Portfolio with wood box and containers, plastic molded sculptural multiples and associated metal hanging elements, plastic molded sculptural lid, 30 (of 35) color aquatints with etching and 30 (of 35) text booklets, 1966. 380x395x170 mm; 15x15 1/2x6 3/4 inches, overall (all of the elements and booklets loose, as issued).
Edition of 106. Signed and inscribed "No. 6" in ink, on the justification label, underside of the box lid. Printed by Robbe, Paris; the plastic molded sculptural multiples fabricated by Bioplastique, Chilly-Mazarin; the box produced by Adine, Paris. Published by Éditions Claude Givaudan, Geneva.
Meadows (1915-2005) was a prominent British modernist sculptor and one of eight British artists represented in the "New Aspects of British Sculpture" exhibited in 1952 at the XXVIth Venice Biennale (which also who included Robert Adams, Kenneth Armitage and Lynn Chadwick). He was Henry Moore's (1898-1986) first studio assistant before becoming a Professor of Sculpture at the Royal College of Art, London, for twenty years, then returning to assist Moore in 1977 as the elder artist's health began to fail. Following Moore's death, Meadows became an acting director of the Henry Moore Foundation.
In the mid-1960s Meadows took on a commission from the publisher Givaudan to illustrate Samuel Beckett's novel Molloy, the first of three novels--the Beckett Trilogy--initially written in Paris between 1947 and 1950. In his own words, Meadows chose Molloy, because he thought it was, "A completely impossible book to illustrate . . . I tried . . . I looked upon it as being a series of etchings parallel to what Beckett's attitude might have been, but it was a bit far fetched." The complete boxed portfolio, a true multiple in every sense, echoes Marcel Duchamp's (1887-1968) Boîte-en-valise, created between 1935 and 1940 in a deluxe edition of 20, a portable miniature monograph including 69 reproductions of the artist's own work. Reflecting on the project, and his collaboration with the publisher Givaudan, Meadows noted that he made a series of 35 color aquatints with etching as the covers for each of the booklets that were intended to hang, "On a certain Meccano-like contraption which Givaudan had thought up. It was all a bit silly, and I think Beckett thought it was silly too! . . . The box which contained the `Meccano' set, and copies of . . . the whole book, Molloy, was cut into 35 pieces; Givaudan cut it into pieces, so he seemed to think that they were the natural breaks, but I didn't see that and I don't think that Beckett saw it either . . . . I looked upon it as being a series of etchings parallel to what Beckett's attitude might have been, but it was a bit far fetched."
