Margaret Kilgallen: In the Sweet Bye & Bye documents the exhibition of the same name and features an extraordinary collection of Kilgallen’s paintings and never-before-seen sketches drawn from private collections and the artist’s estate. Organized into three sections—sketchbook studies and experiments, full-size paintings, and photographic documentations of six of Kilgallen’s major exhibitions—the image passages are set off by text pages printed on creamy uncoated paper. The book is designed to suggest the simplicity and beauty of her work, as well as the intimacy and materiality of her sketchbooks and personal journals: a diary-keeper’s bookmark ribbon; the tactile paper of the essays; and loose compositions modeled after the spontaneous fashion of Kilgallen’s gallery painting groups. A typeface that reflects the wit and style of her quirky hand-drawn words and phrases was selected for the essays.

The exhibition, Margaret Kilgallen: In the Sweet Bye & Bye, the first survey of Kilgallen’s work, was organized by REDCAT Director and Curator Eungie Joo and Assistant Curator Clara Kim.

A fitting tribute to Kilgallen’s work—the stamped case and printed endpapers and every page within convey a personal sense of her art—almost like a journal, yet public.