Artist Books and Print Portfolios

Offset editions go to Epigone Press

Click on the series title for more information about the background, technique, binding and pricing of each book or series.

Candide - Or Optimism

Pillars of Society

Pulcinella in Hades

Journeys to the Moon and Sun

Hubris Corpulentus

Requiem For Dionysos

Gargantua in the Vineyard

Walking up and down in Asia

Forest Song

Promenade - A Voyeur's Guide To America

Various Prints

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Candide or Optimism The book opens to reveal Candide and Cunegonde kissing behind a screen of roses in the castle where they both grew up – “The Best of All Possible Worlds.” Thus begins the story of all the tragedies of their lives. When the accordion folds are pulled out a trail of rape, murder, inquisition, thievery, slavery and sea battles is presented. In the very center a peaceful scene of Candide in Eldorado: a place where people live in peace, a momentary respite from the insanity of European expansion and colonization. Along the bottom of the imagery is text from the book with the final bit of wisdom discovered after all the disasters, “We must cultivate our own gardens.” Candide or Optimism, 2008, edition of 15, screenprint, closed size: 7 3/8” x 12 1/2” x 1/2”, open size 7 1/4” x 72”, binding: gate fold hardcover, cover paper: various, marbled endpapers, thirteen pages, book body paper: Lana Cover White. $500 See series

 

Pulcinella in Hades Published by Eastside Editions this series was inspired by the comic opera by Offenbach, Orpheus in the Underworld. In this case Pulcinella of the Comedia dell Arte takes the role of Orpheus in a descent into Hades. The book is an accordian book that opens into an eight foot image printed from etching plates, with text in the margins referring to the action. The prints are 4 color etchings with a letterpress printed handwriting on the border. The edition size is twenty. The price for the book or the portfolio box is $3,000. View the whole series at the Eastside Editions web site here.

 

Pillars of Society, a series of 5 linocuts, each printed from 2 blocks, a grey and a black. The title of the series comes from a George Grosz' painting. The prints attempt a bleak assesment of American society in decay. Each print is 18" x 24", printed on Rising Stonehenge Warm White paper. The cover of the portfolio is Gray BFK paper with a screen printed title. Individual prints are $450. The series of 5 in the folio is $2,000.

 

Journeys to the Moon and Sun Published by Eastside Editions this series is based on the book Journeys to the Moon and Sun by Cyrano de Bergerac (1619-1655). Cyrano was the true life inspiration for the romantic figure of Edmond de Rostand's nineteenth-century play. He was a satirist, swordsmen, poet, and philosopher who indeed had a prodigious appendage. This translation from the original French, based on the 1662 edition, was made by Timothy Hampton, Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Berkeley.

The prints are color etchings with a linocut border. The text was printed letterpress within a linocut border. All the prints are on handmade paper made at Eastside Editions. The prints for this series were printed in an edition of twenty. Ten sets were bound as books, and ten were left loose in portfolio boxes. The price for the book or the portfolio box is $5,500. The following individual prints are available separately for the price of $550- Dew Flight, In Canada, Fireworks, In Prison, The Measure of Man. View the whole series at the Eastside Editions web site here.

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		Hubris Corpulentus After it became clear that nothing would stop the US march to war in Iraq, and my frustration and powerlessness mounted the only course that seemed open was to channel despair into small concise statements. Engraving is a method of cutting the copper, brass or zinc plate with tools to create an image.
	It is a laborious process and one I taught myself during this project. The minuteness, obsessiveness and control required were the perfect match for my mood of focusing anger at a particular detail of the monumentally hubristic government that the US has become under this administration.
	I did not presume to portray the photographic reality of the war nor the horrors of wars. My experience is limited in this regard to news consumption but I focused instead on the metaphorical and satirical nature of the enterprise. Liberty Brought to Baghdad portrays a bound and blindfolded lady liberty, roughly treated by troops who are dragging her off to her new intended. The Four Horsemen portray the classic four figures of death, war, disease and famine striding above the globe while tiny insignificant peace protesters march in ant-like swarms. This series is available as a set in a linocut printed portfolio for $2,000. Individual prints are $225. The edition of all prints is 25. Click here to view the whole series.

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Requiem For Dionysos, (2003) is a continuous image print assembled from five mixed linocut and woodcut prints bound together. It is printed in an edition of twenty. Nine copies are bound and ten sets are separate prints. The continuous image measures 24" x 90". Each individual print is printed from four separate linoleum or woodcut blocks. Price: $2000. Individual Print Price: $500.
Click here to view this series.

Requiem for Dionysos is inspired by Euripides' play the Bacchae and uses it as a launching point for a treatment of the current US war on terrorism. In the play the king of Thebes suspects a foreigner is inciting the people to madness and in his zeal for control he vows to uproot the evildoers. Like the current regime in the US the king believes the only logic the enemy understands is force. The king?s own hubris in the end leads to the destruction of himself and his empire.

