Search: International Artists Books


Introduction |  Basic |  Guided |  Advanced |  Tips


    Full Details


Cortège

Item date(s): 1959

André Lanskoy  - (designed by)
Maurice Beaufumé  - (pochoirs by)


Pages: unpaged
Size: 450mm
Edition: One of 150 copies of an edition of 175.


Place publication: Paris
Publisher: Pierre Lecuire
Exhibition 2019-1

Additional notes:
From the URSUS Books Print Fair List (AB/3331):

André LANSKOY. Cortège. Illustrated with 25 pochoir plates, including the cover, by Lanskoy. Folio, 450 x 330 mm, loose as issued, in the original decorated wrappers and slipcase, 466mm. Paris: Pierre Lecuire, 1959.

A fine copy of this most extraordinary "livre d’artiste", which was created in a similar fashion to Matisse’s Jazz. The original paper collages were designed by André Lanskoy, the aristocrat Russian painter, and then executed in pochoir under the direction of Maurice Beaufumé, one of the last great practitioners of this art. One of 150 copies on Grand Vélin D’Arches of a total edition of 175 signed by Lanskoy and Lecuire.

Strachan 335.

Order des pages imprimées: ce livre est un Cortège. Seul, un cavalier peut se faire enten dre. Des figures mobiles. Croix, puis dans le touffu du feuillage. Figures du jeu. Grondant désert d'oiseaux. Il n'a pas voulu tra cer les tiges. L'instinct. Venise, qui longe un royaume marin. Le moins cher des logis. (Trois planches en couleurs). Comme l'idiome des palais. Gerbes de tulipes, des topazes. Tojours amoureuse. Ces détoursde l'image. Longtemps anos cotés cet art n'est pas de guerre. Jusu'au miracle qui parfois lui cède. Les corps de manoeuvres. Comme une ville est habitée par ses monuments. Tour a tour, le charpente a quatre têtes.

De cette édition originale il a ete tiré 150 exemplaires sur grand vélin d'arches, don’t 25 numérotés de 1 a 25, compor tant une suite des planches sur vélin d'arches, et 125 numérotés de 26 a 150. En outre, il a été tiré 20 examples hors commerce numérotés de I a XX. Tous les exemplaires sont signés par l'artiste et l'auteur.

Cortège, illustré de vingt-trois planches et d'une couverture en couleurs de Lanskoy, a été achevé d'imprimer a Paris en Décembre 1959. Les planches et la couverture ont été exécutées au pochoir par Maurice Beaufumé, coloriste, d'apres les papiers collés de Lanskoy et sous la direction du peintre. Le texte inédit de Pierre Lecuire, composé en Garamont Corps 20 l'edition, a été imprimé sur les presses de Marthe Fequet et Pierre Baudier, topographes. Cet ouvrage a été réalisé par Pierre Lecuire et édité a ses dépens.

English translation from Google:

Order of the printed pages: this book is a Procession. Only a rider can be heard. Moving figures. Cross, then in the bushy foliage. Figures of the game. Grunting wilderness of birds. He did not want to stalk the stems. Instinct. Venice, which runs along a marine kingdom. The cheapest of lodgings. (Three boards in color). Like the idiom of palaces. Sheaves of tulips, topazes. Still in love. These detours of the image. For a long time, this art is not war. Until the miracle that sometimes yields to him. The bodies of maneuvers. As a city is inhabited by its monuments. In turn, the frame has four heads.

From this original edition, 150 copies were printed on a large vellum of arches, These 25 numbered from 1 to 25, comprising a series of boards on vellum arches, and 125 numbered from 26 to 150. In addition, 20 non-commercial examples numbered from I to XX were taken. All copies are signed by the artist and the author.

Cortege, illustrated with twenty-three plates and a color cover of Lanskoy, was finished printing in Paris in December 1959. The boards and the cover were stencilled by Maurice Beaufume, colorist, according to the Lanskoy's glue papers and under the direction of the painter. The unpublished text of Pierre Lecuire, composed in Garamont Corps 20 edition, was printed on the presses of Marthe Fequet and Pierre Baudier, topographers. This book was made by Pierre Lecuire and edited at his expense.

From Bromer catalogue:

Paris: Pierre Lecuire, 1959. Folio. (28)pp., + 23 plates. From an edition of 170 copies, this is one of twenty-five deluxe copies with an additional suite of pochoir plates. Signed by the author/publisher and the artist below the colophon. Illustrated with twenty-three brightly colored pochoir plates, one of which is double-page, after paintings by André Lanskoy, executed by Maurice Beaufumé, who was responsible for Matisse's Jazz.

Lanskoy was a Russian-born painter of the Tachism movement in Paris, where he lived and worked from 1921 until his death in 1976. Tachism, part of the larger Art Informel movement, focused on the intuitive and spontaneous expression of the artist. Cortège is true to form for Lanskoy and Tachism, with its richly colored and boldly arranged abstract shapes - Lanksoy's own interpretation of Lecuire's prose poem.

At the time, Lecuire was still early in his career; this was only his fourth published work. Lecuire continued to publish illustrated poetic compositions through the 1980s. Major exhibitions of his work were organized at the French House in Oxford, England in 1977 and at the National Library of France in 2001. Lecuire died in 2013.

Issued loose in a multi-colored pochoir wrapper designed by Lanskoy, and housed in a cloth chemise backed in lithographed patterned paper after a design in the book and a cloth slipcase. Visible offsetting from the pochoir, now mitigated by interleaved tissue; chemise and slipcase both show some rubbing and marking, and slipcase splitting at corners. A near fine copy.

Exhibition notes:
Samplings: International Artists' Books and Archive on the Book Arts

JGCBA, WAM

26 March to 6 July 2019

Ref: GB/15837











© Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts (JGCBA). All rights reserved.