barryspannpaintings

by Emily Anderson

​

Introductory Note by Nicolas Barker

​

​

The Pursuit of Happy Results tells the story of the remarkable collaboration between Barry Spann and Paris publisher Arnold Fawcus, which resulted in Twenty-Seven Landscapes: 1977–1983, the last of the livres d'artiste produced at the Trianon Press. Trianon was a fine books publisher known both by its facsimile work for Sir Geoffrey Keynes and the William Blake Trust, as well as a succession of books done with Marc Chagall, Georges Rouault, Marcel Duchamp, and Ben Shahn.

 

This atelier was a place of painstaking effort, where Fawcus perfected both collotype and pochoir printing, bringing the art of graphic reproduction to its highest level. It was here that Barry Spann transformed his original graphite drawings into collotype prints, taking 'collotype a little further than its artisans … thought it could go' (Nicolas Barker, Introductory Note).

 

David R. Godine, Boston, 1991.