Eugene Feldman

Catalogue

Dimensions are given in inches, width before height before thickness

DOORWAY TO PORTUGUESE
DESIGNERS Aloisio Magalhães and Eugene Feldman
INDIVIDUAL PAGES DESIGNED BY Chuck Ax, Eugene Feldman, Aloisio Magalhães, Peter Paone, Eileen Tabor
DATE 1957
PRINTER Falcon Press
PUBLISHER Falcon Press
DISTRIBUTOR George Wittenborn, Inc., New York
TEXT Eugene Feldman
EDITION         1957: 300 numbered copies
1958: 750 projected, few produced
SIZE 81/2 x 107/8 x 3/8
NUMBER OF PAGES 28 plus endpapers
NUMBER OF PRINTS 12 plus cover and slipcase
PAPER Hamilton Vellum Opaque
TYPE Card Mercantile and News Gothic
INK black plus 8 colors
FILM Du Pont Photolith on Cronar®
PLATES 3M aluminum
PRESS Harris EL 23 x 35 one-color
BINDING perfect binding; cover of printed paper wrapped and mounted on cardboard; printed paper wrapped slipcase

 

Various: BERNSTEIN JOURNAL or NEAGLE JOURNAL or others
DESIGNER Eugene Feldman
DATE 1957 New Year's announcement for 1958
PRINTER Falcon Press
EDITION approximately 50
SIZE  111/8 x 16 x 1/4
NUMBER OF PAGES 4 sheets 22 x 32, folded twice to 11 x 16 plus endpapers NUMBER OF PRINTS 4
PAPER Brown Linweave (?)
TYPE Craw Clarendon numerals
INK black on spine; 4 colors for numerals
FILM Du Pont Photolilh on Cronar® (?)
PLATES 3M aluminum (7)
PRESS Harris EL 23 x 35 one-color for print
Chandler Price 10 x 15 platen press for type
BINDING cover of sheet printed with all four numerals wrapped and mounted on cardboard; envelope of same printed sheet as cover

 

MELISSA: VOLUME 1- No.1
DESIGNER Eugene Feldman
DATE October 6, 1958 birth announcement
PRINTER Falcon Press
PUBLISHERS The Authors: Eugene and Rosina Feldman
EDmON approximately 75
SIZE 51/8 x 43/8 x 9/16
NUMBER OF PAGES 2 printed; 94 blank 
NUMBER OF PRINTS cover only, repeated on slipcase
PAPER varied
INK black for type; 3 colors for print
FILM Du Pont Photolith on Cronar® (?)
PLATES 3M aluminum (?)
PRESS Harris EL 23 x 35 one-color for print
 Chandler Price 10 x 15 platen press for type
BINDING sewn and glued to cardboard cover; wraparound cover print glued to cover boards, then trimmed 3 sides: cover print glued to slipcase

 

DOORWAY TO BRASILIA
DESIGNERS Aloisio Magalhães and Eugene Feldman
DATE September 1959
PRINTER Falcon Press
PUBLISHER Falcon Press
DISTRIBUTOR George Wittenborn, Inc., New York
INTRODUCTION Juscelino Kubitschek, President of Brazil, 1955-1961
FOREWORD John Dos Passos
TEXTS           Lúcio Costa, City Planner
Oscar Niemeyer, Project Architect
Translations by José Guilherme Mendez and Elaine Goff
NOTE ON PRINTING PROCESS Eugene Feldman
EDITION numbered edition of 2,000
SIZE 11 x 11 x 1/2 
NUMBER OF PAGES 24 plus 5 six-page gatefolds, 2 six-page
gatefolds with the last page of the first glued to the first page of the second, and endpapers
NUMBER OF PRINTS 18
NUMBER OF PHOTOGRAPHS 3
NUMBER OF MAPS AND SKETCHES 3
PAPER Mohawk Poseidon
TYPE News Gothic Bold
INK black plus various
FILM Du Pont Photolilh on Cronar®
PLATES Pitman aluminum, type S. T.
PRESS Harris EL 23 x 35 one-color
BINDING perfect bound; printed coverstock wraparound sheet glued to boards; three-color (blue, yellow, and green) folded and glued wrapper

