JOE NEWMAN, bookbinder. NONESUCH PRESS. DANTE ALIGHIERI. BOTTICELLI. ~ La Divina Commedia or The Divine Vision of Dante Alighieri in Italian & English.
42 illustrations after the drawings by Sandro Botticelli, printed by Daniel Jacomet. No. 1006 of 1475 copies. Printed by the Westminster Press in Poliphilus Roman and Blado Italic on Van Gelder paper. Folio, bound in a very handsome American designer binding of full black morocco with an arresting design on both covers of onlaid red/tan morocco with gilt tooling round the shape and gilt ruled lines coming to points, gilt titling on spine, hand painted endpapers of acrylic on paper showing a representation of an inferno, top edge gilt, others uncut. A very good copy.
Bound by Joe Newman in 1990, this binding was exhibited at The Grolier Club in 1991 and is pictured in the catalogue of the show entitled ‘Contemporary American Bookbinding’ which was also on display at the Bibliotheque de l’Arsenal in Paris and the Bibliotheca Wittockiana in Brussels. Inserted loose is a compliments slip from the Grolier Club “Thank you for your participation in the exhibition Contemporary American Bookbinding”.
Joe Newman was born in New York in 1948 and apprenticed at the Harcourt Bindery in Boston. He ran his own bindery as well as working as a binder for the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover, Massachusetts.
Italian text edited by Mario Casella with the English version of H.F. Cary. The fine illustrations, handsome binding and the quality of the translations meant that this was, and remains, one of the most popular of the Nonesuch Press publications.