Milan, Giorgio Upiglio, Grafica Uno, 1967.
Un volume grand in-folio (415 x 503 mm), 80 pages, en feuilles sous couverture muette à rabats, coffret recouvert de carton gris imprimé du titre sur le dos.
Édition originale du poème de Ghérasim Luca Apostroph'Apocalypse.
14 EAUX-FORTES ORIGINALES ET AQUATINTE EN COULEURS DE WIFREDO LAM À PLEINE PAGE DONT 3 SUR DOUBLE-PAGE.
Tirage : 135 exemplaires sur sur papier "Filicarta" filigrané au titre du livre, soit 25 avec suite signée (I à XXV), 99 exemplaires (1 à 99) et 11 hors-commerce.
Celui-ci numéroté 95, signé au crayon par l’auteur et l’artiste.
Maquette : Jacques Dumons.
Imprimeur typographe : Luiggi Maestri.
Tirage des eaux-fortes : Atelier de Giorgio Upiglio.
Éditeur : Giorgio Upiglio, Grafica Uno, 1967.
Références : Tonneau-Ryckelynck n°6618 à 6631.
Photographies supplémentaires sur demande.
Click droit pour afficher l'image en plein écran.
English presentation of the book :
Wifredo Lam’s grandest and most complex book is the remarkable Apostroph’Apocalypse, a collaboration with the poet Ghérasim Luca (1913–94). In 1952 Luca had fled his native Romania via Israel to Paris, where his work was already known in Surrealist circles through his pre-War publications and his correspondence with André Breton. His poems often involve sophisticated word-play, and Apostroph’Apocalypse is based around the conceit of an apostrophe which breaks words into atomic particles and thereby causes apocalyptic destruction.
The Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 provides one of many backdrops to this publication, which was eventually completed in 1967.
Wifredo Lam and Ghérasim Luca travelled to Milan to work on their ambitious publication, in order to take full advantage of the skills available there. The paper was specially manufactured for this edition by Filicarta of Brugherio, with a watermark consisting of the title of the book. Luca’s text presented considerable complexity for its typesetter, Luigi Maestri, in the placement and format not only of each word, but even of individual letters within a word.
The greatest sophistication, however, was reserved for the 14 plates which Lam contributed to the book. In this work he was greatly aided by Giorgio Upiglio, the greatest Italian art printer of the second half of the century. Upiglio devised a method to allow Lam to draw freely on bitumen powder spread on copperplates, which were then heated to fix the drawings before they were bathed in acid. This novel technique enabled a heightened granular texture to the impression of the plates, which gives a more visceral appearance in direct light.
Apostroph’Apocalypse was recently described in Le Monde as ‘one of the finest books of the twentieth century’.
(Trinity College Library, Cambridge, 2018). Tonneau-Ryckelynck n°6618 à 6631.
