Go to http://www.george-walker.com/Cohen_web_page/index.html for full story and photos of the carving and printing process!!
Created: 2014
Medium: 80 wood engravings hand printed on 250 gm Rising Stonehenge 100% rag archival paper and comes fully bound in cloth with a clamshell protective box.
Book size: 6¼" X 8" X 2½" (232 pages printed recto)
Edition size: 80 copies signed and numbered
(Leonard Cohen will be 80 years old on September 21, 2014)
Price: $880.00 USD
The book is housed in a clam shell box made from the finest quality materials. Written in a xylography of pictures the book is accessible to readers of many languages.
In his latest wordless biography, master engraver George A. Walker presents a series of 80 wood engravings celebrating the 80th birthday of one of Canada’s most beloved cultural icons. The Wordless Leonard Cohen Songbook commemorates Cohen’s artistic accomplishments and explores the ways in which the image of Leonard Cohen has appeared in popular culture for a career spanning over six decades.
Arranged chronologically, the engravings depict scenes from Cohen’s many and varied creative endeavours, including poetry, novels, singing and songwriting. The book also presents portraits of some of the many famous characters who shared Cohen’s life and friendship, from poets Irving Layton and Allan Ginsberg, to musicians Jimmy Hendrix and Janis Joplin, to celebrated artist Andy Warhol. Readers are invited to bring their own associations to bear in interpreting the the significance of the scenes and the people depicted therein.
The Wordless Leonard Cohen Songbook takes as its inspiration not only Cohen’s own poems, novels and songs, but also other sources, from biographies about the Canadian icon to short anecdotes relayed at a concert. In his images, Walker strives to communicate the importance of Cohen’s Zen Buddhist philosophy and plays with numerology, particularly the symbolism behind the number 8. Readers are encouraged to seek relationships between engraving numbers, sequences, and visual elements.
The Wordless Leonard Cohen Songbook originated as a limited edition of 80 copies hand printed in Walker’s studio in Leslieville, Toronto.
¨Another "everyman's" edition of this book will be published by Porcupine's Quill on September 1. This edition will include also a preface by George Walker and essays by Norm Ravvin and Tom Smart.
Dimensions: 8.75 in x 5.56 in
Pages: 192
Price: $22.95
