Books + Art - Douglas Stewart Fine Books

A Gardener at midnight
LYSSIOTIS, Peter
# 9
Travels in the Holy Land. From drawings made on the spot
by Yabez Al-Kitab. Melbourne: Masterthief, 2004. Elephant
folio, half crushed morocco over buckram, spine with raised
bands and contrasting title label, full page and double page
photographic illustrations, a stunning contemporary artist’s
book. Limited to ten copies, this is one of a handful of artist’s
proofs. Peter Lyssiotis is nationally recognised as creating
artist’s books which compel and confront those who explore
them. His work is a product of craftsmanship at the highest
level, and its agenda is to explore structures of political and social hierarchy, the result being a finished work of both beauty and substance. ‘A
Gardener at midnight’ was devised during the time of the occupation of Iraq by the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ in 2003. Drawing upon the nineteenth
century volumes of David Roberts, it juxtaposes images of antiquity with the frightening reality of globalisation, and its impact upon independent
cultures. ‘A Gardener at midnight’ has been widely acclaimed as a tour de force in modern book artistry. ‘[Lyssiotis’] triumph is that in making this
masterpiece, he has established contexts for the lives of the Iraqi people... The book shows there is a reality outside the library text, and a vision
beyond the images of mass deception’ – Humphrey McQueen, The Age, 30 December 2005. Collections: National Library of Australia, State Library
of Victoria, State Library of New South Wales, State Library of Queensland, University of Melbourne, University of Queensland, Monash University,
Deakin University, Bibliotheca Librorum apud Artificem, Fondation Martin Bodmer (Switzerland).
$ 8,800
103