The View

Artist Vija Celmins (American, born 1939)

Author Czeslaw Milosz (Polish, 1911 - 2004)

Date1985

Dimensionsslipcase: 15 3/8 x 11 1/4 x 1 in. (390 x 286 x 25mm)
book: 15 1/8 x 11 1/4 x 5/8 in. (384 x 286 x 16mm)
page (untrimmed): 14 7/8 x 10 7/8 in. (378 x 277mm)

MediumOriginal prints: 6 mezzotints on Rives BFK white wove paper Reproduction: line block reproduction of Copernican diagram of the universe on Rives BFK white wove paper Text: letterpress on Twinrocker handmade gray wove paper (typeface: Monotype Bembo with Romulus headings)

ClassificationBooks

Credit LineMolly and Walter Bareiss Art Fund

Object number

1987.65

Not on View

Label TextVija Celmins, The View. Text by Czeslaw Milosz (1985) Richard Tuttle, Hiddenness. Text by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge (1987) From 1982 to 2000, the Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York published a series of fine press books. For each book, an American artist collaborated with an American writer. Artist Vija Celmins was selected for the third book. She chose to work with the recent Nobel Laureate in Literature, Czeslaw Milosz. Artist and writer selected several prose pieces, as well as the older poem The View. In its evocation of landscapes, solitary existences, and the cosmos, this poem seemed to define the artist’s and the poet’s common ground. In response to these texts, Celmins created images of night skies and globes, using the mezzotint process to produce particularly rich, black tones. In 1986 Richard Tuttle agreed to create images for the fifth book in the series. A young poet named Mei-mei Berssenbrugge wrote the text. Over the next year Richard and Mei-mei created work in tandem, each responding to the other’s thoughts and art. They jointly oversaw every detail of the book’s production, including the handmade papers and delicate layers of silkscreen, lithography, and letterpress-printed type. More than any other book in the series, Hiddenness became a true partnership between artist and writer. Richard and Mei-mei, in fact, later married. More about the Library Fellows series can be found in the Bareiss collection catalogue Splendid Pages.Exhibition HistorySplendid Pages: The Molly and Walter Bareiss Collection of Modern Illustrated Books, Feb. 14--May 11, 2003