Artists' books have emerged over the last twenty-five years as one of the most engaging contemporary art forms, addressing subjects from poetry to politics, incorporating a full spectrum of artistic media and bookmaking methods, and taking every conceivable form. Female painters, sculptors, calligraphers, and printmakers have played a primary role in developing this new mode of artistic expression. The Book as Art presents more than one hundred of the finest artists' books culled from the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts. These exquisitely crafted objects are certain to provoke unexpected and surprising conclusions about what constitutes a book. Book jacket.