About this Item
Zephyrus Image Collection
A gathering of more than 30 books, broadsides, a portfolio and ephemera from the legendary press, the letterpress punks of the 1970's. It includes several rare items, including the Kent State Portfolio which features the first print appearance of Devo, as well as collaborations with beat poets such as Ed Dorn and Tom Raworth. The condition of most items is fine, with some exceptions which are noted below. Note: the description below is truncated - a complete and detailed listing is available by request.
1. [Devo] 1974 Kent State Creative Arts Festival Portfolio.
San Francisco and Ohio: Zephyrus Image, 1974. First edition. 9 1/2 x 13 5/16" folder, illustrated at the front panel after a photograph by Ellen Mann, with ZI insign printed in green at rear panel, containing nine broadsides of varying dimensions.
The Kent State Creative Arts Festival was created as a reaction against the Kent State shootings, which is often cited as the formative impetus for Devo. The band's first public performance had been at the festival the year prior, and their performance at the festival in 1974 was either their first or second show, featuring the line-up of Bob Lewis, Mark Mothersbaugh, Jim Mothersbaugh, and the Casale brothers.
The Michael Myers bee linocut which graces this and several of the other broadsides was created in San Francisco and brought to Kent, where the broadsides were printed. Zephyrus Image were probably involved in the event due to the agency of Ed Dorn, who was on faculty at the time. The pairing of Myers' delicate and inimitable linocut work with the quirky pathos of Devo is sublime. The text instructs the viewer to supply their own waltz rhythm as the piece is read, making it a DIY performance piece - a broadside where you, the reader, are in the band.
The portfolio also contains broadsides by Jennifer Dunbar, Ines Brolaski, Joanne Kyger, Barbara Einzig, Ed Dorn (2), Joel Oppenheimer, and Samuel Fuller. All are beautiful, especially those by Dorn, where each line of the work is typeset in a different font, and film-maker Samuel Fuller, who contributes a haunting text on the relationship between between typography and cinema which begins, "The language of type moves with flesh today." The text is overlayed onto a photograph of someone pushing a lawnmower (Johnston identifies the figure as Bing Crosby). [Johnston pp. 79-81, 199-200]
Rare.
The broadsides are in fine condition with the exception of the Kyger broadside, which is near fine with some creasing to margins. The folder is fine.
[32189]
2. Raworth, Tom. Common Sense.
Healdsburg: Zephyrus Press, 1976. First edition. 3 1/2 x 5 1/2" spiral bound notebook. Letterpress printed on 18 leaves of blue-lined notebook paper, preceded by and followed by a single leaf of beige newsprint - the latter upon which is illustrated with a linocut illustration of a salt shaker by Myers. Further illustrated with three found zinc-prints of business men.
One of the most charming of all the Zephyrus titles, Common Sense strikes a brilliant balance between commercial and fine printing methods and scavenged means. After the leaves were printed, they were sent out and commercially spiral bound. There is a linocut print of a price at the rear cover. The intent was to mimic commercial notebooks found for cheap in drugstores, so that readers could read poetry in public without ostentation.
The usual offsetting from the newsprint within, along with some spots of discoloration to 4 pp within and the card stock on back cover, otherwise bright and very good, the covers being particularly bright and well-preserved.
[31765]
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