Octavio Paz
translation by Eliot Weinberger

Illustrated book

The Limited Editions Club, New York

21 3/4 x 18 1/4 in. (55.3 x 46.4 cm)

26 original lithographs on various handmade Japanese papers attached with chine appliqué to Cartiere Enrico Magnani paper, each 21 1/2 x 18 in. (54.6 x 45.7 cm). The cover is embellished with Red Wind (see cat. nos. 414 and 441 ), printed on Masa Dosa paper that measures 9 x 11 in. (22.9 x 28 cm) and inset on the cover board. The images are paired with three poems by Octavio Paz in three segments, each preceded by a roman numeral. The poetry is presented in Spanish and English with the Spanish printed in red and the English printed in black. The three selections from Paz's work are from The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, 1957-1987, edited and translated by Eliot Weinberger. They were written between 1969 and 1975. Their sequence in the book is as follows: "San IIdefonso Nocturne"; " Return, for José Alvarado"; and " 'The Skin of the World, The Sound of the World: Robert Motherwell."

The book consists of 132 unnumbered pages bound with hand-sewing into boards covered with natural linen. Titling on the spine of the book is stamped in black "Octavio Paz • Robert Motherwell." The book is enclosed in a clamshell box measuring 23 1/4 x 19 1/2 x 2 1/4 in. (59.1 x 49.5 x 5.7 cm) covered with natural linen fabricated by Portfoliobox, Providence, Rhode Island. Titling on the spine of the box is stamped in black "Octavio Paz • Robert Motherwell."

Bauer Bodoni Bold and Bauer Bodoni Bold Italic cast by Fundación Tipografica Neufville, Barcelona, Spain Typesetting by Stamperia Va ldonega, Verona, Italy. Letterpress for the first poem printed at Wild Carrot Letterpress, Hadley, Massachusetts; letterpress for the second poem printed at Stam peria Valdonega, Verona, Italy; letterpress for the third poem printed at Heritage Printers, Charlotte, North Carolina.

Signed “Octavio Paz” and “RM” in pencil on the colophon page

Numbered in pencil on the colophon page by publisher

750

30 AP, numbered I-XXX

Bruce Porter, assisted by David Lantow and William Olsen, Trestle Editions Limited, New York

Horton Tank Graphics, Hadley, Massachusetts

3 blank pages
1 page, blank recto; title text: TRES POEMAS / OCTAVIO PAZ I THE LIMITED EDITIONS CLUB, verso
1 page of title text: THREE POEMS / OCTAVIO PAZ / THE LIMITED EDITIONS CLUB, recto; text verso
1 page of text recto and verso
1 page of text recto; blank verso
1 page with roman numeral I recto; text verso
1 page of text recto; lithograph (Nocturne II verso
2 pages of text
1 page of text recto; lithograph (Nocturne II) verso
3 pages of text
1 page with lithograph (Nocturne III) recto; text verso
2 pages of text
1 page with lithograph (Nocturne IV) recto; text verso
3 pages of text
1 page of text recto; lithograph (Nocturne V) verso
3 pages of text
1 page of text recto; lithograph (Nocturne VI) verso
3 pages of text
1 page with lithograph (Nocturne VII) recto; text verso
1 page of text
1 page with lithograph (Nocturne VIII) recto; blank verso
1 page with roman numeral II recto; text verso
1 page of text recto; lithograph (Untitled) verso
2 pages of text
1 page with lithograph (Return) recto; text verso
1 page of text recto; lithograph (Mexico City Personages I) printed across gutter, verso
1 page of text and lithograph (Mexico City Personages I) recto; text verso
1 page of text
1 page of text recto; lithograph (Mexico City Personages II) printed across gutter, verso
1 page of text and lithograph (Mexico City Personages II) recto; text verso
1 page of text recto; lithograph (Burnt Water) verso
1 page of text
1 page of text recto; lithograph (Mexico City Personages III) printed across gutter, verso
1 page of text and lithograph (Mexico City Personages III) recto; text verso
1 page of text recto; lithograph (Wind) verso
1 page of text recto; blank verso
1 page with roman numeral III recto; text verso
1 page of text recto; lithograph (Blue Gesture) verso
1 page of text
1 page with lithograph (Untitled) recto; text verso
1 page with lithograph (Untitled) recto; lithograph (Spanish Elegy) printed across
gutter, verso
1 page of text and lithograph (Spanish Elegy) recto; lithograph (A Throw of the Dice) verso
1 page of text
1 page with lithograph (Red Samurai) recto; lithograph (Je t'aime) verso
1 page of text
1 page with lithograph (Untitled) recto; lithograph (Black Sun) verso
1 page of text recto; lithograph (Untitled) verso
1 page of text
1 page with lithograph (Mexican Elegy) recto; blank verso
1 page with colophon recto; copyright verso
3 blank pages

