The temple of flora: Twenty-eight drypoint-engravings by Jim Dine with botanical notes compiled and poetry selected by Glenn Todd & Nancy Dine.
San Francisco: The Arion Press, 1984. First edition.
Folio (20 ½” x 14”, 520mm x 356mm): 50 leaves, pp. 2 binder’s blanks, [14] (half-title, frontispiece, title, copyright, limitation, 2pp. editors’ note, artist’s statement, 3pp. plate-list, blank, half-title, blank) [50] (50pp. plate descriptions and accompanying poems) [2] (colophon, blank), 2 binder’s blanks. With 27 copperplate engravings on BFK Rives printmaking paper.
Bound in quarter green morocco over sage linen boards. Illustrator, title, and press gilt to the spine. Presented in a linen box with a bas-relief of a temple gate. In the gate’s underpass, title gilt to a green morocco lettering piece. With an additional second-issue impression of the frontispiece presented in a folder of green cardstock. Dampstaining to the linen box. Light offsetting to the frontispiece and to Plate XXVII, Sacred Lotus of the East. Foxing to the margins of Plate XXI, Rose and to the text leaf of the Powder-Puff Tree (Pl.XXV). Sunning to the lefthand margin of the supplemental folder. Limitation page completed in graphite “120”/175 and signed by the illustrator. Second-issue frontispiece signed and numbered “120/175” in graphite by the illustrator.
Jim Dine's (b. 1935) The Temple of Flora brings Robert John Thorton’s (1799-1807) beloved work of the same name, considered to be one of the greatest English botanical publications of the early 19th century, into the modern age. Thornton assembled the finest flower painters of his time to depict 28 floral species set against idyllic landscapes, which were then reproduced as color-printed mezzotints for the final publication. The Romantic sentiment of Thorton’s project is, however, turned on its head within Dine’s collection of the same — yet modernized — 28 flowers. Dine replaces subtle, volumetric renderings for expressive and violent linework, paring down the images so that, rather than suggesting far-receding depth as in Thorton’s landscapes, Dine’s flowers are one with the printed surface of the paper.
To create each of the plates, Dine threw them within his studio, embracing the chance scratches and tonal variations from his highly physical treatment. He used a number of unconventional cutting tools such as electric drills and grinders in addition to heavy drypoint to achieve his linear variation and shifts in tone. From soft grays to rich, deep blacks, the monochrome palate highlights Dine’s unconventional mix of the mechanical and hand-made to produce his copperplate, floral images.
Thornton’s The Temple of Flora was not merely a visual work, but included poetry, natural historical commentary, and inspirational quotes. Similarly, Jim Dine’s work is a dialogue between word and image; Dine’s wife, Nancy, in collaboration with Glenn Todd, produced botanical commentaries and selected modern works of poetry to pair with each of the flowers. These included the work of Sylvia Plath, John Ashbury, William Carlos Williams, Frank O’Hara, and others. The Temple of Flora was the fourteenth book released by Arion Press — a figurehead in West Coast fine printing. Jim Dine joined Arion’s pantheon of modern artists that illustrate for reissues of classic texts; notable releases from the press include Motherwell’s illustrated edition of Ulysses and a collection of W.B. Yeats’s poetry accompanied by Diebenkorn’s etchings. Arion Press remains active in San Francisco’s Marina district.
Cataloged by G.R. Murdock and M.A.P. Harper
Item #GRM0085
Price: $14,500