Trianon Press
An Exhibit from the Trianon Press Archive
(Oct 27 - Dec 31 1999)
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Arnold Fawcus & Trianon Press Trianon Publications Collotype & Pochoir William Blake Trust Related Links |
TRIANON PRESS ARCHIVE
Arnold Fawcus founded the Trianon Press in Paris in the late 1940's. After his death, Julie Fawcus carried forward his work, publishing the last two projects, Dante and Constable. The Archive itself, acquired by UCSC in two massive shipments from France in 1983 and 1988, includes manuscripts, proof copies, variant editions, plans, design work, correspondence, unpublished art works, maquettes, negatives, color decompositions, guide sheets and stencils.
The unrivaled set of the Press' collection of its own works numbers more than 70 volumes, many of which are the publisher's unnumbered deluxe copies. The Press is widely regarded as having created the finest facsimiles of the works of William Blake, as well as works of other artists such as Gislebertus, Duchamp and Shahn. This material is available for viewing in Special Collections.
This exhibit features just some of the books and illustrations from the Trianon Press Archive, pictures of the personalities that were the Trianon, and information about the techniques used to produce these amazing volumes.
Additional information about the Trianon Press and the collotype process may be found in the following volumes:
Julie Fawcus: Recollections of the Trianon Press by Julie Fawcus, 1996
UCSC Z 231.5.L5F39 1996
The Gates of Memory by Geoffrey Keynes, 1981
UCSC RD 27.35.K49 A33
Matrix : A Review for Printers and Bibliophiles
UCSC Spec Coll Z 119.M38 - Sebastian Carter's article on the Trianon Press.
Twenty-seven Landscapes, 1977-1983 by Barry Spann. lst ed. Paris : [B. Spann in association with the Trianon Press], 1984.
UCSC Spec Coll Z 239 .R36 1984 Oversize
The Pursuit of Happy Results : Barry Spann and the Making of Twenty-seven Landscapes by Emily Anderson; with an introductory note by Nicolas Barker. 1st ed. Boston : David R. Godine, published for members of Hoc Volo, 1991. (Lunenburg, VT: Stinehour Press).
CSL Sutro NE 539.S63 A53 1991 Non Circ
Arnold Fawcus & Trianon Press
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Arnold Fawcus was born on 30 October, 1917, in India. His father, Louis Reginald Fawcus, was employed by the Indian Civil Service, and he later became advisor to the Governor of Bengal. The once prosperous family derived its lineage from the North of England, and family legend traced the name back to Guy Fawkes, of Gunpowder Plot fame. Arnold's mother was Irene d'Ancona Lesser, of San Francisco. She and Louis met in Paris and were married a year later in 1914 in Calcutta. Irene disliked India, and so much of Arnold's early life was spent in San Francisco with his mother and his maternal aunts. At the age of nine, he was sent to a preparatory school in England, Bilton Grange, where his father's brother was headmaster. After a typically miserable life as an English schoolboy, he went, like his father, to Uppingham and to then Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his degree in Art History. |
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His exceptional abilities as a skier allowed him unusual entree to the U.S. Army, after 1941. He had worked in Yosemite National Park organizing skiing activities during the times that he had visited his mother. Drafted into the U.S. Army, he set up a training unit for U.S. Mountain Troops. With three Austrian colleagues, he wrote the first draft of the American Military Ski Manual, later revised into a successful publication, Swing Into Skiing published by Faber & Faber. His later military career involved counterintelligence work in Europe, where he was seconded to the American forces advancing through Italy and Southern France. His job was to catch agents with radio sets left behind by the retreating German Army. As the British had broken the German codes, Arnold had access to this information and he was very successful. He had what the British call "a good war." |
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Eventually based at Lyon, he met his first publishing partner, Pierre Bordas. The earliest book, of exquisite composition, featured work by Chagall and was produced by collotype and pochoir by the firm of Daniel Jacomet. The Press moved from the production of Arnold/Bordas books to successive corporation's established by Arnold: Fawcus & Pfriem, then the Grey Falcon Press, and eventually to the Trianon Press (Paris), a partnership which Arnold established in concert with a school friend from Bilton Grange, Patrick C.K. MacLeod. MacLeod's partnership lapsed when he took up his own activities in the mid-fifties. |
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The series of extraordinary facsimiles of watercolor works by Cezanne were seen by Geoffrey Keynes, at an exhibit in Boston. Sir Geoffrey inquired of Arnold whether or not he might be able to produce quality reproduction in collotype and pochoir work for one of the most important, most astonishing illuminated works in engraving and literary history, Blake's Jerusalem. The estimate, at the uneconomical low price of 4,000 pounds for 500 copies of the unique Jerusalem, led to what might be called a corporate venture into sublime achievement. An original subvention of approximately L15,000, which was granted by Sir Geoffrey's old friend, Graham Robertson, provided, title by title, the support and publication of each volume of The Trianon Press. Sir Geoffrey formed and directed the affairs of The William Blake Trust, the official body which selected and commissioned each title. |
