Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror

Publisher Arion Press, San Francisco, 1984 (Andrew Hoyem)

Printer text: Arion Press, San Francisco; lithographs (Elaine and Willem de Kooning, Jane Freilicher): Hampton Editions, Ltd., Sag Harbor

Binder box: Atlas Metal Spinning, South San Francisco

Author John Ashbery (American, 1927 - 2017)

Date1984

DimensionsBox: H: 19 1/4 in. (489 mm); W: 19 1/4 in. (489 mm); Depth: 1 5/8 in. (41 mm).
Page (untrimmed): H: 18 in. (457 mm); W: 17 7/8 in. (454 mm).
Sleeve: H: 12 3/8 in. (314 mm); W: 12 1/4 in. (311 mm).

MediumOriginal prints: 4 lithographs, 1 woodcut, 1 soft ground etching with aquatint tone, 1 "etching reproduced by photogravure" with added pastel hand-coloring. Reproductions: 2 photolithographs of a photograph (incl. 1 on record sleeve), 2 photolithographs of a painting (incl. 1 in color, on the record sleeve). Text: letterpress (typeface: handset Cochin); photolithography (record sleeve). Paper: cream wove handmade Twinrocker Mill paper.

ClassificationBooks

Credit LineGift of Molly and Walter Bareiss

Object number

1984.1337A-PP

Not on View

Label TextThis book was published to celebrate New York poet John Ashbery’s poem “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror,” inspired by the 16th-century painting of the same name by Italian artist Parmigianino (see image). Arion Press founder Andrew Hoyem invited Ashbery to produce a fine print edition in the early 1980s inspired by the poem. Ashbery had close ties with many artists, and he and Hoyem invited artists with whom Ashbery was close friends, or whose work he especially admired, to create the prints for the volume. The circular format echoes the mirror of the title, as well as the vinyl recording that is included of Ashbery reading his poem (see the QR codes on this label). Eight artists joined in this tribute by contributing prints in a variety of mediums, all in this circular format, each responding either to the poem or to the Parmigianino painting. The resulting prints present a range of styles and techniques, with, for example, lithographs by Elaine and Willem de Kooning and Jane Freilicher, an etching by R. B. Kitaj, a woodcut by Jim Dine, and a hand-colored photogravure by Larry Rivers. The unbound pages are contained in a stainless-steel canister mounted with a convex mirror for viewers to peer into.Exhibition HistoryToledo Museum of Art, Splendid Pages: The Molly and Walter Bareiss Collection of Modern Illustrated Books, Feb. 14--May 11, 2003.Comparative ReferencesSee also Johnson, Robert Flynn, Artists' Books in the Modern Era 1870--2000: The Reva and David Logan Collection of Illustrated Books, San Francisco, 2001, no. 173.