Simple copies are bound in letterpress printed cream-color Perma Dur covers with brass eyelets. $600
Deluxe copies are hardbound in black Iris book cloth with inset title cards and printed internal spine, and housed in cherry wood slipcases. An entire US dollar bill is collaged throughout each copy. $1200.00

This book was 10 years in the making, and contains 284 lines of rhyming narrative poetry, and took 47 letterpress runs.

“Its dos-a-dos structure has two front covers. The first, Fortune’s Daughter: An Allegory of Prosperity, leads to an accordion-folded reproduction of the large-scale Fortune’s Daughter collage. The second,  Fortune’s Daughter: An Allegory of Greed, leads to a mini-epic narrative poem retelling the story of Midas.” – Wagner.

“The order in which the sides are viewed has a large impact on the way the experience of the reader.
“The first cover, “An Allegory of Prosperity,” leads to an accordion-folded reproduction of the large-scale “Fortune’s Daughter” collage, a female figure meticulously rendered from deconstructed US one dollar bills. The figure steps from a swirling landscape of flowers through an arched structure toward the viewer.

“The second cover, An Allegory of Greed, leads to a mini-epic narrative poem retelling the story of King Midas, who asked for and received the gift of the golden touch. The poem tracks Midas’ psychology as he adjusts to this new power, a transition from simple wonder to uncontrollable desire to panic and despair. The golden touch is his undoing, culminating in the death of his daughter … unwittingly turned to gold in the final act.

Without the poem’s context, Fortune’s Daughter: An Allegory of Prosperity seems largely positive, transforming the ubiquitous bill into something personal and treasured through the careful application of craft. Viewed after reading the poem, however, the collage becomes horrific, a contemporary interpretation of a classic fable: a person made grotesque by the specter of wealth.

“The poem’s 284 lines of verse were written specifically as an accompaniment to the collage. The rhyme and meter suggest a fatalism inherent to Midas’ story. The careful crafting and double entendre of the language mimics visual devices at work in the collage.

“The larger allegories of the collage and the poem contain multiple visual and verbal layers of reference and metaphor. Allusions to illuminated manuscripts, sacred texts, American history, and commerce… among other concerns… result in a parable without a definitive end, a perpetual reflection on value, craft, greed and transformation.” – Wagner.

With “Fortune’s Daughter,” Wagner brings together his creative identities as bookmaker and currency collage artist for the first time. This beautiful limited edition Artist’s Book uses currency collage to interpret the story of King Midas, the king who asks for and receives the gift of the golden touch. It is a complex work of visual art, literature, printing, and bookbinding, meticulously crafted with original collage work in each copy.

Wagner’s one-of-a-kind and limited edition books are interdisciplinary hybrids of art and literature, structure and design, printing and hand work. His Artists’ Books are collected by many institutions including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Smithsonian Institution, and The Getty Center for the History of Art and Humanities, as well as international collections.

Related posts:

1. Bird Press — Intranquilo: On Edge. Jorge Accame & Thorsten Dennerline
2. Red Angel Press — The Bridge — Three poems by Hart Crane from his collection
3. Red Angel Press — The Birds of Killingsworth

We offer for your consideration – with this list – a sampling of what we intend publishing in the Spring: our 38th catalogue – which will contain over 100 fine and beautifully illustrated books by a roster of talented practitioners of the Art of the Book. It will be amplified with over 150 color photographs.

The Catalogue 38 preview contains two-page spreads on 25 artists’ books currently for sale. Please enjoy the PDF print version, or dive into the individual listings:

We wish you a Happy Holiday Season.
Phyllis & Joshua Heller.

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A book about words evoking evening and night, darkness and light

(Susan Allix) Shadowscapes. Nocturnal extracts from 7 poets: William Shakespeare, William Collins, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron, Edward Thomas, William Wordsworth and James Thomson. Artist’s book by Susan Allix. London. 2009. 44p. 9.5” x 7.25”. The etchings are printed from copper mezzotint plates, with line drawing and hand shaken aquatint (using selected different sized resin grains) on zinc plates. They are inked in Heavy French black pigment ground in copperplate oil. The letterpress is 18pt. Bembo Italic on Magnani Book paper. Endpapers are textured white paper of eastern origin airbrushed in cool black. The whole is contained in a grey box set at an angle inside a black cloth box, thus disturbing the expected first view of the book. The edition is of 17 copies, 15 of which have the prints on Richard de Bas hand made paper, and 2 copies with prints on Velin Arches. All signed by Susan Allix. Fine.

Allix writes: “The words from these writers are about evening and night, darkness and light in the landscape, in trees and in skies. By using the most evocative parts of the poetry, the book is tailored to a short intensity of black and white. By basing the etchings on the use of mezzotint which creates one of the deepest and most mysterious of printmaking blacks, the shadows of word and image are brought together.

