The selections that make up this exhibit inevitably pose the same questions
that arise whenever one attempts to determine the characteristics of a
fine press work. Does such a printed item, for example, have to have a
classic text (or at least one that has been deemed somehow an appropriate
one)? Is it essential that it be letterpress-printed on a specialty stock
in order to qualify for this assessment? Must it incorporate images that
have been painstakingly rendered by hand or in a limited edition through
a number of labor-intensive graphic arts processes? Is the manner of its
sewing and binding alone a sufficient justification for regarding it as
a fine press product?
The guiding principle in this particular exhibition has been to identify
examples of relatively recent works, loosely deemed, within the holdings
of the Special Collections Research Center that conjure up a sense of
a cohesive book or print project in which the individual components have
a unity that overcomes their disparateness. The publications that are
displayed within these five cases in this foyer are, after all, largely
collaborative efforts. It would have been extremely difficult for a single
individual to accomplish
all of the tasks that are associated with a book within this category.
A successful fine press volume, it could be argued, must manage to convince
us that a single vision of the work was effectively conceived, communicated,
and executed, regardless of how many collaborators and production steps
may have been involved in its creation. We invite you to explore for yourself
how simple elements-type and paper, ink and image-can be variously combined
into an artistic whole, a fine press book.
William T. La Moy
Curator of Rare Books and Printed Materials
Exhibition Checklist
The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer: Now Newly Imprinted
(Hammersmith, England: Kelmscott Press, 1896)
One of the giants (or shall we say progenitors?) of English letters
inspired the legendary union of the designs of Edward Burne-Jones, the
wood engravings of W. H. Hooper, and the talents of William Morris at
the Kelmscott Press, culminating in this classic folio work in 1896.
The print run was limited to four hundred and twenty-five copies, and
this massive volume was donated to the Syracuse University Library by
the distinguished
book collector Adrian Van Sinderen. The fully engraved title-page spread
that is open to view includes the depiction of Chaucer in the midst
of poetic creation. The original pen-and-ink drawing by William Morris
for the initial o of the prologue of the "Tale of the manne of
lawe" is situated next to the volume.
Two Tales by Oscar Wilde
(Paris: F. L. Schmied, 1926)
The two short stories that are related in this book, "The Happy
Prince" and "The Nightingale and the Rose," involve the
tragic deaths of a sparrow and a nightingale, each sacrificing itself
for the cause of true love. The engraver and printer F. L. Schmied and
the bookbinder G. Cretté decided to use this emblem on the volume's
magnificent art deco binding. Set into the morocco leather of the front
cover is a panel with the image of a dying bird created with cracked
eggshell and lacquer by Dunand after Schmied's design. The edition was
limited to twenty copies. The opening displays Schmied's dramatic typographical
treatment complemented by a horizontal band of engraving and explains
the death of the nightingale:
"If you want a red rose," said the Tree, "you must
build it out of music by moonlight, and stain it with your own heart's-blood.
You must sing to me with your breast against a thorn. All night long
you must sing to me, and the thorn must pierce your heart, and your
lifeblood must flow into my veins, and become mine."
Wild Pilgrimage: A Novel in Woodcuts by Lynd Ward
(New York: Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, 1932)
Just as the subtitle explains, the ambition of Lynd Ward in this graphic
novel was to convey his entire narrative through his engravings in wood.
Unlike an ordinary book, whose text runs across both sides of a leaf,
the artist had his plates printed only on the recto side. This has the
effect of having the "reader" examine one image at a time
as the story unfolds. The artist/author also switches back and forth
between a series of plates that are black and those that are a tone
of red or burnt sienna to differentiate between internal and external
spaces.
