Tanabata - Warja Lavater

Tanabata by Warja Lavater / accordion-fold book object in slip-case, 6 x 8.5 inches, published by Editions Maeght in Switzerland / first published in 1994, this is an unsigned and unnumbered edition "Book-object illustrating a famous Japanese tale in pictorial language. Designed by Warja Lavater and produced in original lithography, this transparent imagery, of 19 pages, unfolds over several meters. The symbols are translated into French, English, German and Japanese. " *** An early progenitor of the artist's book genre, Warja Honegger-Lavater was born in Winterthur, Switzerland in 1913. She worked as an illustrator for the magazine Jeunesse from 1944-1958, and moved to New York shortly thereafter where she began a wonderful series of artist's books. All of Honegger-Lavater's books were made using the accordion-fold binding. Her aesthetic has been aptly described as "very clean, very Swiss." Each book tells a story, sequentially, like traditional books, but varying from them by rarely using words. Instead she chooses a symbol to represent, for example, a character, as in the red dot standing in for Red Riding Hood in Little Red Riding Hood.