The departure of the argonaut

Alberto Savinio

RA Collection: Book

Record number

20/657

Author

Variant Title

Partenza dell'argonauta. English

Edition

1st edition

Imprint

[London] ; [New York]: Petersburg Press, 1986

Physical Description

99 unnumbered pages : illustrations (some colour) ; 30 cm.

General Note

Facsimile of the Petersburg Press deluxe Livre D'Artiste for which Francesco Clemente produced a series of forty-eight lithographs.
Translation of: La partenza dell'argonauta. The original was published in serial form in 1917 and as a section of the author's Hermaphrodito in 1918.

Summary Note

“This book reproduces in its entirety, in reduced format, the limited edition publication of The Departure of the Argonaut. For that publication, Francesco Clemente produced a series of forty-eight lithographs, embellishing each double-page spread of the text, in its first English translation.

The Departure of the Argonaut (1918) is the travelogue and wartime diary of Alberto Savinio, one of the seminal figures in twentieth-century Italian arts and letters. Clemente’s accompanying images transcend traditional illustration, providing a subtle balance between the fantasy of the artist and the visual ideas of the text. Each chapter is treated in a fresh and different style, and in each a unity of word and image is achieved that represents the art of the illustrated book at its most ambitious. Clemente has stated that during his work on this project he became fascinated, as never before in his career, with the technical aspects of printmaking. He has used a broad range of lithographic techniques and materials to produce a remarkable variety of visual effects. His illumination of the text is a richly personal work, inventive, witty and elegant.

The English translation is by George Scrivani, whose note on the text appear on the back flap of this jacket.

Published by Petersburg Press, New and London, on the occasion of an exhibition of The Departure of the Argonaut organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, [6 November 1986 to 10 February 1987].

Cover: reproduced from a lithograph in four panels, each 65 x 50 cm, drawn by Francesco Clemente in 1986 for this edition.” [Dustjackt].

Contributors

Francesco Clemente, illustrator
Petersburg Press, publisher