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Fook Book III (Fook concept by Battiss)

Item date(s): 1975

Walter Whall Battiss  (1906-1982)


Size: 25.5 x 37cm 9pages
Technique: Pen & ink on paper

Category: Found
Type: Drawing

ART 1069

Additional notes:
Catalogue description: "Ten [actually nine] pen and ink wash sketches that were used as preparation for the sketches that were to appear as Fook Book III. Loose sheets on cartridge paper, some with browning to extreme edges that does not affect the sketches."

1. FOOK concept by Battiss. [Green paint blotting out "by Norman Catherine"]. Batt 155. The ReLUCKtant but Shameless Madgicc Press. Fook Island . New York . Johannesburg.

2. I fall through some stray feathers left by Icarus passing a dead volcano and a living waterfall to land on a white horse on a garnet beach on a green island beautiful beyond compare. A boat comes in to land [black paint blotting out balance of text ending "and ??? and only Norman King Norman".

3. BEGIN. Am I awake? Where am I? Places and beds I know: Persepolis; Chelsea Hotel, New York; Koffiefontein; London; Amsterdam; Zozz; No. I'm in the sky floating afreet and (afreet = my Grande Comoro name)

4. Norman King Norman having understood the concept now creates his own Fook art. We are all fookers each with our own Fook Island within us . . . . . We inhabit inner and outer cosmic space. Ferd inand [Ferdinand] the Third inand's fingerprints.

5. [Black paint blotting out "Hi! Ferd the Third they shout. I reply Welcome to Fook Island. And there was a merry party on the beach of all the Foolers to"] the music of singing lowers. Later I gave [Norman] a bundle of sketches of the animals, birds and flowers of Fook Island and and [duplicated] Norman recreated in his own style their images for this book.

6-9. Four pages without text.

Apart from the green paint and black ink obscuring portions of the text, the other images are not originals but appear to be photo lithographs. The first five pages (with text) appear a coherent set, but the last four pages could be taken from any source.

No indication is given as to the order of the above pages. The document is obviously incomplete with blotting out of text which Battiss (or another?) wanted to obliterate. The auctioneer's title seems disingenuous at best.

Ref: GB/50021







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