Claire Van Vliet (born 1933) is a Canadian-born American printmaker, book artist, and publisher whose career has placed her at the forefront of the fine press and artist's book movement in North America for more than six decades. She studied at the San Diego School of Arts and Crafts and San Diego State University before completing graduate work at Claremont Graduate School in California, where she developed the technical foundation and artistic vision that would define her subsequent work. In 1955 she founded the Janus Press, a private press based in Vermont, which became one of the most celebrated and innovative fine press operations in the United States.
Van Vliet's work defies simple categorization, moving freely between printmaking, papermaking, bookbinding, typography, and sculptural book forms. Her prints — produced in etching, relief, and screenprint, among other techniques — are distinguished by their sensitivity to surface, texture, and the physical properties of paper. She has been a pioneer in the use of handmade paper as an expressive medium in its own right, collaborating with paper makers and exploring the ways in which the substance of the sheet can itself carry meaning and visual weight.
Through the Janus Press, Van Vliet has produced a remarkable series of artist's books that expand the definition of what a book can be. These objects — sometimes sculptural, sometimes interactive, always exquisitely crafted — bring together texts by major writers with her own visual work in ways that treat the book as an integrated artistic experience rather than simply a container for text. Her collaborations with poets and writers have produced some of the most beloved objects in American book art.
Van Vliet's work is held in numerous major library and museum collections, and she has received many of the highest honors available to printmakers and book artists in America, including a MacArthur Fellowship. She is regarded as one of the essential figures in the history of American printmaking and the art of the book.
