The Gospel of Mary
Newark, VT: Janus Press, 2006. Original Wrappers. Fine binding. Item #9783
Quarto. 40, [4] pp., pop-up. Limited edition, one of 150 numbered copies. Signed by Van Vliet, Holden, Miller-Brown. Bound by Audrey Holden in pulp-painted covers by Van Vliet and Katie MacGregor. who also created the pulp painting background for the centerpiece pop-up. Text is printed in Victor Hammer's American Uncial with wraparound commentary in Monotype Plantin by Andrew Miller-Brown. All housed in a paste-paper over boards clamshell with birch sides; boldly titled on the spine. A fine copy.
A remarkable rendering of the 2nd century Gnostic Gospel. Van Vliet's edition is a wonderful marriage of early and modern printing: the design echoing early printing, islands of text within a sea of commentary. Similarly, the choice of American Uncial, a typeface modeled by Hammer after early letterforms from a century near to the time of this gospel's composition, recalls early books. But this is a remarkably modern printing with modern abstracted embellishments where we would expect to find illuminated illustration in an early manuscript. Every page of the scholarly edition is visually engaging—a rare marriage, indeed! As if this exceptional design was not enough, "the reader," in the words of John A. Buchtel, "reaches the center of the book and, unexpectedly, the pop-up explodes out of the mottled purple and blue pulp painted page spread in the vivid multiple colors of Katie MacGregor's handmade papers. Its abstract design echoes the diagrams elsewhere in the book, and its sense of rising expansiveness is reinforced by the radiating silver paper strips woven through the surface of the pulp painting. . . . The pop-up is emblematic, perhaps, of a sudden realization—an epiphany—as the soul moves 'upward from its bondage to the flesh and the lower world to its liberation in the higher celestial realm.'" p. 48. A stunning work. Buchtel, John A. The Art of Paper: Claire Van Vliet and the Janus Press: Papermaking Collaborations (2024).
Price: $1,500.00