 

THE WORLDS OF KAFKA & CUEVAS An unsettling flight to the fantasy world of Franz Kafka by the Mexican artist, Jose Luis Cuevas
EDITORS AND DESIGNERS Louis R. Glessman and Eugene Feldman
DATE copyright December 1959 by Falcon Press
PRINTER Falcon Press
PUBLISHER Falcon Press
DISTRIBUTOR George Wittenborn, Inc., New York
PREFACE José Gomez-Sicre, Chairman of the Visual Arts Section, Pan American Union Translated by Ralph E. Dimmick
QUOTATIONS FROM          Franz Kafka: America; The Metamorphosis; The Trial, a letter to his father
Rollow May: Man's Search for Himself
Max Brod: Franz Kafka, a Biography; Franz Kafka's Diaries Translated by Beily Robinson and José Gomez-Siere
NOTE ON PRINTING PROCESS Eugene Feldman
EDITION numbered edition of 600
SIZE 17 x 22 x 3/8
NUMBER OF PAGES 36 plus endpapers
NUMBER OF ILLUSTRATIONS 20
PAPER Mohawk Poseidon
TYPE News Gothic Bold
INK black plus gray
FILM Kodalith Ortho (paper base) for continuous-tone negatives
Du Pont Photolith on Cronar® for line negatives
PLATES Pitman aluminum, type S. T.
PRESS Harris EL 23 x 35 one-color
BINDING perfect binding; printed paper cover mounted on board then trimmed 3 sides; folded and glued paper wrapper
 

THE NOTEBOOKS AND DRAWINGS OF LOUIS I. KAHN
EDITORS AND DESIGNERS Richard Saul Wurman and Eugene Feldman
DATE 1962; copyright 1973 by Richard Saul Wurman and Eugene Feldman
PRINTER Falcon Press
PUBLISHER 1962: Falcon Press
1973: MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
DISTRIBUTOR 1962: George Wittenborn, Inc., New York
1973: MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts
FOREWORD AND TEXT    Louis I. Kahn
Edited by Sarah D, Jones
EDITION                     1962: 1800 numbered copies
1973: 3000 copies
SIZE 113/8 x 151/4 x 5/8
NUMBER OF PAGES 68 plus 3 six-page fanfolds, 1 six-page gatefold, and endpapers NUMBER OF DRAWINGS 75 plus endpapers
PAPER          1962: Warren Bookman
1973 Curtis Colophon
TYPE Scotch Roman
INK black plus tan and tracing-paper yellow
FILM   1962: Du Pont Litho, type S
1973: Du Pont Litho, type S and Kodalith, type 3
PLATES         1962: 3M aluminum, type R
1973: 3M aluminum, type R and Kodak aluminum, type M.
PRESS          1962: Harris LTP 23 x 35 two-color
1973: Harris LWQ 25 x 38 two-color and LWR 25 x 38 four-color
BINDING adhesive case-bound in Lynnene book cloth; cover gold-stamped from hand-cut brass die, spine from machine-etched copper die; printed paper wrapper

 

