[Editions Verdigris] Neruda, Pablo, poet; Judith Rothchild, mezzotints; Margaret Sayers Peden, English translation
Octon, France: Editions Verdigris, 2013. Hardcover. $1100. Number 15 of 50 copies, signed and numbered by artist Judith Rothchild and Mark Lintott, the printer and typographer. From the press website describing this prolific and important private press: "With their well equipped workshop in the south of France enabling them to be completely independent, Judith Rothchild and Mark Lintott imagine and produce artist’s books from start to finish. Concerned by the rhythm between text and image, the visual and literary relationship between the blocks of print, the mezzotints and the white page, the artist’s book becomes a spatial adventure. The book as art, a singular typographical, visual, boxed object. At the helm of this creative process, Mark Lintott, passionate about letterpress on antique presses, paper and serigraphy. Each project taken on by Verdigris is a new technical and visual challenge. The ideas often start with Judith’s mezzotints or with a text of a contemporary author they wish to work with : Marie Rouanet, Claude Ber, Ruth Fainlight, James Sacré, Frédéric Jacques Temple… or a classical author they feel a connection to: Charles Baudelaire, Pablo Neruda, Paul Valéry. The first surprise, the wide variety of formats (nothing is forbidden, everything is possible), the mezzotints by Judith, the centre of this sensual ritual and not simple illustration, the precision letterpress of Mark and finally the boxed object. The book is finely finished, reflecting the love of work perfectly done. The chosen texts are in French, English, bilingual, and recently in Portuguese, always printed with the desire to communicate and for the artists to reinvent themselves."
Pablo Neruda (1904 – 1973) was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Neruda became known as a poet when he was 13 years old and wrote in a variety of styles, including surrealist poems, historical epics, political manifestos, a prose autobiography, and passionate love poems [Wikipedia]. This poem, "Ode to a Chestnut on the Ground,"examines both the insignificance and treasure held within self discovery and new beginnings in adolescence through the use of figurative language and diction involving a chestnut in nature. The speaker addresses their admiration to a “fallen chestnut” throughout the poem (as implied through the term ode in the title)" [Bartleby Research] Published in the form of a leporello. Bond in patterned brown cloth with screen prints of leaves made by Rothchild. Housed in a clamshell box covered with the same leaf pattern. There are three original mezzotints and embossments by Rothchild printed on Hahnemülhe paper. Letterpress printed in Univers type by Lintott who also made the slipcase. Oblong measuring 4.75 x 12.5 inches. In fine condition. Unpaginated [about 11 pages] PRI/030824. Fine. More