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 artist and sculptor who 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. Only two copies located on WorldCat (Beverley Hill Pub. Lib. (wrongly dated) and Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Roma).