Richard Kostelanetz Discusses E.E. Cummings's Groundbreaking Art Book at Hyperallergic

In a rare post at Hyperallergic, Richard Kostelanetz reminds the publication's readers about an art book by E.E. Cummings called CIOPW. The book, published in 1931, contains 99 "examples of his visual art in charcoal, ink, oil, pencil, and watercolor—thus accounting for the acronymic title." Amazing! Let's dive in there:

Nine inches wide and 12 inches high, CIOPW was printed on thick opaque paper in an edition limited to 391 copies, each of which he signed “Cgs,” not with a pen but with a brush, in green paint in my copy. The book’s cover bears a replica of this stylish signature. Meriden Gravure did the reproductions only in black and white, though some of the originals had additional colors.

Notwithstanding Cummings’s growing reputation as an innovative poet, CIOPW was not reviewed and did not sell out upon publication, perhaps because its price of $20 was too high at the outset of the Great Depression. The most visible benefit of the book was an exhibition in August 1931 at the Kokoon Club in Cleveland of 162 works, including the originals of most of CIOPW. His latest biographer, Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno, notes in E.E. Cummings: A Biography that “not one picture was sold,” not even to the local collector who paid for the shipping and advertising. Many of these artworks were exhibited again at the end of that year, then once more at the Painters and Sculptors Gallery in New York, where some works on paper did sell. Exactly when the publisher, Covici-Friede, sold all 391 copies of the book cannot be ascertained now, but it must have happened eventually, because nowadays a copy of CIOPW costs several hundred dollars, even with a binding that has, decades later, disintegrated.

CIOPW epitomizes the genre now known as an artist’s book, or book-art, in which the author selects images, sequences them optimally, and then finds a printer.

Read on at Hyperallergic.