František Kupka (1871-1957)

QUATRE HISTOIRES DE BLANC ET NOIR, PRIORITY ISSUE

1926
Book format 4°, 25,8x33,5 cm. An album of woodcuts Four Stories of White and Black by František Kupka contains woodcut decorated paper cover with the title, artist`s name and date. Complete interior consists of loose sheets. Vacat page with pasted visiting card of Mme Eugénie Kupka with a handwritten greeting and attached clipping of the wrapping paper with the address of Max Paul Fouchet, an important French writer, teacher and art collector, to whom this work was gifted by Mrs. Kupka. Title page with a variant of the woodcut on the cover. Page with typographic text "Frank Kupka Universally known as The Puteaux Master", another page with calligraphic text by František Kupka, commenting the collection "VISIBLEMENT CES HISTOIRES NE SE PASSENT PAS ENTRE FIGURES HUMAINES , AU MILIEU DES ARBRES ..." 25 individual woodcuts numbered 2 - 26. Another page with the variant of the frontispiece. Another set of 25 unnumbered woodcuts. These are the first states of the engravings. Issued by František Kupka at his own expense in 300 numbered copies. The priority issues were numbered 1 - 100 and contained also one complete set of first states of the prints. It means 2 x 25 individual engravings + prints on the cover and frontispieces. The normal copy contained only 25 prints. Printed by G. Kádár in Paris in 1926. Copy no. 78. Stored in a case made of leather and white parchment. Decorated with applied black leather geometric ornaments in white parchment. Case made by Eliška Čabalová.