The five panels of the print are titled individually - Prophet, Tocsin, The King, Sanctimony and Requiem. A quote from The Bacchae of Euripides accompanies each. While no attempt has been made to tell the story of the Bacchae in pictures the accompanying text does have resonance with the images.

In Prophet, - "I have come here from the east, veiling my godhead in human form,"- a headless man holds a television with a screaming head inside. Our source of information - a headless man. But the message of the text is ambivalent and points to several interpretations. The prophet is at once a metaphor for mass media and also a prophet like John the Baptist calling out for attention. And again "veiling my godhead" suggests the secrecy of terrorism.

Tocsin carries the theme of torture and detention with the pointed message from the text "You are a man to make men fear. Fearful will be your end."

The King - "Reports have been brought to me," - he listens to the news brought to him by victims and sycophants. He clutches the olive branch of peace in one hand and the bundle of sticks of fascism in the other. He exists in an armed camp surrounded by a fortress while his army carries out his missions.

In Sanctimony - "This Bacchic arrogance encroaches on us like a rising tide," - three world religions bound together with a rope argue and point in opposite directions while a woman stands with head bowed pleading for help. Fighter Jets fly overhead.

In Requiem - "I now cover your head, your torn and bloodstained limbs," - the results are seen. A stadium half destroyed stands as a metaphor for culture, while a violinist plays a tune for a half buried audience. This book was completed before the war in Iraq began but the ramifications of cultural destruction continue.

Dionysos the god of wine and joy is also the bearer of chaos and madness. He has two faces. Without him humanity is locked in a joyless life of drudgery. He reveals the depths of the soul through madness and ecstasy. Reason unrestrained by humility is madness. The irrational untethered to the ritual of tradition is chaos. Rationalism received its greatest impetus in Ancient Greece, but the limits of rationalism were also explored in the great literature of that period. In this print I have used the text of Euripides as a touchstone for our own battling dualities.

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Gargantua in the Vineyard

Francois Rabelais (circa 1490 - 1553) and his satirical writings on the illustrious giants, Gargantua and Pantagruel, were the inspiration for this book of prints by Art Hazelwood. Rabelais was a scholar of erudition, a mocker of manners, a defender of appetites, an adherent of wine, and a champion of laughter.

This visual interpretation was inspired by an episode in book I, chapter XXVII. Friar John, a monk of considerable thirst, is outraged by the invading army's destruction of the grape harvest. He grabs the staff of the cross from the altar and attacks the plundering army. The giant Gargantua and his allies join the battle and drive the enemies of wine, wit and wisdom from the vineyard.

Rabelais is not well known in the United States but is essential reading in France. His books were shocking in his day, leading to accusations of heresy. Rabelais seems an appropriate subject today in an age that takes itself so seriously. He laughed at much that was hypocritical in his age as in ours.

This continuous image book is made up of 10 separate prints joined together into one, as well as a cover image, title page and colophon. The image area measures 12" x 180" (inches). The entire book when spread out measures 18" x 288" (inches). When closed the book measures 18" x 18" (inches). It comes in a cloth covered slip case. It was Published in an edition of 25 at Eastside Editions, Sonoma, California. The prints were bound in an accordion fold format at Pettingell Bookbindery, Berkeley California. Two aquatint etching plates, one blue and one yellow were overprinted with a linoleum key block on 100% abaca paper made by hand by Simon Blattner and Roxane Gilbert at Eastside Editions.

The book costs $5,500 and is available from Eastside Editions. Some individual Prints from this series are available. Please inquire.Click here to view the series.

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Walking up and down in Asia
view the Walking up and down in Asia here.

From 1986 to 1993 I traveled around the world, living in Europe and Asia and in various parts of the States. My primary interest however was traveling in Asia. The intensity of travel lured me on to see more and more. Experiences of people and places left there mark and I have tried to give back some of that feeling. The Tibetan nomads, Vietnamese "cyclo" drivers, Japanese "salary man," Sikhs, Thais, and Uygurs that make up this series are the actors on an impossibly crowded world stage. It is this sometimes overwhelming encounter with the world that these prints seek to express.

Prints in this series include images of the following countries China, Tibet, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, India, and Pakistan. The production of this entire series makes up a period of 14 years from first trip to bound book, although the body of the prints were cut in the mid to late 90's.

Sixty woodcuts were printed by the artist on masa paper in editions varying in size from 25 to 50 of which numbers 11 - 20 were bound by the artist in a hand sewn hard cover book format. The prints were tipped in onto Arches cover text paper. The book measures 16" x 18" and is 72 pages altogether. This hardcover book sells for $1,800.

