Sale 2497 - Fine Illustrated Books & Graphics, January 29, 2019

186 c   (DIEBENKORN, RICHARD / ARION PRESS.) Yeats, W. B. Poems with A Suite of Six Etchings. Selected and Introduced by Helen Vendler. the suite of 6 separate etchings , each initialed and numbered 15/40 by diebenkorn . The etchings are printed on English handmade paper from the Barcham Green Mill, 445x344 mm; 17 1 / 2 x13 1 / 2 inches, sheets, with wide margins; interleaved with sheets bearing the quotations from Yeats’s poetry that face the prints in the book; laid into matching green cloth and red board portfolio. colophon numbered 15 and signed by diebenkorn , Together with the limited edition book con­ taining 6 etchings bound in. Printed in red and black. 4to, 1 / 4 gilt-lettered red goatskin over green cloth; slipcase. San Francisco, 1990   [12,000/18,000] one of only forty sets of the rare and desirable suite of signed etchings accom ­ panying the limited edition book .   While the book is an edition of 426 copies, there were only 50 total suites of etchings made for this Arion Press Poems of W.B. Yeats comprising forty sets for sale, plus five roman-numbered artist’s proofs and five publisher’s proofs. “The poetry of William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) burst the boundaries of its native Ireland to become part of world culture. Helen Vendler, one of the foremost authorities on modern poetry and a University Professor at Harvard, selected for the Arion Press 145 poems and provided an introductory essay for the book. Richard Diebenkorn (1922-93), internationally recognized as one of America’s leading artists, took the Yeatsian theme of an empty coat on a hanger to produce a series of prints transforming the garment from a representational frock-coat into an abstracted suit-bag. The sixth etching is a double map of Ireland, indicative of that divided country”—From the Publisher.