Lithographs

2013 · ref. 11567 — Newark VT: Janus Press 2013. Original Wrappers. Fine binding. 6-1/2" x 7." Limited edition one of 120 copies. Accordion fold with 8 panels 4 of them are fold-down pages. Each of the four page-spreads include letterpress text in various typefaces and colors which fold-down expanding the canvas of words sayings and accusations including a catalog of U.S. Senators and Representatives of the 111th Congress who became lobbyists-a list that fills the fold-down page in a small font; these opposite a lithograph by Van Vliet each lithograph is titled by the top word on the opposite page: Propagandist Lobbyist Banker Joe Public. Bound in gold paper repeated printed with the word "Greed" and all housed in gold slipcase. A fine copy. In a contemporary newspaper article in the Burlington Free Press Candace Page relates an interview with Van Vliet: "She picks up dummy of GREED a slim volume that will sit inside a glittery cover of gold paper. It opens like an accordion to display four Van Vliet black-and-white lithographs of distorted faces: A banker a lobbyist a newscaster she says 'and this one on the end the sap John Q. Public us.'" Van Vliet continues in the Page interview: "The word 'greed' will be printed multiple times on the cover in heavy unevenly inked type as though it were printed contemptuously by some greedy person with no respect for the written word. The paper is not handmade - that would be too good for the book. Instead it is 'slick nasty machine-made paper' she says. The edges of the gold cover will be sharp 'because greed is not a comfortable subject.'" There is a wonderful irony that the lithographs employed in Greed were originally drawn for an edition of Kafka decades before that just weren't quite right for the project. Here they are perfect! This is a striking book a political book one might say an angry and defiant book. Van Vliet's politics being informed by the McCarthy era during which she was a student she admits to having distrusted the powerful ever since. This edition sold out very quickly and is now rare in commerce. A book that was is and will always be relevant. Janus Press unknown