ANTES, Horst (artist). Antes [to the cover, otherwise untitled, with the dedication, Für Billy and Alan Davie.] Venedig Edizioni del Cavallino. 1973

8vo.; original green slubbed hessian-covered boards lettered in black; housing a 22-leaf accordion-folded panorama of a total of 37 coloured photo-lithographed plates of rubber stamp designs by the artist, with lithographed text, two plates incorporating collage elements in the form of a cloth scrap (from the binder’s studio) and an overlay printed in colours on ledger paper and taped in by the artist, the leporello printed to both sides; very fresh, both externally and internally.

First and, apparently, sole edition, limited to only 200 signed copies of which this is number 81. Printed at the Cavallino Press, Venice. A naive and enigmatic little children’s book intended to surprise and delight

Antes Horst (born 1936) is a German prominent artist and sculptor who is regarded as one of the key founders of the new figurative painting (Neue Figuration) in post-war Germany. He originally studied woodcutting under HAP Grieshaber in Karlsruhe. His non-geometric abstract style of art straddles the figurative and L’Art Informel (Informalism) of the mid-, to late, 1940s.  His works are exhibited throughout the world and represented in all the most important German collections.  He is primarily associated with his iconic invention of the KopffüBler (or “head-footer”) a primitive human figure in which the head merges directly with oversized feet, with minimal body elements. This was to be a recurring motif in his work, conjuring up the naïve with the monumental.