Opening
Saturday, November 07
from 5–8PM

On View
November 07 – December 19 2026
in the Anteroom

Wednesday – Saturday
Noon – 5PM

Marta
3021 Rowena Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90039

In the second iteration of Small Print, creative director Veronica Ditting will arrange just over 200 rare miniature books from her personal collection at Marta.

Words and images have always been carried close to our bodies. Since the invention of the printing press, poetry, prayer, philosophy and pornography have all found their way into our pockets. These ‘one-hand’, miniature or thumb books are intimate objects that force us to pay attention to the tiniest of details: the bend of a page; the width of a line; the heft of a spine. They tell us the printed object is defined by tactility and technicalities. With eccentric proportions, these miniature books revive why we read.

Growing up in Germany, Veronica was drawn to the now almost obsolete pocket sized dictionaries—Italian-German, French-Spanish and more—which her parents often took on family holidays. These practical, quotidian objects quietly shaped her fascination with scale and tactility, and over time she began collecting miniature books.

Small Print spans more than a century. It includes The Thumb Dictionary by David Bryce from the 1890s, a ‘marvel of compactness’ printed on ultra light-weight paper. The smallest book featured is Das Kleinste Buch der Welt by German artist Josua Reichert measuring a mere 2.4 × 2.9 mm leather-bound book printed in a specialist technique and legible only with a magnifying glass.

Among the newest additions are 36 books published in the 1960s for Suntory Whisky. The books cover topics such as gardening, glassware and erotica. These little books are exceptionally designed and printed. Another rare collectible is a miniature Webster dictionary housed inside a custom 925 sterling silver by Tiffany & Co. The hinged case is stamped with the brand’s iconic hallmark. The display also includes conceptual art books from Dieter Roth and Robert Filliou’s playful leporello Filliou Standard-Book (c. 1970–75) to a selection of original Hanuman Books, the pocket-sized series founded by Francesco Clemente and Raymond Foye.

The exhibition at Marta will be accompanied by an audio tour of collection highlights, structured as a dial-in format. Visitors will dial a mobile number on their phones and then hear a pre-recorded welcome message followed by a call menu (e.g. “Press 1 for Das Kleinste Buch der Welt”). The numbers on the call menu correlate to small numbered signs which will be placed next to selected books in the display.

Read by —
Emily King, Design Historian
Fernando Augusto Pacheco, Monocle Radio’s Senior Correspondent and Host of The Stack
Dal Chodha, Writer and Leader of the BA Fashion Communication and Promotion course at Central Saint Martins
and Others

Marta hosts the exhibition in their anteroom as part of their exhibition programme exploring contemporary art, design, and craft.

Veronica Ditting is a creative director and graphic designer. Her namesake studio based in London develops projects including campaigns, branding, editorial and exhibition design, across publishing and an international client list of fashion houses, artists and cultural institutions. Veronica’s signature approach is shaped by a resolutely editorial sensibility. Her engagement with language and typography is informed by culture, content and form. A considered focus on imagery and image-making runs throughout her work, and she collaborates with photographers including Jack Davison, Tim El Kaïm, Larissa Hoffmann, Hanna Moon, David Sims, Ethan James Green, and Steven Meisel. Veronica has been working with Hermès Beauty on all new product launches since 2019. She was the Creative Director of The Gentlewoman and she remained at the title for over 12 years, inventing and evolving its singular and highly influential visual sensibility. As part of a small team, she produced 24 issues since the magazine’s launch in 2010. In 2024, kyoto ddd gallery, Japan, hosted a retrospective of Veronica’s work titled ‘Folio Folio Folio’. Curated by acclaimed design historian Emily King, two decades of works were displayed to demonstrate Veronica’s focus on the construction and execution of printed matter. More recently, a traveling exhibition of Veronica’s rare miniature-book collection, under the title ‘Small Print’, continues to display her endless curiosity for how words and pictures come together to form objects of specificity and clarity. The studio’s client list spans leading fashion and beauty houses, cultural institutions and creative figures. These include Hermès, Miu Miu, Louis Vuitton, Frederic Malle, Luca Guadagnino, The Row, Somerset House, Stedelijk Museum and the Design Museum. Since graduating from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam, Veronica has received nominations and awards from the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year, D&AD and Aica Awards amongst others. She frequently serves on international juries including the Most Beautiful Swiss Books, International Typography Awards and has lectured at Frieze Academy, Unseen Amsterdam, Ecal, Sarabande Foundation, ZHdK Zurich and others.