBLIME and ANTARCTICA was hosted by Collectors Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Bennett in the lovely library at Fifteen Central Park West, followed by public presentations at Arader Galleries and The Explorers Club. ANTARCTICA #1/950, autographed and annotated by 31 famous polar explorers, scientists, pilots and physicians was sold by Arader Galleries at a price that is very likely a new record for a contemporary Canadian book. ANTARCTICA #950/950, similarly signed, is available for the person who has everything.
Rosemarie Keough showing LABYRINTH SUBLIME with Lynn Danaher,
Chetan Kane and Monika Rogozinska, The Explorers Club, New York
Chetan Kane and Monika Rogozinska, The Explorers Club, New York
W. Graham Arader III, founder of Arader Galleries, is perhaps America’s largest and most significant dealer of rare maps, prints and natural history watercolours. The Keoughs’ LABYRINTH SUBLIME and ANTARCTICA are among the very few modern tomes represented in Arader’s Rare Book Room, a treasure trove of antiquarian volumes spanning five centuries of European and American history including the most beautiful colour plate books ever published, all presided over by Kate Hunter, Director.
The Explorers Club is an international multidisciplinary professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct of exploration. Rosemarie and Pat Keough are Fellows of The Explorers Club, Rosemarie serving in her second year as Director-at-Large for the Canadian Chapter, following seven years as the Chair of British Columbia and Yukon. She is the first recipient of the prestigious Stefansson Medal, an honour bestowed by the Canadian Chapter of The Explorers Club.
February 2012
LABYRINTH SUBLIME: THE INSIDE PASSAGE is now available to new Collectors, our bindery having skillfully worked long and hard to complete a further 60 Keough tomes in this limited-edition.
January 2012
Newspapers across North America carried the news of the recent sale of Birds of America by John James Audubon for $7.9 million.
Canada’s Toronto Public Library owns one these celebrated copies of Audubon’s Birds of America collected by the library in 1903.
The Toronto Public Library collected the Keoughs’ ANTARCTICA in 2005. On the Library’s webpage, Collected Works: A Public Legacy, curators feature ANTARCTICA together with Audubon and but a dozen fine and rare publications. The library writes about ANTARCTICA: “This unique book is a modern variation in the tradition of wildlife art made famous by John James Audubon. Its use of advanced print technology captures subtleties of colour, just as Audubon and Havell refined aquatint printmaking to control tonal variations.”
Image Credit: Toronto Public Library
Like Audubon, ANTARCTICA is a fine-press, private-press tome, bound entirely by hand. The two works are similar in that the creation required many years of effort, and that fine imagery is featured. The Keoughs’ new work LABYRINTH SUBLIME: THE INSIDE PASSAGE reflects the identical obsessive search for perfection as ANTARCTICA. As with Audubon’s masterpieces, Subscribers assisted with the financing of this project.
All are monumental works.
October 2011
LABYRINTH SUBLIME: THE INSIDE PASSAGE is being released to Subscribers, starting this month, as copies are hand bound and their accompanying presentation boxes made. Master binder Keith Felton of Felton Bookbinding Ltd. proudly hams it up with the first tomes to be completed. He notes that he weighs less than any one of the stacks of six or seven copies; and that the presses used during binding exert far greater pressure than his body ever could. To be sure, the volumes are individually protected with pressing boards, and Keith has taken off his shoes for the photo!
Photo Credit: Amy Felton
Three packages ready for FedEx, each containing a single copy of LABYRINTH SUBLIME in its linen and velvet presentation box. The well-padded shipping boxes each weigh 31 pounds.
September 2011
Unveiled! LABYRINTH SUBLIME: THE INSIDE PASSAGE is ceremoniously unveiled during the annual gathering of The Explorers Club at the Salt Spring Symposium, September 10, 2011. Click for details.
Photo Credit: John Lawrence
June 2011
Pat and Rosemarie Keough hold one of the first two Production Proofs of LABYRINTH SUBLIME: THE INSIDE PASSAGE. These prototypes are used for confirming binding specifications and measurements for the presentation box. Six months of lithography effort is now complete and the hand sewing and hand binding commences at Felton Bookbinding Ltd; and the crafting of the presentation boxes at Friesens Speciality Packaging.
January 2011
Lithography is soon to begin for LABYRINTH SUBLIME: THE INSIDE PASSAGE, the entire process being overseen by Pat and Rosemarie Keough. Stacks of the custom-milled paper specified for this project acclimatize to the humidity conditions in the printing plant at Friesens Corporation. Click for details.
