Folio Archives 115: Ballet Dancers by Edgar Degas 1960
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1wcarter
Ballet Dancers by Edgar Degas 1960
In the membership years of the Folio Society, members who agreed to purchase four books in the year were given a presentation volume which often arrived before any of the ordered books. Irregularly from 1959 to 1971 the presentation volume was an art book. The books were all bound uniformly in probably the most boring and bland bindings ever produced by the FS. The series consisted of:-
- Portrait of Provence: Vincent van Gogh. (1959)
- Ballet Dancers: Edgar Degas. (1960)
- Four Themes: Pablo Picasso. (1961)
- Rembrandt: Paintings, Drawings and Etchings. (1963)
- Renoir: Paintings, Drawings, Lithographs and Etchings. (1965)
- Paintings, Drawings and Prints: Albrecht Durer. (1969)
- Paintings, Drawings and Prints: Francisco Goya (1971)
I have only one of these books, Ballet Dancers with art by Edgar Degas, selected and introduced by Lillian Browse.
The five page introduction is a biography of Degas’ life, and is followed by 69 reproductions of his artwork. About 20% are in colour, but many art works that were originally in colour are here reproduced in black & white, possibly because colour printing was still quite expensive in 1960.
After previously painting everything from historical themes and portraits to nudes and racehorses, Degas became obsessed by ballet in 1872, and over many years did countless drawings, sketches, paintings and even statuettes of ballet dancers. The reproductions in this book cover art from 1872 to 1905.
The paper is high gloss to take the pictures, and the binding is quarter orange cloth with pale green paper boards. The only decoration is the gilt title on the spine which runs from bottom to top. These books which all measure 29.2x21.6cm were issued with no slipcase or dust-jacket.
What is really interesting is that I actually own two copies of this work, one bound by the FS and with the FS given credit as the publisher on the title page, while the other is identical in every way except for the binding (which is far more colourful than the FS edition) and identifies Morgan Publications of Sydney as the publisher on the title page. It seems the FS merely bought in the printed pages for the book, and bound them in their own style. There may be other publishers in different parts of the world who have done the same with this content.
Morgan Publications edition with identical content to the Folio Society edition
An index of the other illustrated reviews in the "Folio Archives" series can be viewed here.
In the membership years of the Folio Society, members who agreed to purchase four books in the year were given a presentation volume which often arrived before any of the ordered books. Irregularly from 1959 to 1971 the presentation volume was an art book. The books were all bound uniformly in probably the most boring and bland bindings ever produced by the FS. The series consisted of:-
- Portrait of Provence: Vincent van Gogh. (1959)
- Ballet Dancers: Edgar Degas. (1960)
- Four Themes: Pablo Picasso. (1961)
- Rembrandt: Paintings, Drawings and Etchings. (1963)
- Renoir: Paintings, Drawings, Lithographs and Etchings. (1965)
- Paintings, Drawings and Prints: Albrecht Durer. (1969)
- Paintings, Drawings and Prints: Francisco Goya (1971)
I have only one of these books, Ballet Dancers with art by Edgar Degas, selected and introduced by Lillian Browse.
The five page introduction is a biography of Degas’ life, and is followed by 69 reproductions of his artwork. About 20% are in colour, but many art works that were originally in colour are here reproduced in black & white, possibly because colour printing was still quite expensive in 1960.
After previously painting everything from historical themes and portraits to nudes and racehorses, Degas became obsessed by ballet in 1872, and over many years did countless drawings, sketches, paintings and even statuettes of ballet dancers. The reproductions in this book cover art from 1872 to 1905.
The paper is high gloss to take the pictures, and the binding is quarter orange cloth with pale green paper boards. The only decoration is the gilt title on the spine which runs from bottom to top. These books which all measure 29.2x21.6cm were issued with no slipcase or dust-jacket.
What is really interesting is that I actually own two copies of this work, one bound by the FS and with the FS given credit as the publisher on the title page, while the other is identical in every way except for the binding (which is far more colourful than the FS edition) and identifies Morgan Publications of Sydney as the publisher on the title page. It seems the FS merely bought in the printed pages for the book, and bound them in their own style. There may be other publishers in different parts of the world who have done the same with this content.
Morgan Publications edition with identical content to the Folio Society edition
An index of the other illustrated reviews in the "Folio Archives" series can be viewed here.
2folio_books
>1 wcarter: It seems the FS merely bought in the printed pages for the book, and bound them in their own style. There may be other publishers in different parts of the world who have done the same with this content.
What I found interesting was that the Folio version pre-dates the publisher's own by a year.
I have all the volumes in this series and can attest that, although the bindings are all different, each is as uniformly boring as the other.
What I found interesting was that the Folio version pre-dates the publisher's own by a year.
I have all the volumes in this series and can attest that, although the bindings are all different, each is as uniformly boring as the other.
3affle
>2 folio_books:
No, Morgan Publications also bought this in: the original is a Faber & Faber publication of 1949. And yes, these PVs are not much good (I have only the Picasso), because they are primarily picture books, and have fairly poor picture reproduction.
No, Morgan Publications also bought this in: the original is a Faber & Faber publication of 1949. And yes, these PVs are not much good (I have only the Picasso), because they are primarily picture books, and have fairly poor picture reproduction.
4folio_books
>3 affle:
And, presumably in the interests of further economy, chose to print half of them in monochrome, hardly flattering to the artists. Blurry black-and-white didn't quite work. Not Folio's finest moment..
And, presumably in the interests of further economy, chose to print half of them in monochrome, hardly flattering to the artists. Blurry black-and-white didn't quite work. Not Folio's finest moment..
5wcarter
With my comments, and those above, this may be one of the rare non-enabling posts on FSD.
In other words, if you were considering one of these FS editions, they should be very low on your possible purchase priority list.
In other words, if you were considering one of these FS editions, they should be very low on your possible purchase priority list.
6folio_books
>5 wcarter: they should be very low on your possible purchase priority list.
For completists only, really.
For completists only, really.