The Ballad of Reading Gaol by Oscar Wilde
(Paris: Daragnès [Insita Cruce], 1944)
A truly impressive fine press work of an earlier period is represented
by Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol, as illustrated by Jean-Gabriel
Daragnès (1886-1950) and bound in blind- and gold-stamped morocco
by Gruel as one of only sixty copies. A loose oil sketch by Daragnès
may be seen on the satin that has been attached to an endpaper, and
it is juxtaposed with the actual copper plate used to create its printed
form. The plate has been set into the specially designed inside cover
(or doublure) of the volume. Gruel has incorporated the image of prison
bars into his design. An additional curiosity of the book is that a
textual error on page thirty-seven was corrected on the page because
of the inability to obtain an exact paper match for the reprinting of
it. The concluding verse of this work is a fabled and truly haunting
one:
And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a .attering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl
(West Hatfield, Mass.: Pennyroyal Press with Jewish Heritage Publishing,
1985)
A collaborative effort of the celebrated book designer Barry Moser
with the illustrator Joseph Goldyne, this remarkable volume captures
the essence of a fine press work. All of its constituent parts-its Mohawk
archival letterpress paper, its composition by the Stinehour Press,
its classic Bembo type, the printed renderings of the etchings by the
firm of R. E. Townsend, and the Harcourt Bindery execution under the
supervision of Samuel B. Ellenport-have been selected with the utmost
care and with a view to a subtle integration that enhances the inherent
power of the content. Note that the text has been impressed in a light
gray ink, perhaps suggesting the fleeting nature of the commentary.
The etching (signed by the artist) that appears near these entries is
entitled Anne at Her Window, and an extract from this period of the
diary reads as follows:
I have an odd way of sometimes, as it were, being able to see myself
through someone else's eyes. Then I view the affairs of a certain
"Anne" at my ease, and browse through the pages of her life
as if she were a stranger.
B-11226: Fifty Years of Silence, Eugene Kellner's Story by Tatana
Kellner
(Rosendale, N.Y.: Women's Studio Workshop, c1992)
A plain pine box contains a book in a limited edition of fifty copies
whose core is a simulated forearm and hand cast from handmade paper.
The arm bears the designation of "B-11226" that was tatooed
onto Eugene Kellner, the holocaust survivor whose saga is told by his
daughter in this book. Tatana Kellner's parents agreed to write their
reminiscences in Czech so that this testimony would not be lost. The
Czech version of the narrative may be seen on the left-hand page of
the open volume. The English translation on the right contains a description
of the relentless "selection" process of a Nazi concentration
camp, with a screened photographic image of an actual camp beneath the
text:
When everyone was lined up, we were paraded in front of a podium
where an SS officer stood as if he was a god. With a command "Mutzen
ab!" ("Hats o.!") the man (who we later found out was
Mengele) made his selection. Anyone who was not "healthy",
[compositor's punctuation] who looked old or sick after the transport,
was ordered to stand to the right, everyone else to the left. We waited
a long time for the people on the right side to march on. Later we
found out that with soap in hand, they went directly to the gas chambers.
The White Spider: An Account of the First Ascent of the Eiger
by Heinrich Harrer (New York: Limited Editions Club, 1996)
In 1960, Heinrich Harrer published his harrowing account of the ascent
of the north face of the Eiger (known as the White Spider because it
appears to be lying in wait for its climbers). This version was designed
and executed by Michael and Winifred Bixler of Skaneateles, New York.
The font is a Monotype iteration of Eric Gill's Johanna set on Arches
cotton-rag sheets. The goatskin on the front cover of the binding by
Winifred Bixler actually incorporates mica from the rocks of the Eiger.
The other striking dimension of the book is its photogravure illustrations,
which were created by Jon
Goodman of Hadley, Massachusetts, from the original photographs by the
author. The text opposite the displayed print has some of the author's
casual recollections before the actual attempt on the mountain:
Actually I was no longer a student by the time I got to Grindelwald.
My tutors at the University of Graz were greatly astonished at the
speed with which I suddenly attacked my Finals. I could hardly explain
to them that I wanted my studies out of the way before I climbed the
North Face of the Eiger.
Real Things People Said and I Didn't Know What to Say by Thorsten
Dennerline (Bird Press, 1997)
This artist's book by Thorsten Dennerline has an accordion layout.
It consists of quotations set in Courier type that are accompanied by
copperplate engravings. The plate used to print "You have the right
to remain silent" has been mounted on the front cover of this copy.
The bindings for the edition of nine were designed and executed by Peter
Verheyen of the Special Collections Research Center. The images from
the book can be seen online at Bird
Press.
