Fisher, Roy, 1930-2017, Neighbours, we'll not part tonight , 1976
- Title(s):
- Neighbours, we'll not part tonight / by Roy Fisher ; with seven screen prints by Ronald King.
- Published/Created:
- Guildford [Surrey] : Circle Press, 1976.
- Physical Description:
- [10] sheets (in portfolio) : col. ill. ; 80 cm.
- Holdings:
- Rare Books and ManuscriptsFolio C 2009 1Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund[Request]
- Copyright Status:
- Copyright Not Evaluated
- Full Orbis Record:
- http://hdl.handle.net/10079/bibid/4255660
- Classification:
- Books
- Notes:
- "My son Danny had been attracted to this ballad some time before his death, and I decided to work on it in his memory. I travelled north and researched the background of knitting in the Dales and later commissioned Astrid Furnival to knit designs for the title page and poetry page. Most of the knitted images originated from an old copy of Weldon's Knitting Guide illustrated with detailed wood engravings."--Ron King, Cooking the books.
"Portfolio edition with seven large screen prints for a ballad written in 1959 about the hand-knitters of the Dales. 30 signed copies, 5 proofs -- 10 separate sheets 79 x 56 cm on J. Green mould-made paper -- title page, justification and colophon page, and poetry page with seven stanzas printed letterpress in 24 pt Plantin in black cloth-bound portfolio. Guildford, 1976."--Cooking the books.
"The first enterprise marking a return to something of King's former invention and unpredictability is Neighbours, We'll Not Part Tonight (1976), an Imperial size folio of nine silkscreen prints accompanying an earlier poem by Roy Fisher. King made this portfolio (which was intended to be framed and displayed in schoolrooms) in memory of Danny, and for the amusement and edification of children. Danny had liked Fisher's ballad, which was about the hand-knitters of the Yorkshire and Westmoreland Dales, and had asked his father why he didn't illustrate it. Now King did, taking the subject very seriously and travelling up North to Dentdale and Ravensdale to research further."--Andrew Lambirth, Cooking the books.
"There he discovered that it was traditional for the farming people to supplement their incomes with extra knitting. Everyone did it--men, women, and children--and continued to ply their needles even in church, though laying them aside at the parson's behest ('Put your pricks down') for the duration of the sermon. King designed large-scale, rather literal images to illustrate the poem. These incorporated knitted objects from Weldon's Knitting Guide, German knitting patterns, and local rhymes (the knitters used Anglo-Saxon counting schemes--yan, tan, tethera, and so on--to measure both the number of stitches and the number of sheep). Astrid Furnival (whose husband John was also to work with the Press) knitted numbers for the text page and a heading for the title page, which King then photographed and silk-screened. The results were bold and effective, if not exactly ground-breaking. This is very much an example of a pre-existing narrative leading the visual images, the reverse of the way in which Bluebeard's Castle was created."--Andrew Lambirth, Cooking the books.
Screen-printed by the artist and letterpressed at Circle Press in an edition limited to 35 portfolios numbered 1-30 with 5 artist proof copies.
Cooking the books, p.169
BAC: British Art Center copy is no. [21] of a limited edition of 35 copies, signed by artist. - Subject Terms:
- Artists' books -- Great Britain.Circle Press -- Publisher.Home labor -- Poetry.Knitting -- England -- Yorkshire Dales.
- Form/Genre:
- Artist's books.
Screen prints. - Export:
- XML