The Garden as parenthesis / Landscape of St. Ives, Huntingdonshire / Vierzehnheiligen / Doves over the Sarthe at Solesmes (complete set of the author s 4 letterpress and screenprinted cards by Tarasque Press)

Stephen Bann

Published by Tarasque Press 1969-1971, Nottingham, 1969

About this Item

Complete set of the 4 letterpress and silkscreen printed cards by Stephen Bann, published by Tarasque Press, Nottingham.1. Landscape of St. Ives, Huntingdonshire (1969). Printed blue on white. 2. Doves over the Sarthe at Solesmes (1970). Printed blue on white. 3. The Garden as parenthesis (1971). Printed black and green on white.4. Vierzehnheiligen (the) (three) (ovals) of Balthasar Neumann (1971). Printed red on white glossy stock. Each card is 165 x 138mm except for The Garden as a parenthesis, which is 165 x 141mm. Each signed on verso. Bann edited the first international concrete poetry anthology in 1967 (a couple of months before the Something Else Press anthology, which is sometimes cited as the first). This collection is a complete set of his Tarasque Press concrete poetry cards. Landscape illustrates the topography of St. Ives, Huntingdonshire as opposed to St. Ives, Cornwall which has two steeples (here, the ascenders of t and l ), a river (the underline) and a bridge (the descender of p ). As Andrew Wilson has written, in Doves, the horizontal line can be read as a river, the quotation marks as doves in flight and the apostrophe, a dove at rest. The title suggests an equation between doves, the River Sarthe of western France and the Benedictine abbey at Solesmes, the renowned centre for Gregorian chant, positioned near Anjou on the Sarthe. (Ref. Tate website) The Garden as parenthesis references William Morris, whose courtyard gardens at Red House were designed with space for long walks in the grass. Vierzehnheiligen references the three sequential oval vaults which create the space of Balthasar Neumann s Basilica of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.Condition: Fine. Seller Inventory # 68769689

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Garden as parenthesis / Landscape of St....

Publisher: Tarasque Press 1969-1971, Nottingham

Publication Date: 1969

Edition: 1st Edition