Match in a Bottle, Poems by Tracey Knapp, Drawings by Kurt Gohde
(North Andover, Mass.: Kat Ran Press, 1997)
The seven poems included in this book are illustrated in a unique fashion
through the imaginative work of Kurt Gohde with materials that include
kerosene, gold leaf, and gunpowder. The type was set by Michael and
Winifred Bixler of Skaneateles, New York, with a Monotype version of
Centaur by Bruce Rogers, and printed on Arches cotton-rag stock by Michael
Russem. Winifred Bixler also bound the volume in its print run of sixty-five
copies. Extracts from the beginning and conclusion of the poem "Fire
as Your Tool" bind writing and fire:
The only real way
to completely remove words
from that which you have written
is to burn them.
The fire is not our problem,
remember,
it is the pen,
it is the paper.
Saturday Night, 1953/The Elements by Samuel Milton Tickle Jr.
(Freeville, N.Y.: Angorfa Press, 1998)
This volume, a chapbook in form, was printed in letterpress Monotype
Emerson on a Vandercook prooffng press by Brad Benedict in a print run
of seventy-five (this copy is number sixty-four). Donia Conn of the
Special Collections Research Center bound the volume. The illustrations
by David Robertson are almost cartoon-like in their broad-stroke approach.
A very bright Johannot paper has been chosen to highlight the text and
the images. An extract reveals the clear hearkening back to a previous
era specified in the title:
if she wasn't standing ten foot tall on a banner out front with an
alligator held delicately in each lily-white hand and a leopard skin
two-piece accentuating her God-given form above the inscription "Bayou
Betty, the untamed girl born deep in the Louisiana swamplands, wrestles
all comers-man, woman or child-nightly. One hundred-dollar purse."
and bringing in those crowds and cash, he would have cashiered her
for sure when he saw she was having none of him, but that's all build-up
for what I meant to tell you all along.
Twenty-Six Words: An Alphabet Book with Twenty-Six Lithographs
by Thorsten Dennerline (Bird Press, 1998)
This alphabet book in an accordion format is composed of lithographs
printed on a hand press at the University of Massachusetts. Each print
is intended to suggest at least one meaning of the word with which it
is paired in the volume. The lithographs and text were executed by Thorsten
Dennerline. Peter Verheyen of the Special Collections Research Center
created the bindings for the total run of ten of these volumes. The
illustration for the word "obstreperous" is evocative. The
book can be seen online in its entirety at Philobiblon.com.
Seep: Five Stories by Peter Orner (Iowa City, Iowa: Sierras Press,
1998)
Jocelyn Webb was the designer and printer of this small volume that
was produced in a run of twenty-six copies. The text has been set in
Dante composed by Michael and Winifred Bixler of Skaneateles, New York.
The illustrations consist of nine monoprints that were letterpress-printed
with vinyl plates on the Frankfurt text stock. The book is opened to
the images that accompany the story "Seep," and the following
extract comments on the character of this "color":
She asked him to describe seep and he said, "At first you think
it's green, but when you look harder you see it's not. That it's lighter.
Violet, but not violet. Like the colors you see when you've closed
your eyes for a while and then you look straight at the sun."
Plant Dreams by Ann Marie Kennedy (Rosendale, N.Y.: Women's Studio
Workshop, 1999)
Ann Marie Kennedy has created a totally organic piece with her Plant
Dreams. The concept for the book seems to revolve around the notion
of plants serving our needs. In this instance, they have provided all
of the components that make up the book. The string with which it is
sewn, the paper on which the images appear, and the binding that secures
it are all derived from plants. In fact, the wooden box that holds the
book has a recessed space for a seed packet that is labeled "Dreams,"
and the same type of seed has been incorporated into the binding. If
these are cotton seeds, they may serve as the symbolic source for the
entire volume.
"Winter Light": A Poem Reinterpreted by Emily Dickinson
([S.l.]: Jocelyn S. Webb, 1999)
Emily Dickinson's poem "Winter Light" was transformed in
November of 1999 by Jocelyn S. Webb through the media of Sumi ink drawings
on handmade Okawara paper. Afterwards, the paper and its images were
coated with beeswax, and the text of the poem was directly impressed
with metal type onto the wax. This is copy number one of only nine.
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