Search Results: Titles starting with Q from Swan's Fine Books

New York: The Grolier Club [Printed by John Henry Nash], 1921. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Near fine. One of 300 copies, folio size, 27 pp. The contribution of John Henry Nash to the Grolier Club's "series of six books done by eminent American printers at the invitation of the Grolier Club." This a single chapter from Maurice Hewlett's "Earthwords out of Tuscany" originally published in 1895 (per O'Day, p. 24). John Henry Nash (1871-1947), San Francisco-based printer of fine press books and numerous broadsides and ephemera, is known for superb typographical design and attention to materials, particularly the paper used for printing and for his bindings. This work printed on Van Gelder paper and shows Nash's usual attentiveness. Embellished with a superb flowing initial capital letter on the opening page of the text (no attribution of the artist, sadly). Although not marked so, this volume from the library of Robert D. Harlan (1947-2000), a well-known San Francisco Bay Area author. Harlan was… Read More

[San Francisco]: The Greenwood Press, 1968. First and Limited Edition. Wraps. Near fine. One of 250 copies, quarto size, 35 pp., signed by Victoria Nelson, with prospectus and related ephemera. A short story about living in the Stinson Beach and Bolinas of the 1980s, "a tale of love and liberation" (n.b., from newspaper review). In the bibliography of The Greenwood Press, Stauffacher relates that "[i]t was in 1982 that I met Victorian Nelson. I read her 'Queen of Hearts' and immediately asked if I could publish this marvelous story about West Marin in the indulgent seventies. Our friendship grew from this experience" (p. 190). Included is the original prospectus and invoice (the latter to a collector who lived in Stinson Beach), and a contemporary newspaper review by John Grissim, which appeared in the "Point Reyes Light" on November 26, 1986. ___DESCRIPTION: Bound in brown-grey wrappers with yapped edges, title in red on front wrap, photograph of sand dollars on front extending slightly onto the… Read More

Orinda, California: Donna Day Westerman, n.d.. Limited Edition. Stiff wraps. Fine. Westerman, Donna Day. Number one of seven, tall, thin quarto size, five folded leaves, signed by the artist. Donna Day Westerman is a printmaker, painter and book artist in the Bay Area of California. [She is] "interested in traditional and historical media — particularly, woodcuts, wood-engravings and egg tempera — used in a contemporary manner. Working from close observation, and occasionally referring to [her] own photographs, [she] conceptually reduce[s] realistic nature to calligraphic or glyph-like notations. A kind of erasure takes place as the visual abundance... is distilled into the essence of the place. Other senses, such as sound and touch often inform the visual... A challenge... has been to capture the powerful ephemeral forms of fog and water in the hard-edged medium of wood... the medium itself determines much of the outcome" (n.b., "Artist's Statement" from web site of Artist). The present… Read More

San Francisco: Protean Press [Terry Horrigan], 2004. Sewn binding. Fine. One of 40 copies, quarto size, [17] pp., with "Turkish map" fold etching, signed by Catherine Collins Mutz. The Protean Press was founded in 1970 by Terry Horrigan; she published books as a one-woman fine art press, in limited editions, through 2007. This work, "Quipu", was created in homage to the Inka (Inca) Empire (ca. 1450-1532 CE). Their lingua franca, and the language of the administration of their empire (which lasted from 1438 through 1533 CE) was in the form of "khipu" (knot; to knot): "knotted-string devices that were used for recording both statistical and narrative information..." (n.b., from prospectus). While Horrigan had been interested in this form since 1991 when she visited Peru, it wasn't until 2003, when Mutz suggested they do this project together, that the project moved forward. Mutz did the research and wrote the text, with the artist book being designed, printed, etched, and bound by Horrigan at her… Read More