NEW YORK: WEST SIDE SKYLINE
PRINT BY Eugene Feldman
DESIGNER Eugene Feldman
DATE 1965
PRINTER Falcon Press
PUBLISHER Falcon Press
DISTRIBUTOR George Wittenborn, inc., New York
EDITION numbered edition of 250
SIZE 81/2 x 171/2 x 7/16
NUMBER OF PAGES 27 out of 8 sheets glued together and fan-folded
NUMBER OF PRINTS 1 continuous print 2291/2 x 171/2
four-color printed pattern on reverse side, printed on waste-sheets
PAPER Mohawk Poseidon
TYPE Grotesque No. 9 Italic
INK black and various
FILM Du Pont (?)
PLATES 3M aluminum, type R
PRESS Harris LTP 23 x 35 two-color
BINDING sheets glued together and fan-folded, the ends glued to inside of cover boards; cover of sections of the print wrapped and glued to outside of cover boards; wrapper of sections of the print glued closed
THE SPOT BOOK
DESIGNER Eugene Feldman
DATE copyright April 1966 by Philadelphia Museum of Art
PRINTER Falcon Press
PUBLISHER Philadelphia Museum of Art
DISTRIBUTOR Philadelphia Museum of Art
EDITION numbered edition of 500
SIZE 23 x 35
NUMBER OF PRINTS 19
PAPER Strathmore Beau Brilliant and Grandee and Georgia Pacific Graphicweave
INK black
FILM Du Pont (?)
PLATES 3M aluminum
PRESS Harris LTP 23 x 35 two-color
BINDING none; prints presented as flat sheets

A DAY FOR ANNE FRANK POEM BY C. K Williams PRINT BY Eugene Feldman DESIGNERS Eugene Feldman and Sarah J. Wilfiams DATE copyright 1968 by C. K Williams PRINTER Falcon Press PUBLISHER Falcon Press DISTRIBUTOR Joseph Fox, Bookseller, Philadelphia EDITION 1,000 SIZE 8V2 x 1P14 NUMBER OF PAGES 16 NUMBER OF PRINTS 1, falling on 8 pages PAPER Strathmore Pastel Ie TYPE Times Roman INK gray FILM Du Pont ('7) PLATES 3M aluminum PRESS Harris LWO 25 x 38 two-color BINDING saddle-stitched, self-cover
MULTIPLES: THE FIRST DECADE AUTHOR John L. Tancock DESIGNER Eugene Feldman
11

 
A DAY FOR ANNE FRANK
POEM BY C. K. Williams
PRINT BY Eugene Feldman
DESIGNERS Eugene Feldman and Sarah J. Williams
DATE copyright 1968 by C. K. Williams
PRINTER Falcon Press
PUBLISHER Falcon Press
DISTRIBUTOR Joseph Fox, Bookseller, Philadelphia
EDITION 1,000
SIZE 81/2 x 113/4
NUMBER OF PAGES 16
NUMBER OF PRINTS 1, falling on 8 pages
PAPER Strathmore Pastelle
TYPE Times Roman
INK gray
FILM Du Pont (?)
PLATES 3M aluminum
PRESS Harris LWQ 25 x 38 two-color
BINDING saddle-stitched; self-cover

 

MULTIPLES: THE FIRST DECADE
AUTHOR John L. Tancock
DESIGNER Eugene Feldman
DATE copyright 1971 by Philadelphia Museum of Art
PRINTER Falcon Press
PUBLISHER Philadelphia Museum of Art
DISTRIBUTOR Philadelphia Museum of Art and Boston Book and Art, Publishers
PREFACE Dr. Evan H. Turner, Director, Philadelphia Museum of Art
EDITION 3,000 Museum edition
            1,000 trade edition
SIZE  51/2 x 9 x 11/2
NUMBER OF PAGES  112 colored pages; 40 white
NUMBER OF ILLUSTRATIONS  65
PAPER Hopper Carrara and Sonata for text: 20 each red, orange, yellow,
16 each green and blue, 20 violet
Champion Kromekote for illustrations
TYPE Alphatype Versatile for essay
IBM MT/ST Univers typewriter for catalogue
INK black
FILM Du Pont (?)
PLATES Kodak aluminum, type LNM
PRESS Harris LWQ 25 x 38 two-color
BINDING adhesive crash-bound; snap closure; no cover: opens 360° to form a cylinder; printed and glued paper closure band

 

