H. C. Artmann, Der Aeronautische Sindtbart
Zwanzigstes Abendteur avt Capitul
Among the numerous zinc plates that I found in my Lahnstein printing shop, I discovered a half-tone plate that showed the head of a young woman with a telephone receiver. Probably originally created for the carnival season, this find provided the inspiration for my first book. In Chapter 20 of H. C. Artmann’s pseudo-Baroque novel fragment Der Aeronautische Sindtbart a certain printzessin von Alpuxarra plays an important role. That gave me the idea of illustrating the entire 20th chapter with this woman’s head as the background. I varied the head from one page to the next by using a colored overprinting process with a wide array of linocuts. The text is integrated into the images, sometimes printed in color; in various sizes of Futura Light, Book, and Medium, it becomes part of the images. Even though it is always the same head in the background, the illustrations refer very concretely to the text and to the story being told.
72 pages, handset and letterpress, paper-over-board, 16/24.5 cm, 120 numbered and signed copies. Lahnstein 1983.