encountering the book
Salvador Dali's publication of Lewis Carroll’s, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, is a visual rendition of the novel, with original vivid and surrealist illustrations. According to Mark Burstein’s commemorate book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: 150th Anniversary Edition, the 1969 contains “twelve heliogravures of original gouaches and one signed engraving…printed in France, collected into folded portfolios” (xi) and it was published by Maecenas Press (of Random House).
To understand this collection in terms of its materiality is to deconstruct it in book terms. First, heliogravure is defined as a sophisticated photo-mechanical process, wherein “images are printed by making printing plates, then transferring the image onto paper” (Mamone). In the simplest terms, this process is broken down into two steps: the etching of the image onto a copper plate and then the transference of said image (with ink) onto a sheet of good quality paper. The product that is left behind is thus an illustration created through a complicated engraving and photo-chemical printing process. For more information on this process, please visit this website. Essentially, Dali’s illustrations are prints of his original gouaches. These originals gouaches were produced, by Dali, through “a method of painting with opaque colours ground in water, and mixed with gum and honey so as to form a sort of paste” (OED). An observer may recognize Dali’s illustrations as watercolors, but as a gouache painting, it is characterized by its bolder and flatter color payoff, along with its matte appearance. Unlike watercolors, it does not dilute with water and remains on the paper’s surface (McDermott). For more information on gouache, please visit this blog. Alongside the twelve heliogravure gouache illustrations is a one signed engraving, which was created through an intaglio printing process. The method “...involves the incision of a design onto a metal surface (usually copper), by making grooves using a steel tool with a square or diamond-shaped end, called a burin. This produces a high quality line with a clean edge” (Visual-arts-cork.com). For more information on engraving as a technique, visit this website. In summary, the twelve illustrations of the collection are indeed prints accompanied by one signed engraving, which is also a print. Thus, they are all replicas (of originals), produced through highly sophisticated printing processes.
To understand this collection in terms of its materiality is to deconstruct it in book terms. First, heliogravure is defined as a sophisticated photo-mechanical process, wherein “images are printed by making printing plates, then transferring the image onto paper” (Mamone). In the simplest terms, this process is broken down into two steps: the etching of the image onto a copper plate and then the transference of said image (with ink) onto a sheet of good quality paper. The product that is left behind is thus an illustration created through a complicated engraving and photo-chemical printing process. For more information on this process, please visit this website. Essentially, Dali’s illustrations are prints of his original gouaches. These originals gouaches were produced, by Dali, through “a method of painting with opaque colours ground in water, and mixed with gum and honey so as to form a sort of paste” (OED). An observer may recognize Dali’s illustrations as watercolors, but as a gouache painting, it is characterized by its bolder and flatter color payoff, along with its matte appearance. Unlike watercolors, it does not dilute with water and remains on the paper’s surface (McDermott). For more information on gouache, please visit this blog. Alongside the twelve heliogravure gouache illustrations is a one signed engraving, which was created through an intaglio printing process. The method “...involves the incision of a design onto a metal surface (usually copper), by making grooves using a steel tool with a square or diamond-shaped end, called a burin. This produces a high quality line with a clean edge” (Visual-arts-cork.com). For more information on engraving as a technique, visit this website. In summary, the twelve illustrations of the collection are indeed prints accompanied by one signed engraving, which is also a print. Thus, they are all replicas (of originals), produced through highly sophisticated printing processes.
The book, or portfolio as it is referred to, is unbound with the twelve chapters housed in a clamshell box (Burstein xi). For this reason, it is not necessarily a traditional codex (i.e. a book made out of pages--paper, vellum, or papyrus--that are bound at one edge) as we know of today, so much as it is a collation of separately folded chapters. As part of a limited production, 2700 portfolios were published, 2500 of which were printed on Mandeure paper and 200 of which were printed on Rives paper. A few were also produced on Japon Nacre but are the property of the artist himself.
Amongst this variety of prints, a Mandeure paper portfolio, for example, is signed on the frontispiece, or the illustrated title on the front of a book, by Dali. It contains 12 illustrations, with an original remarque, or marginal sketch (OED), on each illustration. An original colored etching is opposite the frontispiece. The Rives paper portfolio contains the same elements with two distinctions: an original colored etching signed in pencil, specifically, by the artist and a ‘Deluxe Edition’ double suite printed on Japon Nacre (including 12 illustrations, remarque, and original colored etching).
The portfolios, as 2700 publications in total, are limited, and perhaps what makes them more valuable are the differences amongst them, in regards to such distinctions as paper and signatures. The edition we explored is numbered ‘253,’ from the 2,500 Mandeure portfolios. It is housed in Purdy/Kresge library’s vault, as part Wayne State University’s Eloise Ramsey Collection of children’s literature. The colophon (i.e. the information about where a book was printed, the paper used, and characteristics of font etc.) at the beginning of the portfolio notes that the etching and remarques were printed by Ateliers Rigal. Furthermore, the typography was also set at Rigal’s press. The twelve illustrations, in the publication, were printed by M. Nourisson and the portfolios were done by Cartonnages Adine.
Amongst this variety of prints, a Mandeure paper portfolio, for example, is signed on the frontispiece, or the illustrated title on the front of a book, by Dali. It contains 12 illustrations, with an original remarque, or marginal sketch (OED), on each illustration. An original colored etching is opposite the frontispiece. The Rives paper portfolio contains the same elements with two distinctions: an original colored etching signed in pencil, specifically, by the artist and a ‘Deluxe Edition’ double suite printed on Japon Nacre (including 12 illustrations, remarque, and original colored etching).
The portfolios, as 2700 publications in total, are limited, and perhaps what makes them more valuable are the differences amongst them, in regards to such distinctions as paper and signatures. The edition we explored is numbered ‘253,’ from the 2,500 Mandeure portfolios. It is housed in Purdy/Kresge library’s vault, as part Wayne State University’s Eloise Ramsey Collection of children’s literature. The colophon (i.e. the information about where a book was printed, the paper used, and characteristics of font etc.) at the beginning of the portfolio notes that the etching and remarques were printed by Ateliers Rigal. Furthermore, the typography was also set at Rigal’s press. The twelve illustrations, in the publication, were printed by M. Nourisson and the portfolios were done by Cartonnages Adine.
NOTE: Pictures are used in this page for educational purposes, and thus support fair use. The pictures (of illustrations and text) are from Lewis Carroll and Salvador Dali's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland housed in the Eloise Ramsey Collection at Wayne State University. The work was originally published by Maecenas Press-Random House, New York in 1969.