Stunning Posters Celebrate Walt Whitman

Monumental linocuts created by artist Paul Peter Piech in 1992 to honor of the 100th anniversary of Walt Whitman's death come to market.

by Stephen J. Gertz

A near-complete portfolio of twenty-five (out of a probable twenty-nine) poster-sized linocuts of exceptional rarity that honor  America's magnum poet, Walt Whitman, by master printmaker Paul Peter Piech, who devoted his artistic output to themes of social justice, politics, and pacifism, has recently surfaced and is being offered by a rare book dealer in Virginia, United States.

 

Published in a  small limited edition of twenty-five sets, only one complete copy is recorded by OCLC/KVK in institutional holdings worldwide, at University of Iowa. Only one other record exists for the series, at Harvard's Houghton Library, yet their copy is woefully incomplete with only three linocuts present. This set, then, is the most complete seen in many years; they are scarce in any state, astonishingly so to possess so many prints in the series. Many if not most of the sets have, presumably, been broken up to individually sell the linocuts.

Piech (1920-1996) "was born in Brooklyn in 1920, the son of Ukrainian immigrants looking for a new way of life in America. From their tough example Piech learnt both to work hard and to speak out when it mattered. His books and posters confront the viewer with the need for global responsibility and co-operation...

"...Piech studied at the Cooper Union College of Art, New York. In 1937 he went to work as a graphic artist at Studio Dorland, an international advertising agency located in Berlin, under Herbert Bayer... Between 1951 and 1968 Piech worked as an artistic director for W.S. Crawfords Advertising" (The Independent), having remained in Wales after service during WWII to marry and settle down.

 

In 1959, Piech established the Taurus Press and began his rise as one of the foremost artists of his generation to incorporate themes of social justice and pacifism. His background in advertising design led to a boldly graphic and urgent, poster-like style to his linocuts, his preferred medium.

 

From 1969 until his death in 1996 he freelanced as a graphic designer while teaching as several prestigious art schools.

Printer and writer Kenneth Hardacre described the firmly insistent determination of Piech's output as that of "a man whose need to communicate his faith and his fears was so pressing that it often appeared to be impatient with the very means he had chosen for expressing that need." The intensity of his work is palpable.

These dramatic linocuts boldly sing Whitman electric, trumpeting justice triumphant, uncompromising liberty and equality, the justification of candor, the justification of pride, and the universal truth of nature.

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PIECH, Paul Peter. In Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Walt Whitman's Death. [Willowdene, Herts. (U.K.): Taurus Press, 1992].  Limited to twenty five sets, this being No. 15. Twenty-five (of 29?) pencil signed and dated linocuts, each 25 x 18 inches (64 x 45 cm) and numbered 15 of 25.
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Portfolio images courtesy of Lorne Bair Rare Books, with our thanks.
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Down With Wall Street! (1920 version)

Ninety years ago anti-Wall St. sentiment exploded.
 
by Stephen J. Gertz

"Direct Action." New York: 1920.
Broadsheet (28 x 22 cm)
On newsprint, recto-only.

At 12:01PM on September 16, 1920 a massive blast outside the headquarters of J.P. Morgan bank at 23 Wall Street, the Financial District's busiest corner, left thirty-eight people dead and 143 seriously wounded.

It was the deadliest bombing on U.S. soil to date. The Washington Post declared it "an act of war."

Just prior to the explosion flyers were found by a Post Office letter-carrier in the District. Printed in red ink on white paper, the text read: "Remember, we will not tolerate any longer. Free the political prisoners, or it will be sure death for all of you." It was signed "American Anarchist Fighters."

The case dragged on for over three years yet no indictments were ever issued. The I.W.W., the Communist Party, the Union of Russian Workers - the usual suspects - were investigated and cleared.

Curiously and quite coincidentally, dramatist Booth Tarkington wrote a play, in four acts addressing the radicalism of the times, that opened exactly one week before the bombing, on September 9th.

"Written as a light satiric comedy, Booth Tarkington's Poldekin (1920)...was intended to laugh Communism out of existence. A comic rendering, he offers, was 'more effective than to fall into a fury at mention of the word, as so many Americans are doing.' The title character...leads a group of Russian revolutionaries, who, seeing themselves as sociopolitical missionaries, intend to launch a rebellion in the United States by publishing propaganda and inspiring a class war. Referring to postwar upheaval, a professor among them intones: 'We take advantage of the violent mood to produce universal war between the classes'" (Wainscott, The Emergence of the Modern American Theater, 1914-1929, p. 172).

The play, which only ran for one month,  inspired the anonymous author of this broadside, published without imprint or any identifying information whatsoever. All we know is that is was issued between September 16  and sometime in October 1920, when the curtain rose for the last time; Poldekin closed after only forty-four performances. Though a  light satire it was, apparently, too heavy for theater goers prior to the bombing and afterward, when nerves were frazzled and fear was dominant.

