HELEN FESENMAIER (AMERICAN, 1937-2013)
MAQUETTE FOR LOGBOOK, THE BIRTH OF A BOOK, 1979
£1,400
Auction: 27 March 2019 from 13:00 GMT
Description
commissioned by the V&A Museum, London, cut and painted wood
Dimensions
53cm high, 70cm across (20.75in high, 27.5in across)
Footnote
Note:
In 1979 Helene Fesenmaier's large structure entitled Logbook: The Birth of a Book is the Death of a Tree was displayed outside the Victoria and Albert Museum having been commissioned by the museum; afterwards it was transported by the British Timber Research and Development Association to woodland at High Wycombe, slowly to "deliquesce" (as she put it) back to the earth.
"The birth of a book is the the death of a tree..." (Saint-John Perse)
Helen Fesenmaier noted in her project book for the present work "In Part I of this project commissioned by The Victoria and Albert Museum, I used felled trunks of some of the largest trees in England, some 8' in diameter. It was sited in front of the Museum for an exhibition called The Open and Closed Book and made of diseased elm trees and sheets of laminated plywood. Its stands 14' high, 20' wide and weighs 8 tons, and is now in The British Time and Research and Development Association. With a text of poetry, a Book of Field Studies, it is titled Logbook and the working maquette was used as the image for the exhibition poster…The idea that diseased trees could find a new life remains interesting to me as a source of inspiration".
We are grateful to David Hodgson for his kind assistance with the cataloguing of the present work.