KURT ROESCH The Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke.
Portfolio with complete text and 9 engravings with etching, 1944. 400x250 mm; 15 3/4x10 inches (sheets), full margins.
One of 35 numbered copies on Montval, from a total edition of 45. Signed and numbered "XXXV" in ink, on the justification page. Each of the prints signed in ink, lower right. Published by Wittenborn & Co., New York. Original blue paste board binding and slipcase. Very good impressions.
Kurt Roesch (1905-1984) studied under the German Expressionist painter Karl Hofer in Berlin at the Academy of the Arts and moved to the United States in 1933, where he taught painting at Sarah Lawrence College from 1934-72. Aside from painting, he also provided illustrations for many books of poetry, including the present lot. These 9 prints are distinctly Surrealist, giving an overall effect of austerity and elegance that he learned during his time at Atelier 17 during the early 1940s.
According to Garvey, "One of the first modern American livres de peintres." The Artist and the Book 263.
