Nelson & Emma Aphrodite & Ares contemplate Admiral Nelson & Lady Hamilton
Item date(s): 2008
Charles Hobson
Medium: Transparencies Pages: unpaged Size: 260mm, oblong Inscription: Signed by the artist Edition: #21/35
Type: Pop-up
Place publication: San Francisco, CA Publisher: Pacific Editions
Additional notes: The book is built around five signatures called "intermezzos" attached to a concertina spine. Each intermezzo has a unique abstract acrylic painting on paper; an image of an historic sea battle printed on transparent film; a Renaissance-era printing of Aphrodite colored with acrylic wash; and a page with cutout windows. The book concludes with a pop-up square-rigged vessel containing the images of Admiral Nelson and Aphrodite.
Charles Hobson made the two-layer monotype portraits of Admiral Nelson and Emma Hamilton which have been reproduced as high-resolution digital prints on transparent film as the frontispiece. The cover and slipcase have been covered in a handmade paper called Canal made in Quebec that has been embossed with a pattern of netting for the slipcase.
The cover contains a lenticular photograph fabricated at RWC Digital Graphics, Fort Worth, Texas, combining an amage of Aphrodite with an age-of-sail sea battle scene. The text paper is BFK Rives. The books were assembled by Charles Hobson and Alice Shaw. Mary Daniel Hobson assisted with editing the text. John DeMerritt, Emeryville, California, made the slipcases and covers for the edition.
Insert: Please Note: Since the first painted page in erach intermezzo has been painted by hand, there may be some paint on the reverse - that is, on the ext side. Please consider this a sign that each copy is unique and verifies that the hand of the artist (or at least his brush) touched the page.
Exhibition notes: Faces, Spaces and Tenuous Places