SCHMIED, François-Louis (illus.) - NOAILLES, Anna de.

£6,250 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Les Climats. First edition, number 18 of 125 copies, of Schmied's rich Art Deco rendering of the travel poems of the Comtesse de Noailles, which evoked her impressions of northern Europe and the Mediterranean."François-Louis Schmied was the consummate artist-book designer in Paris of the 1920s. More conservative than artists of the avant garde, Schmied nevertheless had a distinctive vision that combined fashionable Art Deco with stylized symbolism. He often designed and executed every facet of his book productions, employing elegant layouts, refined typography, and intricate colour wood engravings" (Johnson, p. 169).Les Climats is "a major work... Schmied succeeded splendidly. Indeed, one may regard Les Climats as the book in which Schmied most appropriately invites comparison with Maurice Denis... it may be noted that in contrast to Denis's pastels, Schmied's more complex engravings are characterized by deeper colours and much use of printed backgrounds of gold" (Ray, p. 57).The limitation notice names the subscriber as "C. Barbarin" - possibly Charles Barbarin, book collector and librarian at the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève.

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