Buckminster Fuller -Tetrascroll, limited edition, signed and numbered

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The important edition of Tetrascroll prepared at U.L.A.E. for Fuller’s 80th birthday

(R. Buckminster Fuller) Tetrascroll. Goldilocks and the three bears, a Cosmic Fairy Tale. Text and Preface by author/artist. Printed under the direction of Tatyana Grosman at Universal Limited Art Editions. West Islip, New York. 1977. 33” x 38” approx. Conceived by Fuller as a tetrahedron with 26 pages, consisting of 36” equilateral triangles bound together on two sides with gray Dacron sailcloth. The pages open out to approximately 43 feet, comprising the complete work. Dark blue text and drawings printed on Rives BFK matching gray paper laminated to the sailcloth. Triangular pages connected by cloth strips. Title page ‘The only known Picture of Goldy,’ plus 21 lithographic drawings. Handset Helvetica type. Pages embossed with the publisher’s seal. Bound by Richard Minsky with the 26 pages laminated together as rigid triangles, all connected and hinged together for display. No. 2 of an edition of 34 copies, plus 6 artist’s proofs and 2 printer’s proofs. The Preface is signed and numbered and each drawing initialed by R.B. Fuller. Preface also signed by Mrs. Ann Fuller, and by Alexandra, the Fuller’s grand-daughter, ‘For Goldy.’ ‘Epilever’ (Epilogue) by Edwin Schlossberg and signed by him. Fine.

Many years in its formulation and production, this work explains the structure of the universe and man’s place in it, as conceived by Buckminster Fuller, world renowned architect and environmentalist. This ecological fairy tale was adapted from his personal philosophies for his granddaughter, Allegra. Several mythological stories are strung together in a didactic series – a cosmic seminar.

A forty-three foot long ‘book’, Tetrascroll was prepared at U.L.A.E. in time for Fuller’s 80th birthday.

This Special Deluxe U.L.A.E. edition is scarce. Institutions generally own either the facsimile or trade editions, as is in The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Statliche Museum, Berlin, and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Copies of the original U.L.A.E. edition are at Harvard University, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, and the University of Texas at Austin.

Exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, January, 1977; R. Feldman Gallery, New York, January 1977 and F. S. Wright Art Gallery, U.C.L.A., Los Angeles, March-May 1978.

The Whitney Museum of Art will be paying homage to Buckminster Fuller with the exhibit “Starting With the Universe,” June 26-September 21, 2008. From the Whitney’s website: “R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was one of the great American visionaries of the 20th century. Best-known as the inventor of the geodesic dome, Fuller devoted much of his life to resolving the gap between the sciences and the humanities, which he believed was preventing society from taking a comprehensive view of the world. His theories and innovations traversed the worlds of architecture, visual art, literature, mathematics, molecular biology, and environmental science and have had a deep impact on all of those fields.” www.whitney.org