EUGENE FELDMAN DRUKSELS
PLACE Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
EXHIBITION DATES 15 May-11 June 1962
DESIGNER Eugene Feldman
PRINTER Falcon Press
INTRODUCTION Pieter Brattinga, Chairman, Department at Advertising Design, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York
EDITION approximately 1,000
SIZE 71/2 x 101/4
NUMBER OF PAGES 2 eight-page double fanfolds
NUMBER OF PRINTS 3 plus covers
PAPER 16 lb. sulphite bond (?)
TYPE typewriter
INK silver for cover; black plus gray for inside
FILM Du Pont (?)
PLATES 3M aluminum, type R
PRESS Harris EL 23 x 35 one-color
BINDING saddle-stitched; paper covers

 

FELDMAN / FALCON PRESS
PLACE Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
EXHIBITION DATES 16 February – 1 March 1964
DESIGNER Eugene Feldman
PRINTER Falcon Press for cover Colwell Press, Inc., Minneapolis, for inside signature
INTRODUCTION Rob Roy Kelley, Staff Designer, Walker Art Center
EDITION approximately 1,000
SIZE 81/2 x 11
NUMBER OF PAGES 1 six-page gatefold; eight-page double gatefold covers
NUMBER OF PHOTOGRAPHS 1
NUMBER OF PRINTS 1, which is enlarged and repeated, right half on inside covers and left half on outside covers I
PAPER Brown Linweave Text
INK brownline brown for cover (3 plates same color) black for inside
FILM cover: Du Pont (?)
PLATES cover: 3M aluminum, type S
PRESS cover: Harris LTP 23 x 35 two-color
BINDING saddle-stitched, paper covers

 

EUGENE FELDMAN / PRINTS
PLACE Philadelphia Museum of Art
EXHIBITION DATES 6 April – 11 May 1966
DESIGNER Aloisio Magalhães
PRINTER Falcon Press
INTRODUCTION Dr. Evan H. Turner, Director, Philadelphia Museum at Art
TEXTS Kneeland McNulty, Curator at Prints and Drawings,
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Alan M. Fern, Assistant Chief, The Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs
Division José Gómez-Sicre, Chairman, Division of Visual Arts,
Department of Cultural Affairs, Pan American Union
Translated by Ralph E. Dimmick
EDITION 1,000
SIZE 81/2 x 171/4 
NUMBER OF PAGES 16, including covers
NUMBER OF PRINTS 9 details from The Spot Book
PAPER Mohawk Superfine
TYPE Grotesque Light
INK black plus 9 colors
FILM Du Pont
PLATES 3M aluminum, type R
PRESS Harris LTP 23 x 35 two-color
BINDING saddle stitched; self-cover

 

Books by Eugene Feldman

Suzanne Delehanty
Ed Colker
Aloisio Magalhães


Suzanne Delehanty, Director
Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pensylvania

Eugene Feldman's books are microcosms. They reflect the endless curiosity and joy in experimentation and discovery that inspired those who knew Gene either directly or through his books and fine prints. The books are complex because problems in photography, design, and printing sparked Feldman both as an artist and as a technician. He could make the commercial offset press and the most sophisticated printing technology serve his creative intentions. The books also reflect Feldman's ability to collaborate with other artists and to manage every facet of the Falcon Press, his alter ego. From 1948 to 1975 Falcon Press was his studio, his business, and a hospitable meeting place for artists, students, and friends.

For Feldman, working with others meant the formation of lasting friendships. Ed Colker, who contributed to the catalogue text, is now on the faculty of the University of Illinois; he and Feldman were friends for nearly thirty years and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania where Feldman taught from 1962 until his death in 1975. Aloisio Magalhães, the distinguished Brazilian artist and graphic designer, was Gene's friend since they first collaborated on Doorway to Portuguese in 1957. Sarah Williams, who worked for Feldman at Falcon Press, contributed the catalogue entries and edited portions of her interview with Aloisio Magalhães. Her enthusiasm for every phase of the project is a tribute to Gene. The typesetting was contributed by Lynn Lewis, a highly regarded photocompositor. Gene taught Lynn about typesetting and she unraveled the computer's secrets for Gene; at the age of fifty, he was both a ready teacher and a willing student. The typeset pages of this catalogue were designed by Barbara Sosson. The catalogue printing is a gift from the staff of Falcon Press, where the traditions of fine printing established by Gene arc carried on.
 
