Sims Reed Rare Books×

Brutus Killed Caesar

Baldessari, John

Akron, Ohio. The Emily H. Davis Art Gallery of the University of Akron ... &c. 1976
A very fine copy of John Baldessari's artist book 'Brutus Killed Ceasar'.

Baldessari is well known for using disparate elements of everyday life in his photographically generated works of art. In this, one of his earliest printed artists' books he juxtaposes three images in a linear format using two photographic portraits of a younger and older man facing each other with a photograph of a common household object between them. Each leaf repeats the same portraits but illustrates a different 'murder weapon' or more mundane item that might be (or has been at some point) used to commit a murder: a kitchen knife, a wooden board, a magnifying glass, a book of matches, pushpins, a banana skin, an arrow, an apple etc.

Baldessari's book was published thanks to 'The Emily H. Davis Art Gallery of the University of Akronwith the cooperation of the Sonnabend Gallery New York and The Ohio State University Columbus'. (see rear inner wrapper).

There is one very small bump to one corner (the upper right corner at spine of the front cover)otherwise the fragile book is in excellent condition.

[John Baldessari.,The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, 1990, pg. 247; Moeglin-Delcroix, Esthétique du livre d'artiste, pg. 275].
[35 unnumbered leaves]. Slim oblong 8vo. (274 x 95 mm). Leaf with title, blank leaf and 33 leaves, each with a triptych in matching format throughout composed of two facing profile monochrome photographic portraits of the same men at left and right and between a monochrome photograph of a weapon; all leaves printed recto only, publication details to rear inner wrapper. Original publisher's spiral bound printed wrappers with titles to front cover in black.
#48316