"IT SHALL NOT HAPPEN AGAIN!": LIMITED EDITION OF INK & BLOOD, 1946, ARTHUR SZYK'S FAMOUS ANTI-NAZI CARICATURES, SIGNED BY HIM
SZYK, Arthur and BURT, Struthers. Ink & Blood. A Book of Drawings. New York: Heritage, 1946. Folio (9-1/2 by 12-1/2 inches), original full black morocco, hand-made endpapers, top edge gilt, original cardboard slipcase. $3700.
Signed limited first edition, one of 1000 inscribed copies, of this powerful collection, this copy inscribed to Lawrence Berman and signed on the limitation page by Arthur Szyk. containing Szyk's striking personal response to the German phrase, "Blood and Iron," with color frontispiece and 74 plates, six in color and mounted (the rest printed in sepia duotone), in scarce slipcase.
Polish-born Arthur Szyk considered his work to be "weapons of war." Upon the German invasion of Poland in 1939, his life and career were altered forever. Syzk lived in London at the time, and, in an effort to sway American public opinion against the Nazis, British authorities dispatched him to New York City. There he was to assume the role of unofficial propagandist for the Allied powers, contributing a steady stream of anti-Nazi cartoons and caricatures for major U.S. publications, including Time, Collier's, Esquire, The New York Times, the New York Post (where he eventually served as editorial cartoonist) and the Chicago Sun. For this mission, Szyk developed a new and different approach from his established style of "illumination," creating caricatures that combined the precise detail and fine craftsmanship of his miniaturist illustrations with the barbed satire of political commentary. With a foreword by novelist, poet, and short-story writer Maxwell Struthers Burt, who authored a wartime manifesto in 1941 urging U.S. aid to England, and circulated it to well-known American authors for their signatures. Book designed by Richard Ellis and printed by the Aldus Printers.
Book extremely good, with interior generally fine and wear to spine. slipcase with bottom panel renewed, seam repaired.