Colours. A Visual/Verbal Book
San Francisco: Thomas Ingmire, 2014. Hardcover. A stunning unique book by the acclaimed calligrapher and book artist Thomas Ingmire. It is signed and dated by him. Ingmire writes in a brief biography that he has "been hanging out in the San Francisco North Beach Cafes since 1972...which coincides with his interests in calligraphy, drawing, painting, and bookmaking. Since 2002 he has concentrated on the making of artist's books. He has embarked on a number of collaborative projects, including...a series of books with Manuel Neri; work as an illuminator on the famous St. John's Bible; and the creation of original books in collaboration with poets from the UK, Singapore, the Republic of the Philippines, and the United States. His works can be found in the artists books collections a number of American universities and libraries, including Stanford, UCLA, Yale, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, San Francisco Public Library and the Newberry Library in Chicago.
In a review written by Bruce Nixon for a 2013 exhibition held at Columbia College Center for Book and Paper Arts on Ingmire's calligraphy in collaboration with poets and artists, he writes: "back in the 1980s, a period when Thomas Ingmire was already beginning to establish himself as a calligrapher of note, much of his work drew upon poetry by Blake, Rimbaud, Eliot, Stevens, and Levertov - exactly the kind of text we typically associate with the strategies of modern calligraphy...with the traditional, rule-bound duties of elegant lettering and decoration. Even then, he was fascinated by the pictorial possibilities of language, the word{s) as image, the immersion of language in an exhilarating atmosphere of visual invention....The entire basis of his [current ] enterprise can be enclosed, perhaps, in the idea that (our) written language...related to drawing through line, can still partake freely in the protean, originative energies of drawing, while its bases in orthography and the alphabet insure as well that the calligrapher is free to look every which way across an endlessly negotiable territory between text, functionality, and art."
For this book, Ingmire collaborated with Angeline Yap, a Singaporean writer of poetry since the early 1970s. She chose the poem "Colours" specifically for this project. The result is this exuberantly hand drawn and lettered book using the leporello structure, with 8 pages of water color, gouache, and gold leaf. Bound with paper covered boards in shades of blue. It is housed in a stiff paper portfolio having an abstract water color painting. In fine condition. Measures 7 x 8.5 inches. ARTB/082624. Fine.
Item #37433
Price: $2,200.00