In 1990 The Yolla Bolly Press agave me the chance to pick a title to illustrate, any title. I picked
Paris France by Gertrude Stein and Yolla Bolly published a limited edition, letterpress version. This coming month
San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum will be including it in "Seeing Gertrude Stein," a show curated by Wanda Corn. I'm pleased to be included in this show.
Announcement card
Le seul bien qui me reste au monde c'est d'avoir quelque fois pleuré.
It is not a secret but one does not tell it.
27, rue de Fleurus
Les Grandes Têtes
Portrait of Gertrude Stein: "I cannot write too much about how necessary it is to be completely conservative that is particularly traditional in order to be free."
Basket fait le beau.
(French cooking is) Fashion and Logic
Country Life in Wartime
Dog Man
Pavanne for Dead Twins
Tower of Horses
Les Fleurs Farouches
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Two Kitchens in Provence by M F K Fisher
The Yolla Bolly Press gave me the opportunity to do
Paris France because the year before, 1989, I'd done a book for them that had sold out in two weeks. This had only happened once before.
The book was
Two Kitchens in Provence, by food writer M F K Fisher, a memoir of life in Provence in the 1950s.
The Stein book was filled with stories, events I could illustrate. Not true of
Two Kitchens. For it the work was less specific to the text, more evocative of the tone.
Both books contain an Afterward written (and signed) by a celebrity:
the late George Plimpton wrote for
Paris France; Alice Waters did
Two Kitchens.
I loved working for Jim and Carolyn Robertson at the Yolla Bolly Press. Jim and I would get into shouting matches, big fights. He was the only friend with whom I ever felt comfortable doing that.
My wife, Vivienne Flesher, also did a book for Yolla Bolly, Vittorinni's
Tears and Wine.
Jim died soon after it was published.
After Jim's death, Carolyn decided to quit publishing books. It was a great loss.
Ever since I've searched for another client to fill the hole left by Yolla Bolly's absence. But I've never found one. That loss is part of the reason I returned to doing personal work, hand-painted books and works for the wall.
Still, nothing takes the place of a duo like Jim and Carolyn.
“Stein’s text and Schumaker’s images offer a lovely confluence of minds, for both writer and artist are warm and accessible companions. But it is clear that Stein is the star, Schumaker her gracious admirer seeking to animate bits of her text and make us read her words more avidly. His graphics pay homage to the vagaries of Stein’s storytelling––figures float in space, motifs are emphatically repeated, words become beautiful forms. And the placement of drawings in the book obeys the same logic––or illogic––of Stein’s prose: a turn of a page might reveal an image, unpredictably but delightfully there. Usually Schumaker’s images respond to specific passages, but sometimes they expand on the text to include more of Stein’s history. When Stein writes of how undistinguished her quarters were in rue de Fleurus––less than a hundred years old––Schumaker responds with an image that lists, in animated block lettering, the many artists who passed through 27, rue de Fleurus. He also understands Stein’s affection for dogs, a subject she mentions often in her text because she has just acquired Basket II, her second white poodle. Dogs appear here and there in the book, simple silhouettes or succinct drawings of different breeds, and from a variety of perspectives; the canine body language is so perfect you know Schumaker identifies with Stein’s dog-centric home.”