(Famed stage, later film, actor George Arliss played the title role. Twenty-seven year old Edward G. Robinson portrayed Pinsky. Sidney Toler, who later starred in the Charlie Chan movies -  assuming the role after Warner Oland's death - acted the character, Welch).

Wall Street, September 16, 1920.
Photo credit: World-Telegram

This broadside is one of the many items concerning Social Movements that rare book dealer, Lorne Bair, features in his most recent catalog, Catalog Ten: Fall 2010. 

MARLEN, George (pseud. of George Spiro).
Earl Browder: Communist or Tool of Wall Street -
Stalin, Trotsky or Lenin?
New York: By the author, 1937.

"Our mission," Bair writes, "is to seek out unusual and obscure material relating to (mostly) American social movements and to approach it with the respect and scholarship it has long deserved but only rarely received from collectors and booksellers.

The Pink Iconoclast. No. 49 (Nov. 14, 1903).
Colorado Springs, CO: E.E. Sonnanstine.
Quirky, scarce newspaper devoted to
freethought and radical politics.

"Though our sympathies lie decidedly on the Left, we feel a responsibility to document as much of American social history as we can stomach...So in this catalog you'll find George Lincoln Rockwell butting up against Big Bill Haywood, and primitive racist lost-race fantasies rubbing elbows with civil rights manifestos.

"SLEUTH" (pseud. of S.O. Berg?)
Capitalism's Last Struggle: Fascist Terrorism
Just Around the Corner. Manifesto of the
United Workers and Farmers. Revised
from Prosperity Around the Corner.
Seffner, FL: S.O. Berg, [c. 1934].
A fictional parable of Depression-era class warfare.

"Don't let this bug you. Or, rather, go ahead, let it bug you; get worked up: that's what nearly every item in this catalog was intended to make you do. 

WHITE, Bishop Alma.
Heroes of the Fiery Cross.
Illustrated by Rev. Branford Clarke.
Zarephath, NJ: The Good Citizen, 1928.
Racist, and anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic
encomium to the Klu Klux Klan.
Published in New Jersey.

"It's strange times we live in, and we could do worse than to remember that even stranger times preceded us." 

For example: KKK activity in New Jersey.

ADAMS, Samuel Hopkins. The Flagrant Years:
A Novel of the Beauty Market.New York: Horace Liveright, 1929.

The beauty business had, by the time  The Flagrant Years was published in 1929, evolved into the the beauty industry, and the beautification of the average American woman became a social revolution that triumphed over all religious and moral objections. It was, in its way, as radical as any contemporary political movement. Case in point: the  Marcel Wave.

Lorne Bair Rare Books logo.
Based upon that of The Vanguard Press,
the venerable radical publishing house.

The culprits to the Wall Street bombing of 1920 were never apprehended. It had been suspected that  sympathizers to Luigi Galleani, the Italian anarchist active in the United States until his deportation in 1919, were to blame. It appears that Galleanist Mario Buda was behind the attack; never questioned in the bombing's aftermath, he skipped to Naples, never to return to the U.S.

And Booth Tarkington's Poldekin has, to the best of my investigation, never been published, separately or within an anthology. As playwright, director, humorist, and drama critic George S. Kaufman famously declared, "Satire is what closes on Saturday night." But when the satire concerns radical politics it closes on Friday night and theatricals publisher Samuel French wants nothing to do with it.

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All images courtesy of Lorne Bair Rare Books, with our thanks.

A special thank you to Peacay at BibliOdyssey for a key assist.

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Sacco & Vanzetti: Jazz Age Terrorists?

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The Breathtaking Book Art of Richard Minsky

FREEDOM OF CHOICE
Three Poems of Love and Death by Lucie Brock-Broido
Richard Minsky, 2009
73" x  26" x  24"

One day, once upon a time in 1960, young Richard Minsky confidently strode down the hallways of his junior high school, entered the guidance counselor's office, nodded to his advisor, pulled up a chair, and sat down with the aplomb, sangfroid, and radioactive self-assuredness usually associated with grown men who know what's what, who's who, and exactly where they're going.

"Well, Minsky," the counselor wearily exhaled, "what's going to become of you?"

And without a nanosecond necessary for reflection Richard Minsky, as if a proto-Anthony Robbins, recited a goal that had become his mantra:

"Fifty years from now I will be internationally acclaimed as the most gifted and influential book artist of my generation, and renowned as a scholar of bookbinding. My artist books and bindings will  often feature political themes and cry out for social justice and civil liberties. Museums and collectors will vie for my livres d'artiste and bindings. I will be shown in galleries throughout the world, and from August 2d through November 29th, 2010 Yale University will present a retrospective exhibition of my work!" 

The guidance counselor's eyes rolled to the heavens, rolled back to earth, and then the pastrami sandwich and sauerkraut he had for lunch two hours prior begged for help.

"Oh, boy," he refluxed, sourly. 

The Geography of Hunger
by Josue de Castro. New York, 1952
Bound by Minsky 1988
9" x 7" x 3"
"Friendly Plastic," acrylic, endpapers of food and dog food labels.

