barryspannpaintings

N'importe quel paysage est une condition de l'esprit. (Any landscape is a condition of the spirit.)

​

                         —Henri-Frédéric Amiel                                                                  

In 1977, Barry Spann embarked on a project which would lead to Paris and six years of innovative printmaking. The starting point was his original graphite drawing Dusk, the first in a series of drawings from which he would make, not reproductions, but new interpretations in collotype.

​

Twenty-Seven Landscapes: 1977–1983, 1984, the resulting livre d'artiste, is the last such work published in association with the Trianon Press, Paris, a fine books publisher known for its collaboration with Britain's William Blake Trust as well as a succession of books done with Marc Chagall, Georges Rouault, Marcel Duchamp, and Ben Shahn. Nicolas Barker, OBE, formerly Deputy Keeper of the British Library, has called it 'a tour de force both artistic and technical.'

​

The original graphite drawings, collotypes, and livre d'artiste are in many collections worldwide, including the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, London's Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.

​

The Pursuit of Happy Results: Barry Spann and the Making of Twenty-Seven Landscapes, a record of those years in Paris, was published in 1991.