William Tell (Folded Story, no. 1)

Artist Warja Honegger Lavater (Swiss, 1913-2007)

Publisher Junior Council, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1962

Printer Leonardi Offset-Reproduktionen, Zurich; Basler Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, Basel

Date1962

DimensionsSlipcase: H: 4 15/16 in. (126 mm); W: 3 9/16 in. (91 mm); Depth: 5/8 in. (16 mm).
Book: H: 4 3/4 in. (121 mm); W: 3 1/2 in. (89 mm); Depth: 3/8 in. (9 mm).
Page: H: 4 3/4 in. (120 mm); W: 3 7/16 in. (88 mm).
Sheet: H: 4 3/4 in. (120 mm); W: 83 5/16 in. (2116 mm).

MediumReproductions: photolithographs of lithographs in colors on cream wove paper. Text: photolithography.

ClassificationBooks

Credit LineGift of Molly and Walter Bareiss

Object number

1984.568

Not on View

Label TextWarja Honegger-Lavater’s Accordion Books 1. William Tell (1962) 2. Match (1962) 3. Homo sapiens? (1965) 4. Le petit chaperon rouge (Little Red Riding Hood) (1965) 5. Blanche Neige (Snow White) (1974) “…it is the sign—a thing between word and picture—that transmits the information, making it independent of language and enabling it to communicate either the playful or the earnest message. I should like, quite simply, to let my signs speak.” (Warja Honegger-Lavater, 1962) Warja Honegger-Lavater was born in Switzerland and began her career as a painter, illustrator, and art director for a Swiss youth magazine. Her work took a different route in 1960 after seeing Chinese painted texts in a New York bookstore. These inspired her to present pictographic stories in long strips. This idea evolved into her “Folded Stories” or “imageries”. These are accordion-folded books that open out into a continuous narrative of images. She developed a symbolic language, through which she could “see writing turned back into drawing, and drawing into writing.” She often used fairy tales, fables, and legends. Her simplified symbols allow the viewer to recreate the story according to his or her own memory, language, and experience. “Instead of human figures,” she explained in 1962, “I employed points and lines. I soon found that they are much more flexible… They do not merely copy—they create.”Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, Splendid Pages: The Molly and Walter Bareiss Collection of Modern Illustrated Books, Feb. 14 - May 11, 2003.