The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, Michael Graves (illustrator) 1984 - The Arion Press, San Francisco - One of 400 copies, signed by Graves ‘So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.’

Exquisitely produced deluxe limited edition of Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, now considered a landmark of 20th century fiction, and the epitome of the Jazz Age in American literature.

A collaboration between Andrew Hoyem of the Arion Press and the great American post-modernist architect and designer Michael Graves (1934-2015), a member of The New York Five and the Memphis Group, and a professor of architecture at Princeton University for nearly forty years.

One of 400 copies, signed by Graves who provides ninety-seven drawings from his interpretation of the novel, including its architectural backdrop, the landscape, gardens, buildings, furnishing, vehicles and any other objects that struck his fancy, such as the liquor bottles and cocktail glasses that are fixtures in the story. The slipcase displays a low relief of a site plan for Graves’ envisioning of Gatsby’s Estate.

Laid-in to the slipcase is a copy of
Michael Graves draws Gatsby which provides the background, a brief biography of Graves, and description of the production itself, and the regular prospectus letter.
  ‘Gatsby remains a prose poem of delight and sadness which has by now introduced two generations to the romance of America, as Huckleberry Finn and Leaves of Grass introduced those before it’ – Cyril Connolly

Since its inception in 1974, the Arion Press has published 118 deluxe limited editions that are breathtaking in their scope and artistry. Combining notable literature illustrated with original artwork from prominent artists, Andrew Hoyem and his team at the Arion Press have carried on the tradition of the livre d’artiste in spectacular fashion. Michael Kimmelman of
The New York Times put it best when he wrote, ‘The Arion Press produces some of the most beautiful limited-edition, hand printed books in the world’.

References: Connolly,
The Modern Movement.

Large octavo (book size 26.1x18cm), pp. [6] 179 [7]. I publisher’s grey cloth paper boards, green cloth spine and corners, spine with grey paper label lettered in red-brown, and ruled in green, boards with green illustrations and red-brown lettering, top edge trimmed others untrimmed, grey endpapers illustrated in green. Publisher’s green cloth slipcase with matching sine label, boards with tipped on grey paper sheets illustrated in green and lettered in red-brown. Pamphlet ‘
Michael Graves draws Gatsby’ (size 25.3x16.5cm), pp. 8. In publisher’s cream card stapled wrappers, upper cover with photograph of Graves and black and green lettering.
  Condition: Fine in fine slipcase   Ref: 111425   Price: HK$ 16,000