Review of Walking Up and Down in Asia

"When people embark on their travels, they often record their adventures in snapshots or in travel journals. Art Hazelwood has taken a more time-honored approach to recording the memories of his travels throughout Asia. After sketching his observations on drawing pads, Hazelwood creates woodcuts of his impressions in a graphic folk style. Flattened perspectives give added emphasis to an all over patterning, with crowded compositions that fill every square inch of the picture frame. Hazelwood's dynamic genre scenes and landscapes at once emphasize the frenetic activity of a dense urban metropolis such as Tokyo or Hong Kong, while at the same time, capturing the more leisurely way of life led by the region's rural inhabitants.

The artist first traveled to China in 1986, and has since developed somewhat of a love affair with Asia, having revisited the continent extensively over the past fourteen years. More than sixty woodcuts comprise Hazelwood's Asia series, on view at the Fetterly Gallery in Vallejo. The artist's enchantment with this region of the world and its people comes through in his images, which record travels in China, Hong Kong, Macau, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, India and Pakistan. Such sentiments prove to be infectious, for in looking at Hazelwood's woodcuts, we cannot help but be tempted to partake in a similar journey by following the artist's travel routes."

Berin Golonu, Artweek
July/August Edition 2000

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Forest Song
Click here to view Forest Song.
Forest Song is a book of 12 woodblock print images and 11 woodblock text images describing a subconscious journey through illness to restored health. The prints grew out of a period of illness in India. I was traveling for several months in Asia and found myself quite sick in Dharamsala, India, home of the Tibetan government-in-exile. There I stayed for two months being treated by Tibetan doctors and living in a hotel/monastery so that every morning at 3 a.m. I would awaken to the sound of chanting monks. A mysterious environment to be sinking into the lethargy of illness. The slow recovery and its accompanying sense of inwardness is the feeling out of which this series came. Although it shows no outward reference to the surrounding environment or my illness the prints are psychologically representative. The text was written by me to add to the atmosphere of mystery rather than as explanation.

Edition: 50. Media: Woodcut print book –12 images and 11 text blocks. Year: 1991. Size 9-1/2” x 13”. Binding: by artist. Printed on Mulberry paper. Published by Epigone Press, Tokyo - $750

There is an offset edition of this book costing $15. Individual prints from the series are available for $100 each.

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Promenade- A Voyeur's Guide To America
Click here to view Promenade

This unconventional travel guide to America chronicles the experience of an artist on the road described through 26 woodcut prints. The prints range from events like a rodeo and happy hour, to Chicago on the day of the stock crash of 1987, to a jazz club in New York and a wrecking yard in Jamaica Queens, along the way it includes murders, car wrecks, and homecoming parades. Over the nine month period that the artist traveled around the country he camped in snow storms, and in swamps, worked as a janitor, and cut the wood blocks that make up this book.

Edition: 50. Media: Woodcut print book –26 prints. Year: 1989. Size: 16-1/2” x 11-1/2”. Image sizes vary. Binding: portfolio binding by artist. Travelogue of time spent in a VW Van touring the US. Printed on Masa paper. Published by Epigone Press, Santa Fe, NM - $900

Additionally there is an offset edition of this book costing $12.95. Some individual prints from the series are available for $100 each.

Some reviews of Promenade- A Voyeur's Guide to America

"Hazelwood has captured America's (voyeurism) in a variety of activities both public and personal; the animated but isolated existence of many lives across the country. The woodcuts, which make up the contents of this books, are clearly influenced by German Expressionists, but the subject matter is uniquely American from rodeo to circus, from stock market to murder. The black and white images reflect the lives of ordinary workers, the public faces and hidden emotions, in a richness which belies the stark style of their creation?A strangely moving, intensely graphic view of the promenade of daily life in our country."
Paula Frosch, Small Press, Winter 1995

"There is a nervousness to his line to generate the energy that America represents, and (the) reflection of the workers of America...makes this book surge with vitality and electricity ...Whether voyeur or witness, Hazelwood's eye is right on!"
Judith A. Hoffberg, Umbrella, June 1994, Vol. 17 No. 2 pg. 55

"Art Hazelwood visits homegrown murder and mayhem alike in Promenade-A Voyeur's Guide To America... (He) records his encounters with car wreckers, oyster shuckers, motel lovers, and on the cover, "The Whore of New Orleans", a picture dour enough to please Catherine MacKinnon."
Nancy Princenthal, The Print Collector's Newsletter, May-June 1994, Vol.XXV No.2 Pg.74

"Images and scenes of dancers, rodeo riders, parades, acrobatic performances and everyday occurrences are celebrated in Hazelwood's expressionist yet clearly legible prints. In the tradition of H. Glintenkamp's Wanderer In Woodcuts, this book too closely examines our surroundings to give the reader a new awareness of their surroundings."
Kurt Webb, Silent Story Books

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For more information or questions or comments write to Art Hazelwood at arthur@arthazelwood.com

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