Pasdeloup Press
In the 1960s, Virgil Burnett was living in Paris and working off of commissions for cover art from Penguin. There, he met Maurice Darantiere, a master printer and publisher, who inspired him to pursue a career in the book arts. Before Burnett established Pasdeloup, he published a hand-printed book with Daryl Hine called Heroics. This book marks the beginning of Burnett’s involved, personal relationship with printed material. A book of five poems and six burin engravings, it is dedicated to Maurice Darantiere. Darantiere, the printer of the first edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses, represented one of the last remaining ‘master printers’, a tradition rooted in the medieval printmaking era, and was Burnett’s mentor through his early years of illustrating and publishing.
The commercial publishing world severely limits the artist freedom and agency of an illustrator. The illustrations become subordinate to the text and are unable to fulfill their intended role, as the illustrator does not have a say in the book design. Burnett’s choice to start his own press signals a rejection of the commercial book production in favor of a cohesive, personal collaboration between publisher, artist, and author. This move speaks to Burnett’s identity as an illustrator who looks to engage interpretively with the text and who understands his role as an illustrator as part of a community of artists working together and off of one another.
Like William Morris and the Kelmscott Press and Charles Ricketts and the Vale Press, Burnett’s press is an attempt to reconnect with the more personal method of bookmaking prominent in the 15th century. This is also reflected in the themes and artistry of the early books of the press. Le Roi S’Amuse (1966) was the first Pasdeloup Press publication. Written, illustrated, and published by Burnett, this book depicts the degenerate fantasies of a forgotten king.
In recent years, the press turned away from the medieval feel of its early work and began almost exclusively publishing books that pay tribute to artists and mentors that influenced Burnett. Edward Melcarth: a hercynian memoir, displayed here, is a biography and collection of work by Edward Melcarth, a Socialist Realist painter who Burnett studied under at Columbia University. Also later in life, Burnett began experimenting with terra cotta sculptures. These were primarily of the female form. The book Heroides, published by Pasdeloup Press and displayed here, includes images of many of his terra cotta females.
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| Maurice English, A Savaging of Roots, illustrated by Virgil Burnett Stratford, Ont.: Pasdeloup Press, 1974 |
Virgil Burnett, Heroïdes, Stratford, Ont.: Pasdeloup Press, 2003 |
Reflections, poems by Alan Boegehold, paintings by George d’Almeida, edited by Virgil Burnett Stratford, Ont.: Pasdeloup Press, 2010 |