Wordswordswords

Artist Edwin Schlossberg (American, born 1945)

Artist Robert Rauschenberg (American, 1925-2008)

Publisher Universal Limited Art Editions

Printer text: Christopher Pullman (hand-set and hand-printed); lithographs: Fred Genis; etching & embossing (Rauschenberg): Donn Steward

Binder Louis Liebel, Jr., metal box

Author Edwin Schlossberg (American, born 1945)

Date1968

DimensionsBox: H: 12 1/8 in. (308 mm); W: 9 1/4 in. (235 mm); Depth: 1 3/4 in. (45 mm).
Book: H: 12 in. (305 mm); W: 9 1/8 in. (232 mm); Depth: 1 5/8 in. (42 mm).
Page (varying): H: 11 in. (280 mm); W: 8 9/16 in. (217 mm).
Image (untrimmed): H: 11 in. (280 mm); W: 17 in. (432 mm).

MediumOriginal prints: 1 etched embossing (by Rauschenberg), 4 blind embossings , 5 lithographs, 1 etching in white, 12 letterpress. Text: letterpress. Paper: various (see remarks).

ClassificationBooks

Credit LineGift of Molly and Walter Bareiss

Object number

1984.956

Not on View

Label TextUniversal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) began as a lithography studio in the home of Tatyana Grosman. She bought a second-hand press and used paving stones from her doorway path as lithography stones. Grosman became intrigued by the visual poetry of Edwin Schlossberg and invited him to work on a project at ULAE. In Wordswordswords the poetry is printed by various means on a variety of surfaces. Some poems appear on cut or folded sheets of paper or are divided among several sheets of clear plexiglas. Others are blind-embossed (stamped without ink) or written backwards. As the book is not bound, the reader can rearrange the pages at will and "read" it in several ways, including looking through the transparent pages to words seen underneath. Rauschenberg’s contribution to the project was a double-page blind embossing laid in as a preface or frontispiece.Published Referencescf. Phillips, Elizabeth, The American Livre de Peintre, New York, The Grolier Club, 1993, no. 47Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, The Bareiss Collection of Illustrated Books from Toulouse-Lautrec to Kiefer, 1985, no. 76

Toledo Museum of Art, Splendid Pages: The Molly and Walter Bareiss Collection of Modern Illustrated Books, Feb. 14--May 11, 2003

Toledo Museum of Art, Word Play, Oct. 16, 2009-Feb. 7, 2010.