Rudy Pozzatti – Darwin’s Bestiary
2009 is Darwin Year – the bicentenary of his birth and the sesquicentenary of the publication of On the Origin of Species
(Rudy Pozzatti) Darwin’s Bestiary. Rudy Pozzatti: Artist – Philip Appleman: Poet. Eleven poems by Philip Appleman. The curator for the project was Pegram Harrison. Published in 1986. Printed in Bloomington, Indiana, by Echo Press & The Private Press of Frederic Brewer. 12 loose leaf folios. Box – 18.875” x 14” x 1.5”. Five woodcuts, one relief etching and 11 aluminum-plate and stone lithographs on pale green Kitikata paper. Most images printed in toned ink. Text and images printed on handmade Kitikata mounted on BFK Rives. The poems were handset in Victor Hammer’s American Uncial and handprinted by Fredric Brewer who also printed the woodcuts. The lithographs were drawn on stone and printed by David Keister, master printer, and David Calkins, assistant printer. The main title was drawn by Darlene, calligrapher. James Canary designed and hand-constructed the textured cream cloth dropback boxes at his Cold Mountain Bookbindery; paper title label on spine and illustration on front. The feeling of limitation given by the closed spine is offset by opening the back of the book, thus allowing a series of shaped pages. Of 191 copies printed, 174 are numbered with Arabic numerals and 16 copies with Roman numerals. This is copy number 101. Signed by the artist and poet on the front fascicle. Fine.
The artist will add a free proof of one of the images from the ‘Bestiary’ to purchasers of this book. The poems are from ‘Darwin’s Ark’ by Philip Appleman and Rudy Pozzatti. Rudy Pozzatti has been an artist and teacher in Bloomington, Indiana for many years; he is one of Indiana’s living legends. He had a major Retrospective at the Indiana University Art Museum IN 2002.
“Pozzotti’s career is extraordinary … in the media of drawing, printmaking, monotypes, collages, oils, watercolors, and sculpture.” – Norman A. Geske, p.14, Rudy Pozzatti: A Printmaker’s Odyssey.
Related items: Artists' Books, Catalogue 38 Preview - Winter 2009/2010, Poetry, Echo Press, Rudy Pozzatti