B 354 - 380

Motherwell's interest in the Mexican poet Octavio Paz was stimulated by Dore Ashton, who had known Paz since 1959 and introduced him to Motherwell in the early 1970s. An assiduous reader of Ashton's writing, Paz first encountered the quotation by Motherwell that would become the title and leitmotif of the poem he dedicated to Motherwell's art in a text by Ashton. Ashton later made one of the first translations of the poem into English for Motherwell.

In 1981 Motherwell painted Face of the Night (for Octavio Paz). A large horizontal canvas measuring 72 x 180 in. (182.9 x 457.2 cm), it was exhibited for the first time in Motherwell's 1983 retrospective organized by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York. Paz saw the painting when the exhibition came to the Guggenheim Museum in New York in the winter of 1983-1984, and conversations began about collaboration on a book combining Motherwell's imagery and Paz's poetry. By 1985, the project was well underway. Motherwell and Paz initially intended to combine several poems by Paz (perhaps twelve, including the one dedicated to Motherwell) with numerous reproductions of Motherwell's work incorporating Mexican themes. Some of the initial selections from Motherwell's work included Recuerdo de Coyoacan; Maria; Pancho Villa, Dead and Alive; Three Persons Shot; Te Quiero; and Face of the Night (for Octavio Paz). Because Paz's poem to Motherwell referred to several repeated motifs in the artist's work, Chi Ama Crede, Mallarmé's Swan, and selections from the Je t'aime and the Elegy to the Spanish Republic series were also considered for inclusion. At this time, Motherwell proposed printing Face of the Night (for Octavio Paz) on cloth and using it as a binding illustration wrapped around the boards of the cover. After considering publishers for the project, Motherwell decided to work with Sidney and Benjamini Shiff of the Limited Editions Club, New York, who had contacted Motherwell about doing a book and knew Paz. (It was during this time that Motherwell made the acquaintance of Andrew Hoyem, whose Arion press in San Francisco would later publish Ulysses.

The artists ultimately chose to emphasize the triangular nature of the book, with three poems and all new imagery, which, in its multicolored hues and abrupt transitions, stands in contrast to the movement and pulse of the verse. The poetry is paired with the images to emphasize how the poetic narrative shifts sideways and forward through the book's three partitions.

The three-part structure of the book was elaborated into a trinity of formats that employed the talents of many collaborators. Maurice Sanchez of Derrière L'Étoile workshop transferred the first eight images in the book onto aluminum plates. There were paired with the first poem, "San Ildefonso Nocturne," which refers to the town where Paz attended school, received his bachelor's degree, and saw Diego Rivera's frescoes. The eight images selected to illustrate this poem are from a series of black tusche drawings Motherwell began in 1967 that were originally intended as illuminations for a two-part edition of Rimbaud's A Season in Hell. This limited edition book, which was initiated and organized by Bill Berkson at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, was to have nine segments and twenty to twenty-five illustrations in all. When the project was indefinitely postponed and ultimately canceled, Motherwell decided to put the drawings away for use in a future project. The book's second poem, "Return," brings the theme of return or recurrence into the book. Written when Paz returned to Mexico City in 1965, it addresses an essential element of both artists' work and describes a path that ceaselessly returns to its point of departure only to depart once more and return again. Some of the Mexico City Personages used as illustrations of this poem were also worked on by Sanchez. The third and final poem, "The Skin of the World, The Sound of the World; Robert Motherwell," looks at Motherwell's work through the medium of poetry.

The main platework and edition printing of the books and portfolios was done by Bruce Porter of Trestle Editions Limited. When the images were proofed and printed, they were brought to Motherwell's Greenwich, Connecticut studio for examination and signing. Motherwell progressively refined these new images over the course of numerous sessions, and the prints were gradually collated into the final portfolio formats (see cat. nos. 388-414 and 415-441).

Three Poems was published in the Limited Editions Club series forty-nine of 1986/1987. Five hundred fifty copies of the book format were offered to members of the club as a subscription.