?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,500
EDWARD GOREY (1925-2000) "All Strange Away." Group of 16 illustrations plus the printed prospectus for Samuel Beckett's All Strange Away (New York: Gotham Book Mart, 1976). Pen and ink on paper. 35x35 mm; 1 1/4x1 1/4 inches. All but two of the drawings loose from Gorey's paper mounts, measuring 6 1/2x7 3/4 inches (where he has written "Top" in pencil along top margins).
Provenance: Archives of the printer, Oliphant Press.
All Strange Away was printed in a signed, limited edition of 200 numbered and 26 lettered (A to Z) copies and was the first of two collaborations between Beckett and Gorey. It was followed by Beginning to End in 1988 which suffered numerous setbacks, mainly due to the author's failing health and was produced less than a year before Beckett's death. Gorey was attracted to Beckett's absurdist prose and minimalist style, making his own aesthetic a perfect fit for the story which centers around an atmosphere of minimal space and light, beautifully mirrored in the book's layout which floats his eerie, microscopic views in the wide margins. These miniature postage-sized drawings are breathtaking in their detail and composition, once again proving Gorey's skill as an adept and versatile master of penwork.
Note: for the purposes of the photographs in this sale, we have reconstructed the original placement as best we could, using the patterns of the dried adhesive as ghosted onto the mounts.
