George Shortess Artists' Books Collection

George Shortess Artists' Books Collection reflects the distinctive interdisciplinary career of George K. Shortess, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, who served on the faculty from 1969 to 1994. Trained as a physiological psychologist, Shortess inherited and further developed the use of the Bioelectric Laboratory—also known as the J. L. Pratt Bioelectric Laboratory—originally established at Lehigh around 1950 through a grant from the Sloan-Kettering Foundation. Shortess continued this legacy of scientific inquiry while expanding it into the realm of visual and conceptual art. Beginning in the 1980s, he began creating and collecting artists' books that merged his research interests in perception, cognition, and sensory experience with the formal experimentation of book arts. His own artist books—some of which were acquired by the Museum of Modern Art—used computer-generated text and interactive elements to reflect the structure and variability of the nervous system. Later, he expanded his creative practice to include participatory installations that combined sound, visual art, and viewer interaction to explore memory and identity. The artists’ books in this collection, gathered by Shortess over years, represent an archive of his engagement with a global and evolving field. They stand at the intersection of scientific curiosity and artistic innovation, embodying the intellectual and creative legacy of both Shortess and the experimental psychology tradition at Lehigh University.