August Sandgren

August Sandgren (1893 - 1934) was highly regarded as both a bookbinder and a person. His bindings were deceptively simple and beautiful. He developed the Sandgren style paper binding as a means of reinforcing paper bindings which he offered as an alternative to the more common half and full leather bindings. He also made paste papers and did printing in his bindery, including decorated papers for his books.  Sandgren was also noted for his decoration of vellum bindings using hand drawn ink.

He tragically died at 41and, though is influence cannot be overstated amongst his peers, one wonders what more he could have accomplished had he lived longer.

More on Sandgren can be found here.