June 2009
The inaugural exhibition of “LABYRINTH SUBLIME” opens aboard the luxurious vessel M/V THE WORLD. Eighty Keough photographs from this new body-of-work are exhibited during the ship’s leisurely six-week voyage through The Inside Passage.
February 2009
The exhibition “ANTARCTICA: Passion and Obsession” is in its final weeks of public display in Austria at Vienna’s Bezirks Museum and in Canada at The Institute of Ocean Sciences.
March 2008
Two major institutions have acquired ANTARCTICA for their collections — The Museum of Fine Art Houston in Texas, and The Huntington Library in California.
November 2007
Two large solo exhibitions “ANTARCTICA: Passion and Obsession” open this month.
In the United States, the University of Colorado at Boulder celebrates the 40th Anniversary of CIRES, the Co-operative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, and hosts a large exhibition of ANTARCTICA, 82 framed prints and pages from the tome at the Norlin Library.
In Austria, The University of Innsbruck celebrates the 10th Anniversary of the Center for Canadian Studies with a large solo exhibition of “ANTARCTICA: Passion and Obsession”, 66 framed pages and the tome itself, beginning November 8th.
In England Pat and Rosemarie Keough present their lecture “ANTARCTICA: Passion and Obsession” to the Oxford University Exploration Club, and exhibit ANTARCTICA at the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair November 3 and 4th.
October 2007
Pat and Rosemarie Keough lecture in Melbourne, Australia and on Norfolk Island, South Pacific sharing their presentation “ANTARCTICA: Passion and Obsession” at a special forum of Australia’s World Presidents Organization, and a few days later with residents of Norfolk Island, and then with members and invited guests of Melbourne’s Athenaeum Club.
Toronto, Canada. The Toronto Reference Library hosts a group exhibition “Collected Works: A Public Legacy” including ANTARCTICA. The Keoughs’ tome is opened to photographs of soaring albatrosses and is displayed beneath an original John Audubon lithograph depicting the same magnificent birds. October 20th to December 30th 2007.
September 2007
Budapest, Hungary. By popular request a second exhibition of ANTARCTICA is hosted in the cultural city of Budapest. The palatial Metropolitan Ervin Szabo Library displays 66 framed pages from ANTARCTICA along side the tome September 10th through October 5th.
March 2007
The International Polar Year has finally arrived. Worldwide, scientists are putting their resources toward studying the Arctic and the Antarctic. Rosemarie Keough presented four ANTARCTICA lectures during ICE FEST, the launch of The International Polar Year hosted by the University of Colorado at Boulder. Rosemarie also lectured in New York City to young students of Chapin Middle School, the Convent of the Sacred Heart School. While in New York, she also presented a lecture “ANTARCTICA: Passion and Obsession” at The Explorers Club during the Explorers Club Annual Dinner weekend.
March 2007
Pat and Rosemarie Keough receive their 22nd honour for their ANTARCTICA efforts. The Keoughs were awarded the AFC Conservation Artist Award, March 2007. The Artists for Conservation Foundation is a non-profit juried association of international artists dedicated to celebrating and protecting natural heritage. This honour is bestowed in recognition of outstanding artistic talent and extraordinary contribution to the conservation cause.
January 2007
Budapest, Hungary. ANTARCTICA is enjoyed by great numbers of people, young and old, during a month-long solo exhibition hosted by the Hungarian National Natural History Museum. All 345 images from ANTARCTICA are displayed, completely filling the main central gallery. Rosemarie Keough attended the exhibition where she lectured to bilingual students. She also presented a lecture during a reception at the Canadian Embassy attended by the Canadian Ambassador, staff and Hungarian dignitaries.
November 2006
A $20,000 copy of ANTARCTICA autographed and annotated by 31 noted polar luminaries was acquired by a Canadian collector who acquired this volume as a very special Christmas gift for his wife. Signatories including Norman Vaughan, Admiral Byrd’s dog sled driver at Little America, Ross Ice Shelf 1928-30, Edmund Hillary the leader of the first expedition to reach the South Pole overland since Robert Falcon Scott, 1957-58, and William Zinsmeister discover of Antarctica’s first land mammal fossils definitively proving that the continent was once connected to South America. The Keoughs’ publishing house offers the only two remaining copies similarly autographed — ANTARCTICA #1/950 and #950/950.