Conjuration contre un loup-garou

First edition. Text in Russian, one of a sole issue of 15 copies numbered by Ania Staritsky. Our copy is one of 5 on coton écru, followed by ten copies on cotton in various colours.

Produced in collaboration with Claude Nardin, comprising 14 cotton pages stamped with original engravings by Ania Staritsky, in which the text is fully integrated into the composition.

A masterwork of Lettrism, printed entirely on cotton, by the Russian-Belgian artist of Ukrainian origin Ania Staritsky.

The pocket on the upper cover contains two leaves of handmade paper, written entirely in French by Staritsky: one providing a translation of the poem, the other setting out the edition justification in detail.

Original jute cloth binding by the artist, spine in red cotton with topstitching, boards decorated with embroidered red lines, upper board with stitched jute pocket featuring a printed purple design and abstract purple cotton embroideries, housed in a cloth-covered board slipcase with its metal clasp and ribbon.

The book as medium is a constant throughout Staritsky’s work. Having left the USSR for France at the age of seventeen, she “then settled in Brussels in 1932, where, after completing her training at the Institut supérieur des arts décoratifs in La Cambre, she worked as an illustrator for books, newspapers and advertising.” (Jean-Claude Marcadé, Dictionnaire universel des créatrices). Alongside her career as a painter and draughtswoman, she illustrated such classics as La Dame de pique by Alexander Pushkin (1947) and three volumes of Ronsard’s Amours (1950). During the latter part of her life, she “perfected her mastery of collage, tirelessly engraved on zinc, copper, lithographic stones, and linoleum” (Jean-Claude Marcadé, ibid.), creating artworks mixing typography and imagery:

“In Staritsky’s livre-objet, concept, gesture, composition, contrast and colour converge into one. For her, the livre-objet is the privileged space where a single sign triumphs, unfolding a multiple meanings.” (Jean-Claude Marcadé, “Exposition ANNA STARITSKY à l’Archipel Michel Butor à Lucinges, 2023”, [website “Vania Marcadé”])

Staritsky collaborated with French poets and writers (among them Michel Butor, Eugène Guillevic, Pierre-Albert Birot, Albert Dasnoy, Jean Follain, Michel Seuphor and Pierre Restany) in the creation of bold and experimental livres d'artiste. She also returned to her Slavic roots and published several book  in Russian, often connected with folklore and magic like this one. These also include Le Dit du Malheur de la Terre Russe, after a twelfth-century text (Слово о погибели земли русской, published 1967), and Otpusk, a text collected in the northern shores of Lake Onega, Pomorie (1971).

A rare and exceptionally fine copy of this remarkable livre-objet, combining embroidery, engraving, and printing on cloth.