The Second Coming (Again).
Seattle: Aubergine Atelier, 2019. Oblong 24mo. 36(ff)., + 14 Japanese kozo-paper leaves painted on both sides in gouache, tempera, watercolor, and polyacrylic varnish. From an edition of thirty copies, this is one of ten bound in half leather with decorative paper over boards. Each copy in the edition contains unique paintings by Jodee Fenton. These, distributed throughout as full leaves, cutouts, and paste-downs, encourage a new perspective on Yeats' seminal poem. Originally composed as a reaction to the pain of the early twentieth century-the aftermath of the First World War, the onset of the Irish War of Independence, and the 1918-1919 flu pandemic-Yeats' verses use apocalyptic allegory to capture the fear, brutality, and destruction of the era. Here, Fenton presents the poem as a series of images, mirrored on both sides of each painted sheet, and verses, broken apart by line and by word. The arrangement thus asks the reader to pause and draws insistent parallels between Yeats' time, with its nationalism, anarchy, and destruction, and today. Top edge red-orange. Fine, in clamshell box. Prospectus laid in. Item #30615
Price: $2,250.00