Maureen Cummins, 2018. Number 17 of 35 copies signed and numbered by the book artist, Maureen Cummins. In Secretary, Cummins deconstructs the 1982 suicide of her mother, Dolores Cummins, a aspiring artist who was trapped in a physically and psychologically abusive marriage. Like many of Cummins’s books, the title is a double entendre, referring both to the position Dolores held at the United Nations prior to her marriage, and the “secret-keeper” role she played as a victim of spousal assault. In the book, the artist utilizes four layers of information to tell Dolores’s story: her own over-arching narrative; a list of roles her mother played (and either lost or relinquished in death); photographic portraits taken by her father (another telling form of evidence); and excerpts from a diary that Dolores kept for the two years before her suicide. Together these elements deliver a narrative that answers the perennial question, “Why don’t women leave?”confronts the reader with hard truths, and depicts the systematic undermining and destruction of a powerful woman.

It is this story that inspired Cummins's later book Crazy Quilt, as well as all the subsequent work that she created around marginalized populations. This book is the first of several around this common theme that Maureen has become well-known for. Secretary is made even more powerful by the structure and composition. It was letterpress printed on sheets of Asian lined paper resembling a steno pad, with titling redacted by hand in graphite. The type used appears to have been typed on an old typewriter. Each section of the book is preceded by a ghostly photographic image of Cummins's mother from that period of her life, reprinted from originals in the artist's possession. The text pages are bound in the style of a stenographer's notepad. It is housed in a stiff grey paper folder.

Maureen Cummins is a noted creator of artists' books. Her work is held in over one hundred permanent public collections internationally and has been included in exhibitions at the American Craft Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Rotunda Gallery (amongst others). She has received over a dozen grants and awards and has been an artist-in-residence at numerous venues, including the American Antiquarian Society and the Irish Museum of Modern Art. In fine condition. Measures 8.75 x 14.5 inches. ARTB/100119.

Item #33618

Price: $2,500.00