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Arnold and his Press produced a remarkable sequence of works without rival. The facsimiles of Blake are of such quality that they could scarcely be detected from the original works held by such connoisseurs as Lessing J. Rosenwald and Paul Mellon. However, the works of Blake constituted only a part of his kaleidoscope of activities. He published a wide range of works by artists and authors such as Gislebertus, Shahn, Graves, Huxley, Chagall and Duchamp. In the Archive are plates for 25 unpublished series of works by Bruegel, Turner, etc. |
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Arnold was a powerful presence in art and literature. When he died, at the age of 61 in 1979, he was almost the last of that breed of buccaneer-publisher which is now an endangered species. His business survived permanently, as described by Sebastian Carter, "from fingernail to mouth, his ideas always [outrunning] resources, plates being printed in advance for books as yet unborn. It doesn't matter that he demanded the impossible from his suppliers; while they added 20% to their estimates and let him beat them down, he underpaid his staff, in an act that was 'worth more than money,' as was said of Diagelev, for the beauty of the result." Yet Arnold made little or no profit for himself on the Blake Trust titles. According to Sir Geoffrey, "he was content if his overheads were covered so that he could keep his craftsmen occupied." |
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His published work, cut short by an untimely death, would easily fill more than one life-time. This was but one dimension of his life. His energies, on weekends, were devoted to the restoration of a 16th-Century Chateau in Clairvaux and a massive chateau in Burgundy, built on medieval foundations with stone water-works of Roman origin. He was able to cajole the government to offer help in making repairs to the roofs and other expensive but essential projects. He was known internationally as an expert breeder of magnificent blue delphiniums (and was experimenting to produce a pink variety) by a method of scientifically controlled selection of seed. In the winter, he would ski in the mountains of the Jura. |
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Trianon Press Publications
 There is No Natural Religion  The Book of Thel  America: A Prophesy  White Lady of the Brandberg   Le Dur Desir de Dures  Sur Marcel Duchamp  Through the Troposcope  Ecclesiastes  Laocoon: A Last Testament
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Trianon Press Publications 1946 1947 1949 Fresques, Fra Angelico, text by Stanislas Fumet. Limited edition, TP. Prisons, Piranesi and Aldous Huxley, preface by Jean Adhemar. Limited edition, TP and Grey Falcon Press. Trade edition, TP, distributed by Faber. 1950 1951 Jerusalem, William Blake, Stirling copy. TP for WBT. 1952 1953 William Blake's Jerusalem, a commentary, Joseph Wicksteed. TP for WBT. 1954 Songs of Innocence, William Blake. TP for WBT. 1955 Adam's rib, Robert Graves, illus. James Metcalf. TP. 1957 Illustrations to the Bible, William Blake. TP for WBT. Philipp Cave, Henri Breuil. RPSA. 1958 The Fitzwilliam Museum, introduction and notes by Carl Winter. TP. 1959 Sur Marcel Duchamp, Robert Lebel. Limited edition, TP. Also English, French, American and German trade editions, 1959. The Tsisab Ravine and other Brandberg Sites, Henri Breuil. RPSA. Visions of the Daughters of Albion, William Blake. TP for WBT. 1960 Anibib and Omandumba, Henri Breuil. RPSA. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake. TP for WBT. 1961 Gislebertus, Sculptor of Autun, Denis Grivot and George Zarnecki. English, French, American and German trade editions. 1962 Samuel Palmer's Sketchbook,1824. TP for WBT. 1963 Miserere, reissue in slightly different format, in conjunction with L'etoile filante. English and American editions. 1964 The Story of the Wise Men, Regine Pernoud and Denis Grivot. English, French, American and German editions. William Blake, Poet, Printer, Prophet, Geoffrey Keynes. Commemorative catalogue for the Blake Trust exhibition. English, American and German editions. 1965 The Book of Thel, William Blake. WBT. The Haggadah for Passover, illus. Ben Shahn. American and English trade editions . 1966 The Haggadah for Passover, illus. Ben Shahn. Limited edition, TP. 1967 1968 The Gates of Paradise, William Blake. TP for WBT. 1969 1970 1971 Ecclesiastes, American and English trade editions. There is No Natural Religion, William Blake. TP for WBT. Water-colour Designs for the Poems of Thomas Gray, William Blake. Text by Geoffrey Keynes. Commemorative exhibition catalogue for the Tate Gallery. 1972 William Blake's Water-colour Designs for the Poems of Thomas Gray. TP for WBT. Hard-cover English and American trade editions of the Tate Gallery catalogue above. 1973 1975 The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake, text by Geoffrey Keynes. Trade edition published by OUP. The Song of Los, William Blake. TP for WBT. 1976 William Blake's Laocoon, a last testament, Geoffrey Keynes. TP for WBT. 1977 The Complete Portraiture of William and Catherine Blake, Geoffrey Keynes. TP for WBT. 1978 Samuel Palmer, a Vision Recaptured, Geoffrey Keynes, Arnold Fawcus, Raymond Lister, Graham Reynolds. TP. Commemorative handbook for the Palmer exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, winter 1978-9. 1979 1981 |