Malcolm Lowry: Under the Volcano Volume 4 by RIGHI, Francois.

Volume 4 of Righi’s series of artists’ books based on Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano. A special edition with the original poly plate for pp. V and VI.
In the engraved colophon Righi writes “13 morts, 30 blesses lors d’une fusillade sure une base militaire Americane. Es inevitable la muerte del Papa.” [13 dead, 30 injured in a shooting on an American military base. The death of the father is inevitable].
François Righi, born in 1946, is a visual artist and publisher. The creation of books polarises his work: he designs, prints, engraves, and sometimes writes unique or very limited edition books that he thinks and realizes like works of total art.The four books he created around Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano are a fascinating part of his output. He was heavily influenced by the 1947 novel which is about Geoffrey Firmin, an alcoholic British consul in the Mexican city of Quauhnahuc on the Day of the Dead in 1938. The whole novel is based on a single day following the Consul from the return of his wife in the morning to his violent death at the end of the day. Each of Righi’s four volumes inspired by the book were printed in one day - The Day of the Dead between the years 2000 and
He writes that the book can be seen as a reduction of Lowry’s masterpiece which he took with him to Mexico. After reading it he wanted to deliver his own vision brought to him by Lowry’s work. He produced one book based on the panic of the Consul and inspired by the unfinished poem in the novel. In this final extension of his vision he follows this vision to his conclusion. The inserted sheet of four engravings ‘give the answers’ as they fit into the empty squares on the engraved pages.