That tableau vivant, however imaginary, is surely the only explanation for an astonishing career that Yale University is now, indeed, celebrating with a wondrous and extraordinary retrospective exhibition, Material Meets Metaphor: A Half Century of Book Art by Richard Minsky, at its Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library.

But the fact that Richard Minsky began his own letterpress printing business when he was thirteen years old and has remained intensely focused on books and their creative possibilities as an object-medium for artistic expression may have had something to do with it.

A half-century later, his influence has been incalculable.

“Minsky’s work as an artist and as founder of The Center for Book Arts in New York changed the way people see and make books,” said Jae Jennifer Rossman, the Haas Family Arts Library’s Assistant Director for Special Collections.

The exhibition covers Minsky’s work from its genesis - a 1960 sample book, used when he started his printing business in 1960, through “Self-Portrait 2010,” a book that documents the evolution of a canvas, from pencil sketch through many layers of oil paint.

Self-Portrait
Deluxe Edition, limited to 5 copies
copy No. 5
9" x 12"

Many of Minsky's limited edition works will be on view in the exhibition, along with unique works that have become iconic in the world of book art. These include his 1975 binding of The Birds of North America and The Crisis of Democracy, bound in sheepskin, gold and barbed wire.

The Birds of North America, 1975.

The Crisis of Democracy
by Crozier, Huntington and Watanuki for the Trilateral Commission
New York University Press, 1975
Binding by Minsky 1980
Sheep, gold, barbed wire.
8 3/4" x 6" x 11"

Yale University Library acquired the Richard Minsky Archive in 2004. It includes maquettes, molds for castings, and correspondence, as well as holographic manuscripts and early versions of select works. It documents Minsky's exploration of printing technologies from the mimeograph and spirit duplicator to his early use of inkjet printing on handmade paper.

A Reliquary To Hold the Ashes of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses.
From The Bill of Rights Limited Edition Set, The First Amendment, 2001."
.A slipcase containing:

Minsky fell off the path of the printing press and received a masters in economics. He began work toward a Ph.D. but could not resist the magic of books and print and so left the dismal science to return to and pursue his true muse, studying bookbinding in Providence, Rhode Island with master binder Daniel Gibson Knowlton.

,,,A burned copy of Rushdie's Satanic Verses.

NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR
by George Orwell
Secker & Warburg, London, 1949
First Edition
Binding by Minsky 2003-2006
7¾" x  5" x  2½" + base

The Philosophy of Umbrellas, an essay by Robert Louis Stevenson published as an umbrella.

Open...

...In slipcase.

Yale Installation set-up, July 29, 2010.
Photo: Richard Minsky

Yale Installation set-up, July 29, 2010.
Photo: Richard Minsky

 Minsky's artist books are amazing. His bindings are divine:

Sappho's Leap
A Novel
by Erica Jong

Norton, 2003
Bound by Minsky 2003
12" x 7" diameter

Chateau Guest Book, Normandy, France
Blank book of various vintage handmade papers and sheepskin parchment.
Designed and Bound by Minsky in 1994.
20" x 16"

Snakeskin Binding
Blank Book
Bound by Minsky 1988
18" x 14"
Inlaid snakeskin covers and doublures, handmade paper, linen endbands.
Collection of the Allan Stone Gallery

The Hamptons
by Susan P. Meisel and Ellen Harris
Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 2000
Bound by Minsky 2000
Acrylic, sand and shells from the Hamptons
Above: The book installed on its base. 11" x 15" x 11"

Pettigrew's History of Egyptian Mummies
London, 1834
Bound by Minsky 1973
Linen, turquoise.
12" x 9"

Minsky's deep and ongoing scholarship of bookbinding led to American  Decorated Publishers Bindings 1872-1929, an artist's book, an exhibition catalog, and an exploration of art history seen through publishers' book covers.

Above: the cover of the Limited Edition
Foil stamped Hahnemuhle Bugra-Butten paper wrapper

Typical of stamped bindings of the period, changes in the angle
of the light cause the stamping to illuminate in different ways.
The technique for creating the stamping die was developed by
Minsky from study of the bindings in this collection

Above: the same cover with different lighting.

Of this, what became an instant essential reference, Sue Allen, the author of many books and articles on publisher's bindings, and foremost authority on 19th century bindings, says: 

"Inside this book is gathered an astounding collection of turn-of-the-century bookcovers. Though beautifully produced, it is no mere coffee table book, but comes with full bibliographical descriptions. Grouped together under headings such as 'Automobiles' or 'Trees,' the covers play against each other in a dramatic way. It is as if you were privileged to go into a number of libraries and bookstores and lay one book beside another. In one leap Richard Minsky has put himself in the forefront of collectors and scholars of this period when each cover was a work of art."

On or around the day of his Bar Mitzvah in 1960, Richard Minsky put aside the rubber stamps of his childhood, bought a printing press, and became a man. 

Fifty years later, Richard Minsky is a national treasure.

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Images courtesy of Richard Minsky, and Jae Rossman of Yale, with our thanks.

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