#Mourlot Freres

[uwmspeccoll]

Shakespeare Weekend

Shakespeare’s comedy Measure for Measure, is volume twenty-two of the thirty-seven volume The Comedies Histories & Tragedies of William Shakespeare, published by the Limited Editions Club (LEC) from 1939-1940. The play was likely first acted in 1604. It was first printed in the folio of 1623. 

Measure for Measure was illustrated by German Bohemian illustrator and stage designer Hugo Steiner-Prag (1880-1945). By his fifties Steiner-Prag had designed three hundred and sixty books and illustrated fifty-six books. He was for a time president of the Association of German Book Trade Artists. On illustrating this volume of he says:

I have always been deeply attracted by Measure for Measure with its bright and dark happenings, its glowing passions, its burlesque choirs, and with the frequently more than dubious personages that people this work with its threatening, fateful events that are the cause of such genuine pain and so many tears. It is therefore easy to understand my desire to illustrate it with pictures. 

His vibrant and imaginative illustrations were made in lithography and were printed by Mourlot Freres in Paris. 

The volumes in the set were printed in an edition of 1950 copies at the Press of A. Colish, and each was illustrated by a different artist, but the unifying factor is that all volumes were designed by famed book and type designer Bruce Rogers and edited by the British theatre professional and Shakespeare specialist Herbert Farjeon. Our copy is number 1113, the number for long-standing LEC member Austin Fredric Lutter of Waukesha, Wisconsin.

View more Limited Edition Club posts.

View more Shakespeare Weekend posts.

-Teddy, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[atmospheric-minimalism]

Joan Miró, exposition Internationale Du Surrealisme, 1959, Lithograph, 30 x 23 cm Lithograph from a poster created by Miró in 1947 for the atelier of Mourlot Freres.

[englishmodernism]

L’Ane et le Cheval Madeleine Parry Stone lithograph from the 1937 French children’s book, one of the Conte du Chat Perche series. Lithographed at Mourlot Freres. #marcelayme #madaleineparry #stonelithography @mourlotart #frenchchildrensbook #horse #donkey

[hermanwilkinson]

PABLO PICASSO (SPANISH, B.1881) "Figure with Buddha", Lithograph, dated in plate, 35.5 x 26.5 cm; from 'Verve' Collection, Paris, 1954, printed by Mourlot Freres Lot 52 - Irish & International Art Auction See Lot: https://goo.gl/TrDx4n

[uwmspeccoll]

Shakespeare Weekend! 

For this holiday weekend, we bring you the cheery tale of bravery, triumph, fall from grace, exile, revenge, and assasination in Shakespeare’s tragedy Coriolanus, illustrated by Hungarian artist Pál C. Molnár (1894-1981). This is the fifth volume of the thirty-seven volume The Comedies Histories & Tragedies of William Shakespeare, published by the Limited Editions Club (LEC) from 1939-1940. 

Coriolanus was written around 1608 and first printed in the folio of 1623. Many of the artists in this series got to choose a work of Shakespeare they wanted to illustrate. Molnar had a few reasons that drew him to Coriolanus. First, he wanted to illustrate a play he had not seen on stage. Secondly, he selected this play because it is one of Shakespeare's so-called Latin dramas, and he had a particular interest in ancient fashions and mosaics, and the influence is quite visible. Lastly, he selected Coriolanus, because the Hungarian poet Petőfi was so inspired by it that he translated it into Hungarian a hundred years earlier.

The paintings were made by Molnár in tempera paint to the exact size that they would appear in the book. They were reproduced by lithography at the studio of Mourlot Freres in Paris. Some of the illustrations took as many as fifteen layers to achieve the quality of Molnar’s hand. It is this attention to detail, quality, and the labor involved in the production, that make these books so fine. 

The volume was printed in an edition of 1950 copies at the Press of A. Colish. Each of the LEC volumes of Shakespeare’s works are illustrated by a different artist, but the unifying factor is that all volumes were designed by famed book and type designer Bruce Rogers and edited by the British theatre professional and Shakespeare specialist Herbert Farjeon. Our copy is number 1113, the number for long-standing LEC member Austin Fredric Lutter of Waukesha, Wisconsin.  

View more Limited Edition Club posts.

View more Shakespeare Weekend posts.

-Teddy, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[uwmspeccoll]

Shakespeare Weekend

This week we continue our way through the thirty-seven volumes of The Comedies Histories & Tragedies of William Shakespeare, published by the Limited Editions Club (LEC) from 1939-1940. Volume 3, As You Like It, is one of Shakespeare’s comedies, probably produced around 1599, but not printed until the first folio of Shakespeare’s work in 1623. The illustrations for the LEC edition were made by the French artist and illustrator Sylvain Sauvage, who had received an award in an illustration competition put on by the club. His watercolors were said to be “pretty to look upon, they were full of a literary understanding of the text, and they were shot through with a satiric wit.” 

Sauvage felt a particular connection to As You Like It, because he was quite familiar with the real-world setting of the play, the Forest of Ardennes in France (called “Arden” by Shakespeare, that evokes the forest in Warwickshire). Of illustrating Shakespeare he says:

“I have endeavored to render the elegant and simple grace of these personages placed in the setting of a golden age vague and marvelous in a dream, and in which the folly of the wise is interwoven with the wisdom of the fool, and faithful couples meet and separate and meet again like dragon-flies dancing on a Summer evening.”

Though he is an expert engraver and lithographer, Sauvage was best known in America for his watercolors which have been reproduced here with some layers of lithography and many layers of stencil hand-coloring, known as pochoir, by atelier of Mourlot Fréres in Paris. 

The volume was printed in an edition of 1950 copies at the Press of A. Colish. Each of the LEC volumes of Shakespeare’s works are illustrated by a different artist, but the unifying factor is that all volumes were designed by famed book and type designer Bruce Rogers and edited by the British theatre professional and Shakespeare specialist Herbert Farjeon. Our copy is number 1113, the number for long-standing LEC member Austin Fredric Lutter of Waukesha, Wisconsin.

View more Limited Edition Club posts.

View more Shakespeare Weekend posts.

-Teddy, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[englishmodernism]

Chataigne Nathalie Parain Stone lithograph from her 1934 Children’s Book For Gallimard. A tale of a very different type of circus and it’s performers. Lithographed at Mourlot Freres, where Picasso also worked and had his lithos printed. #circus #foxesofinstagram #catsofinstagram #nathalieparain @mourlotart #stonelithography #frenchchildrensbook

[englishmodernism]

The sky at night Tirely Astronome Stone lithograph by Serebriakoff for Gallimard’s albums du gai savoir lithographed at Mourlot Freres in 1935. #skystnight #paris #stars #frenchchildrensbook #stonelithography @mourlotart

[englishmodernism]

Les Petits Ruisseaux Font Les Grandes Rivieres French proverb illustrated by Madeleine Parry in the 1937 Album du Gai Savoir. Lithographed on the stone at Mourlot Freres. #frenchchildrensbook #autolithography @mourlotart #river #proverbs #madeleineparry

[englishmodernism]

B for Boeuf Nathalie Parain Stone lithograph from Les Boeufs, one of Marcel Ayme's children's books, published during wartime and lithographed at Mourlot Freres. #nathalieparain #boeufs #marcelaymé #stonelithography @mourlotart

[englishmodernism]

April La Ronde des Mois Anna Duchesne Lithographed at Mourlot Freres in 1936, a spread from one of the Albums du Gai Savoir, a series of lithographed French Children's Books. #april #larondedesmois @mourlotart #stonelithography #annaduchesne