James P. Keenan

James P. Keenan has been an avid collector of bookplates for many years. Working in the graphic arts field since the late 1970s, he is the author, editor, and publisher of numerous books about ex libris. Some of his books include the popular American Artists of the Bookplate: 1970-1990 and American Artists of the Bookplate in 1996. The Art of the Bookplate was published by Barnes & Noble in 2003 and his Illustrated Essays on Bookplate Collecting in 2009.

Since 2001, Keenan has been the director of the American Society of Bookplate Collectors & Designers, founded in 1922. He serves as the editor and publisher of the Society’s multi-language Ex Libris Chronicle: The International Collector, as well as its prestigious Year Book.

He has organized more than thirty exhibitions of historical and contemporary bookplates. One exhibition of contemporary works traveled coast-to-coast in the United States of America for over eight years. These exhibitions have been presented at many important institutions including Harvard University, the Boston Athenaeum, Providence Athenaeum, Duke University, University of Massachusetts, University of Connecticut, and the main public libraries in Boston, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland (Oregon), and more.