“ To lift this away from a book of small-black-images-with-poetry, the pages are sometimes folded in upon themselves in geometric shapes, which create their own shadows, and reveal or partly obscure the central page. The exposed lines of pages in the spine of the binding link with the irregular page edges, and the cut out areas on the boards show light and shadowy shapes; on the front board abstractly onlaid, on the book board a slash.”

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A homage to the anonymous women who helped make modern American life

(Harriet Bart) Garment Register. An artist’s book by Harriet Bart. Minneapolis. MN 2001. 12” x 10”. Eighteen double-page spreads. Printed three-color throughout on Rives BFK in Monotype Univers 45 with 46. Each spread contains ledger pages scanned in Photoshop, then reassembled for printing of the red and blue rules by letterpress – a technique which preserved the steel-nibbed pen writing of the original ledger pages, which were then printed from magnesium plates. Each leaf consists of three sheets of paper glued together to allow for a recessed vintage found photograph, now reproduced, of a woman on the recto, and a recess containing appropriate vintage fabric on the verso. Black vintage fabric binding with open spine construction sewn with white and gray threads by Jill Jevne. Black relief title on front. Black cloth dropback box with paper title label recessed on front board. One in an edition of 25 signed and numbered copies, plus 5 Artist’s proofs. Fine.

Harriet Bart was born in Minnesota and raised in San Francisco. She returned to the Midwest to receive her BA from the University of Minnosota and did further study at Macalester College and California State University at Fullerton. She has exhibited and sold her work both nationally and internationally since 1975. She has also received many grants and fellowships, as well as major public commissions. Garment Register is based on an installation created by Harriet Bart.

“The installation pays homage to the anonymous women at the fabric of modern American life whose voices and life stories have been left out of the grand narratives of history. At the same time, it is a visual commentary on the nature of history and the cultural implications of the collection and preservation of knowledge.” – Deepali Dewan.

This book, [made] in collaboration with Philip Gallo at The Hermetic Press was inspired by that work. In this evocative book Harriet Bart commemorates the lives of generations of anonymous women at the heart of the fabric of modern America. It brings together pages of an old found anonymous ledger with its entries of women’s names and the dues they paid. Incorporated into the ledger pages are found photographs, vintage fabrics, and prose from women writers – Martha Graham, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Madeleine L’Engle, Lillian Hellman, Etty Hillesum, Kate Chopin, L.M. Montgomery, Colette, Doris Lessing, Anne Cameron, Willa Cather, Harriet A. Jacobs, Anya Seton, Nor Hall, Anne Frank, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. The artist, in her Colophon, gratefully acknowledges generous Fellowship support from The McKnight Foundation and the Bush Artist Fellows Program.

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An amazing gathering of 24 poems by recognized American masters of the art

(Press at Colorado College) Printed Poem/The Poem as Print. Twenty-four Broadsides of American Poetry. Alastair Reid, Dana Gioia, editors. Colorado Springs. 1983-1986. Many sheets printed on unique handmade papers of various colors. The entire group is housed in an archival black box. One in an edition of 150 sets, most of the poems signed by the poets. Fine.

Poets include Donald Justice, W.S. Merwin, Carolyn Kizer, May Swenson, Dana Gioia and others. Exceptional papers were located or commissioned for each poem. Display type faces, many uncommon to ‘fine printing’ were used. Virtually all the many devices of relief and letterpress printing – photo-engraving, blind debossing, transparent color, tint blocks, linoleum and woodcuts, even gold stamping – were employed. In every case vital elements of the design resonate with the text. An outstanding portfolio of broadsides, highly recommended at a very good price.

Related posts:

1. Pindar’s Pythian VIII, from book artist Dean Dass
2. Unique Artist’s Manuscript Book from Dean Dass — For Girolamo Fracastoro
3. Key to the Imagination, a book from artist Kerry McAleer-Keeler

An exceptional exploration of color letterpress printing

(Press at Colorado College) Color for the Letterpress. An exposition of letterpress techniques for printing color by James Trissel. 1987. 40 leaves, 22 plates of colors. 17” x 12”. Accordion fold. Title page in blue, black and red between bands of shades in red and blue. Handset Garamond printed on Rives BFK joined in pairs to form four accordion fold sections; the first section comprising the title-page and introduction. Housed in a white acrylic case with a wood slipcase. One in an edition of 75 copies signed by James Trissel. Fine.

Through exceptional color printing technique, the rudimentary distinctions of hue, temperature, and complement are presented in three sections. A great color book.

