I’m pleased to see that my good friend the artist James Pyman has some large drawings exhibited at Maureen Paley in Bethnal Green, London, as part of the gallery’s current group show with Salvatore Arancio and Rachel Cattle & Steve Richards. Do go and see them if you are in the area (gallery opening times etc. below). I love James’s work and have enjoyed watching some of these incredibly detailed and painstaking drawings take shape through my very occasional studio visits.

Readers may also be interested to know that James Pyman contributed a new, illustrated edition of Dracula by Bram Stoker to the wonderful Four Corners Books’ Familiars series, which features artists’ responses to classic novels and short stories. In the words of Four Corners, the books in the series ‘provide a fresh look at the tradition of the illustrated novel, with each artist choosing a text to be reprinted in full alongside their newly created work.’

I have published James Pyman twice on Piece of Paper Press. Firstly back in 1997 with The Adventures of Lionel: Through the Moon, and most recently in 2007 with The Adventures of Lionel: The Book of Hours (right).

Piece of Paper Press titles are usually produced in editions of 150, but there have been additional editions of both of these books. The Adventures of Lionel: Through the Moon was reproduced as a ‘cut-out and keep’ edition for AN magazine in 1997. A further one-hundred copies of The Adventures of Lionel: The Book of Hours were given away in sheet form at Publish and Be Damned, Rochelle School, London, in 2008.

Here is a scan (of a photocopy) of one of James’s drawings for the latter: a portrait of Lionel that was used as a vignette (i.e. an unbordered ornament) on the book’s title page. The drawing was also used on the printed invitations to a party that was held to celebrate the fact that The Adventures of Lionel: The Book of Hours was Piece of Paper Press’s twentieth book. Most of the print run was given away at the party, rather then being distributed by post as might usually have been the case with previous titles.

Given that books published by Piece of Paper Press are slightly smaller than A7-sized, the original printed form of this drawing was less than 3cm high, but I feel that the beautiful pencil work undoubtedly rewards enlargement.

© James Pyman, 2007

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SALVATORE ARANCIO, RACHEL CATTLE & STEVE RICHARDS, JAMES PYMAN

MAUREEN PALEY.
21 Herald Street
London E2 6JT

30 November 2013 – 26 January 2014
Wednesday — Sunday, 11.00 — 18.00 (and by appointment)