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Daedalus

Name: Daedalus - Washington Color Gallery
SKU: daedalus
Price: 2500.00 USD
Availability: InStock

Bernard Childs

Unframed size: Not available

$2,500.00

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About the work

This picture of Daedalus was printed from a matrix composed of carborundum and epoxy on cut aluminum, mounted on wood, by Harry Bettum (formerly of the Spiral Press and at the time of this printing at The Sleepwalker Press).

This is an exceptionally rare find: A signed, dated, and titled state proof of a work by Bernard Childs. Childs rarely signed his proofs.

This work was commissioned by the publisher Cavefors Bokförlag in a run of 2000 unsigned and unnumbered copies for use as a tip-in for the book “Jolifanto Bambla: Texter Om Konst” [Jolifanto Bambla: Lyrics about Art]. Jolifanto Bambla was a collection of essays about artists Duchamp, Rauschenberg, Dali, Ekstrom, and many others by the Swedish art historian and printmaker Ragnar von Holten.

This picture is part of the body of Childs’ experiments printing art with a letterpress. It began with an invitation from the poet and artist George Lockwood, the pressman at the Impressions Graphic Workshop in Boston. Lockwood invited Childs to experiment with him with a new letterpress that Impressions had just obtained.

Following his experiments with Lockwood at Impressions, Childs set up a letterpress in the Brooklyn garage of his friend Harry Bettum. (Bettum had been the master printer at The Spiral Press in New York and at the time of this printing was at The Sleepwalker Press.) Childs and Bettum worked together on the press, which had been loaned to them—and subsequently given to them—by Steve Andrus, the owner of Impressions Graphic Workshop. This is one of 18 of Bernard Childs’ works printed on this letterpress machine with Bettum.

The artist’s wife, Judith Childs (an extraordinary historian of Bernard’s work), told me that Bernard loved myths and, interestingly, considered Daedalus to be the hero of the Daedalus and Icarus story.

An interesting footnote: Childs was given four copies of the book by the publisher, one of which is now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, one is in the Mortimer Rare Book Room at Smith College, and another is in the New York Public Library.

This work is beautifully framed in walnut with a thick fabric-wrapped top mat. The work is floated in the empty space between the non-glare Museum Glass (which blocks 99% of UV rays) and the support. Framed using strictly conservation-grade materials and techniques.