The Poems, by John Ashbery, prints by Joan Mitchell; Odes, by Frank O’Hara, prints by Michael Goldberg; Permanently, by Kenneth Koch, prints by Alfred Leslie; Salute, by James Schuyler, prints by Grace Hartigan.
[TIBER PRESS] Four works uniformly presented, slipcased together.
Comprises ASHBERRY, JOHN and MITCHELL, JOAN. The Poems; SCHUYLER, JAMES and HARTIGAN, GRACE. Salute; KOCH, KENNETH and LESLIE, ALFRED. Permanently; and O’HARA, FRANK and GOLDBERG, MICHAEL. Odes. ASHBERRY, JOHN and MITCHELL, JOAN. The Poems. One of 200 copies for sale, this copy 59, each volume signed by the respective poets and painters (plus 25 Roman-numbered copies hors commerce). Silk-screened covers, white cloth spines, in the original acetate covers, the four in the tan cloth slipcase of issue, the bindings and case by Russell-Rutter. 17 5/8 x 14 1/8 inches (44.5 x 36 cm); each 40 pp., each volume containing five silkscreen prints; one on the cover, one on the title page and three interspersed throughout the book. A fine set.
From the prospectus: “We are pleased to bring together the production of four poets and four painters who lived in New York City where they knew one another well for a number of years and followed one another’s work with involved interest. Tiber Press left the choice of partners in this project to the individuals themselves, and, in collaborating, the poet and painter were acknowledging an awareness of some real relationship between their work.
“The artists came to the studio of Tiber Press, painted and drew directly on the silk screens, and created their prints specifically for these volumes. Each artist made three full-paged illustrations as well as the cover and title page, using four to ten screens for each page.
“The poems were hand set in Walbaum-Antigua by Brüder Hartmann in West Berlin and printed by them on handmade, all rag paper. The flat sheets were brought to New York where the prints were silk screened at Tiber Press.”
A superb suite of artist books by four eminent abstract expressionist painters. The Tiber Press was founded in 1953 by Floriano Vecchi, Richard Miller and Daisy Aldan to promote collaboration between poets and artists of the New York School, and this is their signature production, in its totality one of the finest American artist books of the period. The American Livre de Peintre 33 (Mitchell) and 21 (Hartigan); Johnson Artists’ Books in the Modern Era 1870-2000, pp. 226