Gene's friends have generously shared examples of his books with us: Benjamin Bernstein, Dr Gary Carpenter, Murray Dessner, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Egnal, Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Evelev, David Feldman, Mrs. Eugene Feldman, the Fine Arts Library of the University of Pennsylvania, Downey Hoster, Mr. and Mrs. Donald Kornse, Kimball Kramer, Mr. and Mrs. Richard Neagle, Dr. and Mrs. Perry Ottenberg, Peter Paone, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Mrs. Zelda Polatsek, Dr. and Mrs. David Sachs, Dr and Mrs. Marvin Sachs, Sarah Williams, Wittenborn and Company, Mr. and Mrs. Morris Wurman, and Richard Saul Wurman. Our special thanks to the Friends of the Library and to Lyman W. Riley and Dr. Neda M. Westlake of the Library's Special Collections. My warm thanks to John Taylor for assisting me with the installation.

The Institute gratefully acknowledges a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts in support of the exhibition, which enabled us to share this aspect of Gene's work with the University and Philadelphia communities. My deepest appreciation to Rosina Feldman for allowing ICA to organize this exhibition of Gene's experimental books. She contributed to and shared in the joy that all of us experienced in renewing our understanding and our pleasure in the singular world of books by Eugene Feldman.


Ed Colker
Chicago, August 1977

Eugene Feldman was an artist who did not fear technology. Indeed, his embrace of the “revelations” possible in computer imagery, “explosion” enlargements of small negatives, bits of film or slides, echoes of high-speed printing forms, and elements of modern typographic composition might, at first, mislead a newcomer into the false assumption that drawing and poetry were absent. However, this disguise was but part of Gene's great secret–a secret of caring–discovered, of course, by all who came to know and work with him. In the masterful pacing of the Brazil album, leading us into the jungle with contrasted shapings to the glorious open-spread of the state buildings in silver and orange (photographed, as you know, from the models!); in the powerful, awesome evocations of the Cuevas drawings for Kafka and, again, the subtle pace of scale, tension, and force with typography and imagery; in the loving elegance and total respect which inform the Kahn book–in all, we have Gene's '"eye," his poetry, his wit, his refined intelligence.

David Sachs, in a memorial statement cited Gene's overprinting techniques as "the past.. always buried alive in the present." Layers of time and history and play and thought and revision and daring…

As a teacher, the finest compliment should be paid: he neither trained opportunist imitators nor tyrannized insecure souls; rather, the student's self-definition and self-esteem (with a little help from Falcon Press, more often than not) were the goals.

We met almost thirty years ago; I think we cared for and influenced each other deeply. We both come from a people whose heritage is the book; or perhaps simply, as do all artists, we bind a piece of time in the vain attempt to defeat mortality.
 
I have shared these cherished books with hundreds of my students: I have not wished to present the work as slides. I have encouraged young artists to examine and touch and study and leaf through; my copies now show the wear and the marks of use and age, but I don't mind. Gene would have approved.


Aloisio Magalhães
New York, September 1977

Gene's books raise an interesting question: Why did Gene produce a few books only? In my view, the answer is based on a very interesting point in his creative process. To produce a book is to stop a moment. A book is a sort of support structure, a vehicle for something. It can hold words, it can hold images, it can hold any kind of idea. But the book itself is only the basic support. So in a certain way, you have to stop your creative process; only then do you produce a book. Now for Gene, this was a very difficult thing to do because he was always involved in the creative process.