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Excerpts from a 1987 voyage to the Antartic with photographs taken by Stuart Klipper

(Press at Colorado College) Bearing South: Antarctica, at Sea. With the running commentaries of Warren Brown and James Gore Grimes. Photographs by Stuart Klipper. Designed and printed by James Trissel. 1991. 50p, 15” x 11”. With 28 tipped-in black and white photographs. Entirely set in computer-designed type, Stone Sans Serif, printed letterpress from polymer plates on Johannot by Trissel and six students.

Calligraphic titles provided by Trissel. Concertina spine binding and slipcase designed by Greg Campbell in Japanese blue silk and foil-stamped. An edition of 50 numbered copies, signed by Klipper. Fine.

Excerpts from the Captain’s log of a Spring 1987 sailing voyage in the Antarctic. The photographer, Stuart Klipper was aboard.

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The most curious of collaborations – 10 students, one translator and James Trissel

(Press at Colorado College) The First Celestial Adventure of Mister Benzedrine. By Tristan Tzara. Translated by Elmer Peterson. The Press at Colorado College. 1996. 48p, 13″ x 9.5″. Typography and illustrations integrated as design. Printed on a Vandercook IV from polymer plates on Arches Cover, with inserts on various papers. Gray boards filled with illustration and typography; coptic binding sewn with exposed spine. One in an edition of 60 copies, of which 50 are numbered as part of the published edition, signed by James Trissel on the colophon, and Elmer Peterson at the Introduction. Fine.

From the Colophon: “This book is the product of ten students, one translator, E.R. Peterson, and James Trissel, who taught the class that composed, printed and bound this most curious of collaborations. …[it] resembled nothing less than that of an ‘exquisite corpse’, with section following section, sometimes in acknowledgement, sometimes oblivious to what had preceded in the sequence.”

Related posts:

1. The Press at Colorado College — The Cycle of the Day: A Book of Hours
2. Press at Colorado College — Color for the Letterpress
3. Press at Colorado College — Bearing South: Antarctica, at Sea

A powerful John Clare poem beautifully bound

(Paul Delrue – Bookbinder) John Clare: the Flitting. Edited by Eric Robinson. The Tern Press. Market Drayton. 1991. n.p. 5.25” x 7”. Printed on T.H. Saunders papers from a variety of ancient sources of Caslon type. With prints from combinded techniques. Set, printed and illustrated by Nicholas Parry. No. 46 in an edition of 100 copies signed on the colophon page by Nicholas Parry and Mary Parry in pencil, as well as by Paul Delrue in ink with his address and date.

Unique binding by Paul C. Delrue. January 2009, with his stamp on the inside front cover. Bound in gray goatskin ‘oasis’ sewn on tapes with colored end leaves. Design of a free flowing abstract landscape with onlays of green, yellow and tan, held together with black lines. Blind tooling and cross hatch form an ‘open door’ to nature on both covers. Title in black on spine. Laid in a green buckram dropback box lined with mustard suede; title in black on front and spine. Fine.

From Robinson’s Introduction: “Clare’s word ‘Flitting’ or ‘to Flit’ is characteristic of him, it is direct, short and dialect. For some of us it will be associated with ‘a moon light flit’, a night time move to avoid paying the rent, but for Clare it did not have such dubious associations. Perhaps it reminds him rather of a bird hopping from twig to twig. …“The Flitting” is the archetypal poem of dislocation and disenchantment and one of the most powerful Clare ever wrote.”

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A fine example of de Beauclair’s powerful work

(Edition De Beauclair) Reden Und Gleichnisse Des Tschuang-Tse: übertragen von Martin Buber. Mit Fünf Mehrfarbigen Radierungen von Ferdinand Springer. Erschienen in Der Edition De Beauclair. Frankfurt A.M. 1970. 44 pages loose in 4 signatures. 16.5” x 11.25”. Printed in black on handmade light tan paper. Laid in a textured brown cloth protective casing, with double-lid; gilt decorative device on front board. No. 99 of 120 numbered copies. All engravings signed by Springer and the book signed on the Colophon page by Gotthard de Beauclair. Fine.

“…it is surprising that Gotthard de Beauclair, one of the most significant and prolific book designers of this century, is scarcely known in the United States. For almost thirty years,he was associated with the famous German publishing house, Insel Verlag, and other commercial publishers, and he has produced superb limited edition books under several imprints.

“De Beauclair is one of the foremost proponents of a post-war German style that emphasizes elegance and taste. … They favor classic types (such as Bembo, Garamond, and Walbaum) or modern types in the classic vein (such as Palatino, Diotima, or Trump). They also have a traditional respect for materials – fine papers … and exquisitely crafted bindings. The type arrangements are simple but often novel, breaking out of the traditional mold. The result is a functional, beautiful, and timeless volume which is distinctly modern.” – Fine Print, April 1986, Vol. 12/#2, p.80.

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