The patient art of producing beauty from the publishing process

There are books that can become works of art in their own right, and the great artists of the 20th century explored this creative path: "I do not distinguish between making a book and making a painting," said Matisse.

Several years ago Elena Ochoa Foster decided to continue this tradition, founding the publishing house Ivorypress, a laboratory where she could experiment with new horizons in her love for the printed word. Ivorypress director Antonio Sanz stresses that artists' books "are not books illustrated by an artist, but works of art with a market value, like a serialized work, a photograph or an engraving."

It all began after a conversation with the late Sir Robert Sainsbury, heir to the British supermarket chain, a great art collector and friend of architect Norman Foster, Ochoa's husband. "He encouraged me to do something related to artists' books - a field that was stagnant, difficult and interesting- to contribute something to the conventional artist's book."

After the Chillida book came Anthony Caro, Anish Kapoor and Francis Bacon

"A preconceived idea would run contrary to the Ivorypress philosophy"

Ochoa took his advice and got started with her first volume. "I had to do it with someone I knew from my previous career, and who would trust my work," said this Alzheimer's specialist who in the early 1990s became Spain's most famous psychologist thanks to her television program Hablemos de sexo (or, Let's talk about sex).

This is how she came to Eduardo Chillida, whom she had worked with in one of his last projects before his death in 2002. The result was a box with some of the Basque sculptor's drawings, texts by Carlos Fuentes and John Berger, and photographs by Ferdinando Scianna. This book was followed by others with the artists Anthony Caro, Anish Kapoor, Francis Bacon, Richard Long, Anselm Kiefer, Isamu Noguchi, Cai Guo-Qiang and Richard Tuttle. Today, Ochoa is working with Isidora López Valcárcel on a piece to be released early next year.

"Each book is an adventure and a challenge. I have started some that I have not finished," explains the editor, who puts her body and soul into the selection of materials. The paper used in Chillida's book was found in a traditional mill in Angoulême, France. And for Anthony Caro, whose book consists of a series of steel, bronze and brass sculptures that hold poems of Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Ochoa toured car factories in search of the best mechanism to keep the piece open. "The system is taken from car trunks and I finally found it in a company near Lake Como."

These days she is struggling with the type of paper that Valcárcel Medina chose for her book. "If the page moves even a millimeter, the material does not accept the printing," she explains, with the unmistakable enthusiasm that comes from the love of details.

Finishing an artist's book can warrant up to four years of work. There are no assumptions or preconditions. "Having a preconceived idea would run contrary to the Ivorypress philosophy," she explains. "It is a question of the artist giving free rein to his imagination and taking a step further in his work." Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang delved deeper into his work using gunpowder, making drawings with a paste made of the explosive, into which he incorporated a band of matches that the reader could use to burn the book. Caro spent seven months pondering his idea before making a bronze prototype.

The fruits of Ochoa's labor may be seen in Ivorypress' office space in Madrid, where visits are organized for small groups by appointment. In addition to Ochoa's books, the collection includes St Peter from Damien Hirst's New Religion series and a piece created by Israeli artist Michal Rovner. Chillida's was Ivorypress' biggest release, with 200 copies, a single run that has not been repeated. In fact, Ochoa noted that the optimum number of copies would be nine or 10. As the books sell, remaining copies are increasing in price.

"Some prices are now close to 100,000 euros, others 30,000 eurosand others are at a million euros," she says. Some books have already sold out, like that of Cai Guo-Qiang, Kapoor's drawings and Caro's steel series. Buyers are usually museums, like the Reina Sofia or MoMA. Ivorypress always keeps one copy of each book, except in the case of Kiefer's, which is not on sale at all because it is the only one of its kind.