A VISUAL BIOGRAPHY TOLD IN 100 WOOD ENGRAVINGS

By George A. Walker

 

 

AN AFFORDABLE EDITION

from The Porcupine's Quill

 

The Porcupine's Quill edition is a fine alternative to the more expensive limited editon. Printed on acid-free Zephyr Antique laid. Smyth sewn into sixteen page signatures with hand-tipped endleaves, front and back.


Typeset in Bembo. Printed on acid-free Zephyr Antique laid. Smyth sewn into sixteen page signatures with hand-tipped endleaves, front and back.

ISBN-10: 0-88984-365-1

EAN-13: 978-088984-365-3

Publication Date: 2013-09-01

Dimensions: 8.75 in x 5.56 in

Pages: 224

Price: $22.95

The idea for the book began in 2011, when I was putting the finishing touches on my wordless narrative about the life of Tom Thomson and considering what my next project might be. Since at the time Black’s legal battles in Chicago were front-page news, a friend suggested that I should create my next wordless narrative about the life and times of Conrad Black.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Conrad Black: A wordless biography told in 100 wood engravings, published in a limited edition of 13 signed and numbered copies available in the Spring of 2013.


The book was printed in a limited edition of 13 copies which is symbolic because Black removed 13 boxes of files from Hollinger Inc.'s Toronto headquarters that led to the investigation into his actions at Hollinger International and the subsequent US trial. George A. Walker created the original wood engravings, incising them on the endgrain of Canadian maple, and printed the text and images on his Vandercook SP15 proof press. The typefaces employed are Janson for the text body, Trajan for the titles and a hand-rendered face for the initial letters. The bookbinding was designed by Walker and finished at the studios of Tony Crowle of Van Huizen Bookbinding.

The paper: acid free Rising Stonehenge 250 gm.

Dimensions of book in box: 9" x 7.5" x 3.375" (23 cm x 19cm x 8.5cm)

Edition size: 13 signed and numbered copies

Price: $2,500.00

Binding: Full leather with rounded spine and faux cords

Box: Each leather binding is housed in an archival solander box.

Each book has a portrait of Conrad Black signed by the artist and Conrad Black (left side inset in box lid).


Above: George Walker engraving one of the blocks for the book.

Above & below: The images were inked onto endgrain maple and then engraved by hand and prepared for printing through a process of state proofs and adjustments to the blocks. These adjustments are known as make-ready on the press.

Below: Each page of the book was hand printed on Walker's letterpress in his Toronto studio in 2012.

 

Above left: The solander clam shell box holds the leather binding and signed print safely and securely. Above right: A detail showing the bookmark and headband on the leather binding.

Above: Each book is carefully hand sewn on cotton tapes.

Above and Below: The leather is glued onto the bevelled boards and the raised bands are defined with the nipping pliers.

Above: George Walker sewing the first copy of the book.

Below: The signatures sewn on tapes.

 

BACKGROUND

Conrad Black is one of the most outspoken and charismatic characters in the elusive one percent of people who make up the Establishment in Canada. He is a public person of international stature, at one time a media baron and still a man of great influence and wealth. This wordless narrative chronicles his life and times through 100 wood engravings that tell his story. It is a story of Black’s public life, and of how he has been portrayed in the media and the larger cultural theatre in Canada, the United States and Great Britain. It is also a story of how power and authority are seen, represented and, often, resented. As well, it is an object lesson in how we read visual images and interpret the meaning of the story from the images presented to us.

 

 

 

 

 

CONRAD BLACK: A wordless biography told in 100 wood engravings

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