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Full Details

An Unreadable Quadrat-print
Un Libro Illegible Quadrato

Item date(s): 1953

Bruno Munari

Pages: unpaged
Size: 250mm
Edition: One of 2000 copies

Place publication: Milan, Italy
Publisher: Hilversum: Steendurkkerij de Jong

Additional notes:
The Quadrat-Prints 1953 are not for sale. They are presented to clients and friends of steendrukkerij de Jong & Co., as gifts. Housed in printed white wrapper (in remarkably good condition) with text printed from manuscript in several languages.

See Zwicker catalogue "Books Do Furnish a Room" #781.

[Paul Robertson: Heart Fine Art Ltd catalogue (2002): Composed of 18 red and white variably shaped and die-cut sheets. House in printed pinwheel (in effect) folder. First edition of this, the earliest of Munari's experimental 'unreadable books', as edited by P. Battinga. The text here is solely removed to the biographical information printed on the folder. All contents in fine estate in folder (as usual) with some minor wear. Very scarce. £175.]

Illustrated on page 88 of Munari I Libri by Giorgio Maffei, 2002.

Artists & Books 1900-Present. Ursus Books, New York, 2014. Item 74.

URSUS Catalogue. Miscellany December 2019

29. Bruno MUNARI Un Libro Illegible Quadrato. 4to. Original wrappers contained in a folded printed sheet containing Munari’s manifesto printed in different languages. Housed in a new cloth folding box. Hilversum , De Jong & Co, 1953.

A superb copy of this rare early example of Munari’s imaginative bookmaking skills. The book is comprised of alternating red and white sheets bound in a blue-gray wrapper featuring a die-cut square near the lower front corner. Conceptually the book harks back to the works of the Russian constructivists. The fragile wrappers in unusually fresh condition.

Ref: GB/4636