For Gene, the Shop and the technological equipment of the Shop were the tools he used just as someone uses a pencil, or someone else uses a pen or a brush. Gene used the technological apparatus of graphics as a tool, directly, with no intermediary, and he always used it in a creative way. So for him, it was really very difficult to stop the usual flow of work at the Shop to produce something like a book. That is why he needed either a good pretext or someone else involved directly in a project in order for him to stop for a moment. And so he would stop, because he liked that person or because he liked the subject. He always liked to be teaching someone how his graphic process worked, but it was beyond his own work. His own process was a sort of interrupted thing.
 
Sometimes, as in my case, he was interested much more in making someone understand the printing process than in anything else. He wanted to give me a real introduction to the process of offset printing. To him that was much more important than the book itself, especially with the first one we did together, The Doorway to Portuguese. That first book was a sort of testament of the experience that was going on between Gene and me. And there always was in Gene a teacher, or sometimes more than a teacher, something like an older brother. My relation with Gene was always very much like being brothers, with him being the more experienced one, and always each would treat the other one very carefully. I think that with me there was something special behind the whole thing, something that cannot be explained. Maybe Gene had for me many of the qualities that I would like to touch and maybe I held out something for him. We made an exchange for the first time on the Portuguese book.

That book didn't start off being a book; we were just playing around with the offset process to see what could be done, We had no plan for  the book and the pages were not really planned out first either. All we had was the idea of making something, so we kept on making experimental sheets. And from among all those sheets we took the ones that we found the most interesting in someway and the most intriguing for some technical reason or other, and we kept those aside for a possible page in a book. While we were discussing those pages and thinking about the images that could be assembled in some sort of a book, I had the idea of introducing little texts in Portuguese, based on the ABC principle, and this gave us a flexible way of working with the pages. So the ideas and the talk and the printing kept going on, and it was a fantastic experience really because it was completely free.

But sometimes I had to control Gene a little bit because of that fantastic thing with him that he treated the technology like a brush. He was never interested in the fact that the sheets would be reproduced many, many times. Instead he was always introducing new things. He was forever changing a plate or introducing a new element to the offset process right in the middle of a run, He treated a high, sophisticated technology with complete liberty, complete freedom. His use of the medium was paradoxical because he kept on making changes even to the point of going against the technology. He used the technology of offset reproduction as a tool for making unique images out of materials and methods that had nothing to do with the usual materials and methods of the technology. It is a very important aspect of Gene's mentality, of his approach to his technology.
 
This freedom of his, Gene used in order to make all different sorts of books. The concept of a book was for him something very open. For Gene a book was everything he made that was composed of more than one sheet put together. I think the most interesting books were exactly the ones that were the least like a book. Take the New York Skyline; that's a perfect example of Gene's making something that was way beyond the tradition of the book. Now, with the Doorway to Brazilia we had a completely free book. We had only one thing in mind. Let's use this event, we said, of a new capital's being built to see what we can take out of it and use in the technology of printing. There were no buyers, no programs, nothing pre-established. The only thing we decided was to take the photographs in Brazil and then to do something creative.

When Gene came to Brazil to start the book he was completely overwhelmed by the difference in life he found. He was deeply touched by certain aspects of the life–not many, but certain special things–the nature of the tropical life and plants, the colors. He was also very much attracted to the people of Brazil, especially the simple people, the workers, and they were beauties! He was very much impressed with a certain kind of individual freedom that he felt was there in those simple men and women. He tried to get close to them, to talk to them. He made a film of the workers in Brazilia and when he came back he planned to make a book  of hats from all the pictures he took, but he never finished it.

Now I can understand very well why he never finished it, or why he never finished a series like the one of Barbra Streisand or the one of Nureyev. The thing he always kept in mind, even in series like these, was the process of printing. To him the process was such an important thing that by contrast, to accomplish the process later on was a thing which was not interesting at all. When you have finished a series by making it into a book it is something stopped. It has come to an end. For Gene printing was a continuous process. He might stop it for a moment to produce a book, as he did with me because he was interested in teaching me or in finding out for himself more about how it worked, but then he would get right back to his process, making prints, and then prints on top of prints, and more prints on top of those. It was an endless process, a process that with Gene went on forever.