About Us
MONOGRAPH BOOKWERKS is an art, ephemera and object bookstore featuring a curated selection of books on modern and contemporary art and artists, architecture, graphic design, fashion, photography, artist biographies, countercultures, theory and art criticism.
Rare and uncommon, and new and used books from around the world share shelf space with local publishers and small press editions. A growing collection of artists', political and counterculture ephemera is also offered. Additionally, the store carries unique objects, studio pottery and mid-century ceramics, vintage art and office supplies, prints, paintings and works on paper.
Artists John Brodie and Blair Saxon-Hill opened Monograph Bookwerks in 2010 to provide a place in Portland for artists and the public to study, explore and purchase the best contemporary art books being published today. Saxon-Hill left in 2018 to become a full-time artist, and Brodie now operates the shop himself.
John Brodie was born in Portland, OR and has been painting for over 25 years, with forays into sculpture, book art, editions and mixed media. He was included in Disjecta's PDX2010: A Biennial of Contemporary Art. In 2007 he founded TodayArt, whose first project was the formation of the 9,000-square foot TodayArt Studios in Southeast Portland. From 1996 to 2006 he was a member of the notorious 333 Studios, a loose collective and fine arts studio. In June 2009, he produced Store for a Month, an art exhibit and temporary "store" in Portland (based on Claes Oldenburg's famous Store of 1961) that featured over 70 Northwest artists. From 1988 to 2007 he worked in the music business, first for Monqui Presents, managing the legendary Portland club La Luna; and then managing the globe-trotting band Pink Martini and their record label, Heinz Records. He opened Le Happy, a crêperie restaurant and bar, in 2000 and departed in 2015 to focus on new projects.
Blair Saxon-Hill, an Oregon native and a member of TodayArt Studios, completed her studio art thesis in installation art at Reed College in 2002. Her current work examines materiality and the relationships between photography and sculpture through the use of outmoded print technologies, the verbiage of our time (such as scanning and digital printing), and the evocation of the haptic. The resultant works appear as impossible documents and emotively activate the viewer’s perceiving body in considerations of material, space, presence and absence. Saxon-Hill creates site-specific installations, artist books, sculpture, photographs, paintings and prints.
