Spiritual Reflection and Artistic Collaboration

The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
Los Angeles: Robin Price, 1995.
(AFG9277)

Designed and printed by Robin Price – Illustrated with linoleum cuts by Barbara Benish – Digital composition and typographic consultation by Gerald Lange of the Bieler Press – Hand bound by David Brock

In 1992 Robin Price (born 1962) began producing artists’ books which she published under her own name. Price describes both the process of handcrafting books, and the authors and titles to which she is drawn, in deeply spiritual terms. She writes, “For me, the books I publish represent some aspect of spirituality. I am drawn to authors whose work reflects, in a metaphorical sense, the process of making books by hand: a love of nature and materials; a passion for details; a search for peaceful resolutions; and a sense of reaching out to the reader.” Reflecting on the link between text and image, she goes on to say, “I often link these manuscripts with the work of a visual artist who shares an affinity for the text. Our close collaboration adds the spark to truly bring the book alive.” For the text, Price drew from the Doves Press Bible and the Oxford Lectern Bible, while Benish drew influence from Albrecht Dürer, Cranach the Elder, William Blake, José Guadalupe Posada, and Josef Vachal, as well as the I Ching.

Price’s 1995 The Revelation of Jesus Christ is the result of a collaboration with the artist Barbara Benish (born 1958), who began working on the linoleum cuts for this production in 1992. In order to produce this work of text with multi-colored illustrations, Price and Benish further collaborated with a number of other artisans whom they credit in the book’s colophon. Benish’s original artwork was produced first as proofs by Robert Dansby and subsequently as photoengravings by Peterson Engraving Company, finally being printed as a combination of monoprints and linoleum block prints. The text itself involved a combination of digital composition, hand setting type, and the production and letterpress printing of photopolymer plates made by Patrick Reagh.

The book was published in an edition of fifty copies, forty of which were for sale. This copy is number 16 and is signed by Robin Price and Barbara Benish.

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The New Testament - The Book of Revelation
Spiritual Reflection and Artistic Collaboration