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Schulz, Bruno (Author/Artist); Ficowski, Jerzy (Editor/Contributor) & Other Contributors : The Drawings Of Bruno Schulz

Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL, 1990

ISBN 0810109646

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in Fine Dust Jacket. 271 pages. Collection of the author's drawings. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original by a University Press. The First Edition is now rare. A brilliant production by William A. Seabright: Oversize-volume format. Black cloth boards with red titles embossed on spine, as issued. Art by Bruno Schulz. Text by Jerzy Ficowski. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in the United States to the highest standards. In glossy pictorial DJ with titles on the cover and spine, as issued. Presents "The Drawings of Bruno Schulz". What remains of his body of work as an artist. A great engraver-draftsman, Schulz earned his living as a menial art teacher. He was one of the first Modern writers to incorporate his own drawings in his stories, one of which, "The Age of Genius", is about his artistic childhood. "His art, like his writing, is deeply infused with a sense of personal and cultural degradation, an ominous, prescient aura of the horrors in store for the fragile and rapidly disappearing world in which he lived. The originality of Schulz's work lies not only in the intimate conveyance of life, but in the grotesque eroticism of its iconography. Describes the struggle between spirit and matter, the pain of creation, and the compelling force of torment" (Jerzy Ficowski). The drawings have a Classical purity of line that harks back to the Old Masters. The most revelatory works are the ones that render his adult-subjects, including himself, as stunted, dwarf-like, deformed. With their overgrown heads and distorted figures, the grown-ups look like children. As strange as it may sound, erotic desire is a manifestation of childhood in the Schulzian universe. That is, sex may be an adult activity, but its power is precisely to render the human being powerless (before sexual desire), as needy and dependent as a child. Hence the explicit masochism of Schulz's erotic drawings. To anyone familiar with his books, none of this is surprising as Schulz saw life as a form of eternal childhood. Because we are human, we can only "grow" so much; we have to pretend to be adults when in fact, we will always, happily and unhappily, be children; and in the end, childhood, pains and all, is both genius and bliss. There is nothing quite like these drawings, where human beings, presented in exaggerated fashion, capture what they really are deep inside. An absolute "must-have" title for Bruno Schulz collectors. This title is a modern classic. This is one of few copies of the First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright, a pristine beauty. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws, are subsequent printings, or are remainder-marked. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. 200 plates. One of the greatest artist/writers of the 20th century. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER BRUNO SCHULZ TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0810109646.

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