Traces suspectes en surface

Artist Robert Rauschenberg (American, 1925-2008)

Publisher Universal Limited Art Editions

Printer Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE), West Islip (John A. Lund, James U. Smith)

Author Alain Robbe-Grillet (French, born 1922)

Date[1978]

DimensionsCrate: H: 32 in. (813 mm); W: 24 3/4 in. (628 mm); Depth: 4 3/8 in. (111 mm).
Box: H: 28 7/8 in. (734 mm); W: 22 1/4 in. (565 mm); Depth: 3 in. (76 mm).
Sheet: H: 27 in. (686 mm); W: 20 1/4 in. (514mm).

MediumOriginal prints: 36 color lithographs printed on 31 sheets (text and images) Paper: white wove Twinrocker, watermarked with the artist's and author's signatures

ClassificationBooks

Credit LineGift of Molly and Walter Bareiss

Object number

1984.950

Not on View

Label TextEdwin Schlossberg and Robert Rauschenberg, Wordswordswords (1968) Robert Rauschenberg, Traces suspectes en surface (Suspicious Tracks near the Surface). Text by Alain Robbe-Grillet (1978) Universal 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. Robert Rauschenberg is a frequent collaborator with ULAE. Both Wordswordswords and Traces were produced there. Grosman began Traces after hearing Rauschenberg mentioned in a lecture in 1972. The project took four years to complete. Grosman shipped the plates to each of the contributors, edited them herself, and printed them in her studio. The author wrote the story directly on lithographic plates; Rauschenberg responded with images on the same plate. As in his other work, Rauschenberg incorporated images from other sources in an attempt to bring the outside world into a work of art. Grosman became intrigued by the visual poetry of Edwin Schlossberg and invited him to work on a project at ULAE. At that time, Schlossberg’s poetry was compared to Constructivist design and Eastern calligraphy, in which the words themselves are also images. 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 or written backwards. The poems are constructed, changed, or dissolved as the reader moves the pages. Rauschenberg’s contribution to the project was a double-page blind embossing laid in as a preface or frontispiece. It is not on view in Splendid Pages.Published Referencescf. Hogben, Carol, Rowan Watson, editors, From Manet to Hockney: Modern Artists’ Illustrated Books, London, 1985, no. 151, repr.

cf. Phillips, Elizabeth, The American Livre de Peintre, New York, The Grolier Club, 1993, no. 40

cf. Johnson, Robert Flynn, Artists' Books in the Modern Era 1870--2000: the Reva and David Logan Collection of Illustrated Books, San Francisco, 2001, no. 163.

Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, The Bareiss Collection of Illustrated Books from Toulouse-Lautrec to Kiefer, 1985, no. 73

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